A smart solution
November 1st 2005 Mitsubishi Electric's MX4 Energy aM&T software system will help industry as it looks to address increasingly serious energy management issues
Businesses are having to look at their energy efficiency in a way unthought of only 10 or 20 years ago as new laws come into force and client pressure for environmental responsibility grows. So Mitsubishi Electric has launched MX4 Energy, an integrated automatic monitoring and targeting (aM&T) software system for energy, facilities and production managers in all sectors of industry, commerce and government.
The impact of climate change and the need to reduce carbon emissions are serious issues now in boardrooms across the country. But, as company directors, are finding out reducing energy consumption is difficult because useage patterns are so complicated.
"Carbon management is becoming a strategic as well as an operational issue," says Alistair Norman of Mitsubishi. "In the not too distant future it will impact relationships with customers, shareholders and the community. If managed effectively, organisations will be able to decrease their carbon emissions whilst increasing shareholder value. But a cavalier approach will lead to more and more difficulties."
The UK government has already set a series for goals for carbon dioxide reduction: a 20 per cent cut on1990 levels by 2010; a 60 per cent cut by 2050, and milestone progress by 2020. So organisations are having to develop energy management strategies, and software like MX4 Energy is likely to provide the cornerstone of many plans.
MX4 Energy accepts information acquired automatically by the control systems used in manufacturing and processing, the utilities, food packaging and processing, etc as well as key data on ambient temperature, production targets and other consumption variables. It then generates reports either by interactively browsing 'on the fly' or by scheduling specific outputs. These include league tables, exception reports, benchmarking, targeting, budgeting, data quality and consumption/cost profiles.
"Reports are created automatically via templates," explains Norman. "This means information is produced regularly and in a consistent format so that it can be easily understood, compared and analysed."
Routine reporting tasks may be assigned to the scheduler ensuring they are run automatically on a regular basis.
Reports and data can be printed out, forwarded by email and even saved in HTML format for posting to a web or intranet site. The powerful Report Generator function within MX4 Energy can combine data, text and graphical elements from any part of the database.
"Reports can include actual costs by applying prices and tariff structures and these can be automatically allocated to the appropriate users," explains Norman.
"In use MX4 Energy constantly collects massive amounts of high frequency data and automatically converts this into easily understood real-time information. If this were attempted manually it would be very labour intensive and thus expensive."
The data can be viewed on screen in an easy to manage directory structure, and can be edited directly through the keyboard. Navigation is made easier by selecting different views, such as a list format or a tree view, while powerful searching tools enable quick access to data. Security permissions allow various levels of access e.g. administrative, users and guests. An audit function records each user's activity on the database.
The Report Generator can be used for general data browsing and to create daily and weekly costing reports, monthly reports and summaries, overspend and exceptions, usage profiles, function and associated cost pairing. League tables, graphs and tabular reports can also be compiled. MX4 Energy also offers automated data quality checks, statistical analysis, and target band analysis to provide on-going energy surveys, awareness and training, and project management.
"In short MX4 Energy provides energy managers with all the information they need to fully understand their consumption and allows them to develop strategies based on a full set of concrete facts rather than half a dozen assumptions and some guesswork!"
Mitsubishi has run extensive tests of MX4 Energy before launching it to the market. In every installation it has helped achieve 5% to 20% energy cost savings.
Users have reported favourably on its ease of installation and operation, saying that the automatic data collection provides fast accurate energy consumption analysis.
Alongside the launch of MX4 Energy Mitsubishi is expanding the operational scope of its Melsec Energy Centre. To date this has had an information and advisory remit, but it is now to offer full energy management programmes in conjunction with Energy Centre Solution Partners. The Energy Centre was set up three years ago when Mitsubishi recognised that energy users needed advice about energy use, including carbon management, climate change, relevant technology, legislation, best practice, insulation, facilities management, wastage, etc.
"We could not provide answers to all the questions we were being asked. Indeed there was no-one offering truly comprehensive advice," explains Norman.
"So we decided to formally partner with those with expertise in different aspects of energy management and created the Energy Centre. The idea was to create a one-stop shop that could address any energy related subject. "
Existing Solution Partners, BPX, LC Automation and Pneumatic Lines have been joined by Energys. Now the Energy Centre will conduct audits, and surveys, draw up long-term or staged energy strategies, oversee the integration of energy solutions (such as industrial control systems, thermal installation, low energy lighting, compressed air systems, and space heating). The objective will be to develop long term relationships so that energy performance is constantly reassessed and optimised giving real value in ongoing cost savings. More articles from Mitsubishi Electric Europe: | 
