FOR 1088:  Control of Energy Consumption in Production to Achieve Energy Efficiency Maximisation through Automation (ECOMATION)

• Subject Area: Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
• Term: from 2009 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 67908657

The dangers associated with climate change, increasing competition for resources and dependency on energy supplying countries make it imperative to develop methods to save energy and CO2 emissions to ensure that companies and societies can continue to prosper in the future. In Germany, industry is responsible for an equal amount of energy consumption as the transport and private sectors.
Past and present methods and developments put an emphasis on permanent improvements of energy efficiency, either through optimisation of manufacturing process steps and chains or through maximised degrees of efficiency of components. Such an optimisation “on average” can only release one part of the efficiency potential, as machines and production plants are operated under highly variable requirements and conditions. Therefore, it is important to add methods for the optimal operation and control of machines and plants to the portfolio, which take into account energy efficiency in the context of other objectives.
Based on these considerations it is the aim of the Research Unit to develop methods, which ensure the operation of production machines and plants in an energy consumption optimal way and thus save energy in production through automation. To reach this goal, we will develop a number of control techniques, which support energy efficiency in production comprehensively and coherently. Situation optimal control of active components in machine-level energy control loops will lead to minimal energy consumption of individual machine tools.
Plant-level energy control loops in the factory control will allow to select energy consumption optimal resources during planning and to detect and eliminate causes for low energy efficiency. Models of determinant and controllable factors of the energy consumption in manufacturing processes, components and machines are being created in the Research Unit as the foundation for efficiency raising methods.
To make the models easy to apply and in order to form a basis to turn measured data into optimisation information we will create a common hybrid modelling technique, which is new to the area of manufacturing research. New methods will allow determining and analysing energy consumption and energy efficiency potential in software tools based on machine signals and a minimal amount of additional measurements.

• DFG Programme: Research Units

Projects

• Energieverbrauchsbeeinflussung auf Komponentenebene (Applicant Abele, Eberhard )
• Energieverbrauchsbeeinflussung auf Prozess- und Verfahrensebene (Applicant Heisel, Uwe )
• Maschinenferne Energieregelkreise (Applicant Bauernhansl, Thomas )
• Maschinennaher Energieregelkreis in der Steuerung (Applicant Verl, Alexander )
• Prognosefähiges Modell des Energieverbrauchs (Applicant Verl, Alexander )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr.-Ing. Alexander Verl