Coca-Cola Swaziland implements smart energy management

INNOVATIONS

Coca Cola Swaziland (Conco Ltd) reports that it is seeing numerous benefits from its new smart energy management systems.

Aiming to cut its energy consumption, the company appointed system integrator Systems Anywhere Coastal for the implementation of the energy management project who, in turn, selected a range of software solutions from the Invensys Wonderware stable. These solutions included the System Platform based on ArchestrA technology, Historian and Client, InTouch SCADA / HMI, Information Server, SmartGlance for mobile reporting and Wonderware’s Corporate Energy Management (CEM) package.

Conco says when the first results were made available they came as a shock – notably, this was the first time that measurements included data from sources other than the mains supply.

As a result: “We shifted out priority to reducing energy cost rather than usage,” says Wiseman Magagula, automation engineer at Coca-Cola Swaziland. “After all, if a process requires 500kWh there is not a lot that can be done about it apart from shaving off say 5% energy usage, but if the process is shifted to non-peak hours, costs can be reduced significantly. This just goes to show that energy cost need not be dependent on energy usage.”

The smarter energy systems allowed the company to formulate a series of tactical initiatives that would optimize energy usage on the shop floor. These would include charging forklifts and running cold rooms only during off-peak periods, running the dust extractors only during working hours and basing lights and air-conditioning on someone’s presence.

The improved visibility into energy usage and cost per plant and subsection and the implementation of smarter energy usage/ cost control protocols resulted in a reduction in energy consumption, says Conco.