Continental analyzed the efficiency zones and took important measures to reduce consumption and increase the efficiency of the production of factories and units in Romania, said Petru Demian, Plant Facility Manager Continental Automotive Romania, at the “Digitalization and Energy Efficiency – Timisoara” conference, organized by Energynomics.
‘We’ve found that it’s mandatory to have all the equipment connected to the IT network – it has become a necessity and it’s not that easy, because there are different generations of equipment and you can’t change it from one day to the next. In terms of procedures, Continental is fully involved in the green and sustainability side. Connectivity is not an easy thing, and, additionally, we found the need to have a database of information from equipment, in the IT, cloud, Big Data and metadata areas. With all the data at your disposal, the next logical step is to do automation, to introduce an expert system that not only fulfills its functionality but also contributes to energy efficiency actions, such as, for example, the installation of photovoltaic panels” said Petru Demian.
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Thus, in the first stage, energy measurements and analyses were carried out on the product, which resulted in an improvement plan. “Around 40% of energy is consumed for actual production, and the rest is for the work environment – compressed air, climate, utilities. Too much of the energy spent was going on something that didn’t make money. Therefore, it was clear where we need to work on – on reducing compressed air consumption – nitrogen, on the climate side, in reducing consumption and in production and lowering the price of utilities as a whole,” he said.
One example is the reduction in compressed air pressure which has brought an 8%-10% increase in energy efficiency.
“We installed the trigeneration station. The initial motivation was related to the reduction of losses caused by power outages, as they affected production. We found that it is better to install a trigeneration system than a UPS system at the plant level because consumption was also high. We now have the possibility of back-up,” Peter Demian said. “Furthermore, we have linked trigeneration and thermal consumption and thus made serious savings (cold or hot heat is supplied depending on the season). In addition, we have also worked on the climate side – adapting humidifiers and climate installations, but we have also defined scenarios for climate installations in the most suitable working regime, depending on external conditions. In addition, we have installed sensors so now we can remotely control the climate regime, including from home.”
The conference “Digitalization and Energy Efficiency – Timisoara”, was organized by Energynomics, with the support of our partners ABB, Centrica Business Solutions, Eaton, ENGIE Romania, Enel X Romania, Kawasaki Gas Turbines Europe, Renovatio, Sixt, Wiren.
