THE PROFIenergy PROFILE

Increasing the Energy Efficiency of Automation

Systems using Smart Energy Management over
PROFINET

Version 1.0 March 2010

PI White Paper: The PROFIenergy Profile March 2010 1

 Index

1 Executive Summary 3

2 Introducing PROFIenergy 4

3 Energy Efficiency 5

4 PROFIenergy in outline 6

5 Why has this not been done before? 7

6 How does PROFIenergy work? 8

7 The PROFIenergy Use Cases 10

8 Implementation 12

9 PROFIenergy Benefits 13

A WIN/WIN FOR ALL, INCLUDING THE PLANET!

2 PI White Paper: The PROFIenergy Profile March 2010

1 Executive Summary

Automation users worldwide are driven to minimize energy consumption, to cut

costs and comply with increasingly stringent ‘green’ obligations. Methods range from
switching off equipment manually to installing semi-automated shut-down systems.
These are crude, expensive or hard to manage.

What is needed is a standardized way to manage energy consuming devices over

production networks, eliminating the need for external systems and delivering a
solution that can be configured intelligently using existing automation equipment.

The PROFIenergy Profile enables control devices (e.g. PLCs) to send commands to
Energy Consuming Units (ECU), to signal pauses such as lunch breaks, holidays,
random line stoppages or even peak load conditions. On receipt of the PROFIenergy
commands, software ‘agents’ in the ECU firmware initiate pre-defined ‘sleep’ modes for
the duration of the pause.

PROFIenergy commands are usually be issued by the same controller as the

automation process. However, a dedicated energy management controller can be
used. PROFIenergy is applicable to single devices such as actuators and remote IO as
well as complete sub-systems such as paint lines.

PROFIenergy enables the deployment of smart energy management strategies over

PROFINET. Actual energy savings depend on how end users adapt PROFIenergy to
their production environments.

Robot cells, lasers and drives (where up to 60% of energy can be consumed during
production pauses) will be early beneficiaries, but as more intelligent ways evolve to
use PROFIenergy the overall benefits for industry could be significant.

PI White Paper: The PROFIenergy Profile March 2010 3

 2 Introducing PROFIenergy

The idea for a standardized energy management strategy for automation sprang from
the AIDA group of automotive manufacturers in Germany. AIDA companies - Audi,
BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and VW – comprise a major part of the European automotive
industry. Although acting competitively in the marketplace, they collaborate over
areas of common interest, especially those related to manufacturing. For example, they
agreed several years ago on PROFINET as their preferred next-generation industrial
network, in order to eliminate the ‘choices’ that arose from earlier fieldbus experiences.
By focusing on a single technology, they reasoned, life would be made easier and less
costly for everyone.

Energy is one of the biggest operating costs in automotive manufacturing. It’s also
subject to other important issues - security of supply for example, and concerns about
climate change.

Could there be a special Profile of PROFINET that would standardize an approach

to energy saving? AIDA asked. Would PI, with its multi-vendor support and vast
experience in developing automation standards based on networking technologies,
be willing to help?

A PI Working Group was set up early

in 2009. A specification has now been
published (available to members at
www.profibus.com). The consortium
involved in its development is shown
here – it‘s a a mix of vendors, OEMs and
service suppliers.

First implementations of PROFIenergy

are expected to appear during 2010.
The PROFIenergy Consortium

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3 Energy Efficiency

Surprisingly, given intense publicity in recent years about security of supply, costs and
‘green’ responsibilities, energy management remains an inexact science. Beyond the
basic thermal efficiencies which are relatively easy to take into account, many plants are
still being designed and built without regard for short-term production pauses such as
holidays, downtime and even overnight operations. Integrated energy management
strategies are rarely employed, a situation that surely has to change.

Quantifying the total energy consumption of industry is not hard – it can be easily
determined on the Web after a few clicks. It is usually measured in trillions of dollars,
depending on which country or region is being considered.

The results of energy efficiency analyses can also be found by trawling the internet
for projects that have attempted to understand where losses occur. One example
determined that only 31% of purchased electrical energy was being used during
production hours! In other words 69% of energy was consumed NOT making products!
The ‘productive spread’ ranges down to 5% which may be manageable, although
the implicit message is clear: energy wastage is probably occurring on a large scale
throughout industry.

The potential benefits of increased energy efficiency are therefore massive. Different
industries are obviously affected in different ways. Process industries that consume
vast amounts of energy making or transforming products such as steel, glass and
mining could be affected the most.

Some energy efficiency projects have been outstanding successes. One automotive
line designed in conjunction with a major IT supplier managed to reduce energy
costs by 70%, with an ROI of 18 months! Such examples are rare however, and most
depend on bespoke solutions which are expensive and inflexible. The missing factor
is a standardized way of managing energy consumption at the plant floor level, where
most energy is used. Hence - PROFIenergy.

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 4 PROFIenergy in outline

PROFIenergy is an Application Profile of PROFINET. It relies on the collaboration of three

automation elements: the controlling device in a PROFINET network (usually a PLC, but
it could be a higher level supervisory system or even a dedicated energy management
controller), the network itself (PROFINET), and one or more Energy Consuming Units,
or ECUs (which could be a single device, a production cell or even a larger production
unit). It’s the interaction of these three that makes PROFIenergy so powerful.

The role of PROFINET is simple - it’s to transmit standardized commands to each ECU
under guidance from the controller, and to receive back status information and energy
consumption data. It does this using the acyclic slots of the PROFINET communications
protocol. PROFIenergy is fully integrated with existing automation processes and
operates over the same PROFINET network.

During the idle period of a weekend for example, ECUs can often consume up to 60
percent of the total energy used during production (see below). With PROFIenergy,
users can reduce this substantially by switching off unnecessary activity, thereby
reducing energy demand.

Up to 60% of energy usage can occur during non-production periods.

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5 Why has this not been done before?

It has, but not with much success. Energy consumers in a production line are typically
never switched off, usually because this requires additional hardware outside the
machine (see below). In these kinds of system switching relies on external relays and
everything has to be hard-wired. Such systems tend to be proprietary and therefore
costly. Many users are naturally reluctant to commit the resources to do this.

Sometimes, semi-automated systems are used – again these tend to be proprietary and
are generally hard-wired. The control task and the energy management procedures are
combined and a complete ‘switch-off’ by disconnecting the power is the best that can
be achieved.

Crude, expensive and hard-to-manage systems like these have never been popular
and hence energy efficiency at this levels of automation has received less than
adequate attention.

PROFIenergy, by contrast, requires no additional wiring or external hardware because

signals are transmitted over the existing
PROFINET cabling and all switching
takes place inside an ECU.

PROFIenergy allows energy

consumption to be managed
dynamically, device by device. Above
all, PROFIenergy delivers a common
solution that vendors and users can
support together, bringing all the
familiar benefits of ‘openness’ as well as
potentially huge cost benefits.
Conventional energy management systems
require external hardware and wiring

PI White Paper: The PROFIenergy Profile March 2010 7

 6 How does PROFIenergy work?

With PROFIenergy, the switching mechanisms controlling the ON/OFF modes of

equipment reside inside the ECUs themselves. These ‘understand’ the PROFIenergy
commands issued by the controller. At appropriate times - determined during
configuration or dynamically decided in accordance with production circumstances -
the controller sends signals to the ECUs stating when production pauses will happen.

These pauses - or stops in production - may be routine, or they can occur in response
to production conditions e.g. a breakdown. Each ECU then decides how a pause is to
be handled using software ‘agents’ embedded in its firmware that react to the ‘start
pause’ and ‘end pause’ signals from the controller.

Incorporating PROFIenergy’s functionality in end devices means that equipment

vendors themselves decide how to optimize the energy management of their own
equipment. This recognizes that they probably understand better than anyone the
right actions to take for particular combinations of equipment and pause times.

The approach gives complete freedom

to the vendor and provides flexibility:
for example, a drive may have to be run
down to idle over a 30 second period,
or perhaps a production cell requires
that a conveyor be slowed down before
a robot can be put into ‘sleep’ mode. If
the duration of a pause is long enough
perhaps the ECU can be completely
disconnected ... but to be ready to re-
start its conveyor must be re-started
in advance. This kind of flexible timing
strategy is depicted in the diagram
right.
With PROFIenergy, ON/OFF control happens
over the network

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PROFIenergy‘s command system will usually be deployed in the same controller (e.g.
a PLC) that is running the automation system. However, it could reside in a separate,
dedicated, energy management controller. Multi-level ‘sleep modes’ are feasible.

As experience grows and PROFIenergy-enabled devices become more widely available,

we can expect to see more sophisticated possibilities being put into practice. For
example, PROFIenergy’s ability to feedback energy consumption data to the controller
means that a load-dependent machine control strategy could be implemented to
help avoid peak demand penalties.

It is also possible for secondary processes to be paused during production when not
needed. Even non-electrical power sources (e.g. steam and compressed air) could be
managed better using PROFIenergy.

Power ON/OFF timings are pre-configured by

the vendor to suit the equipment

PI White Paper: The PROFIenergy Profile March 2010 9

 7 The PROFIenergy Use Cases

PROFIenergy Use Cases (UC) have been defined in collaboration with end users. They
serve as the basis for the PROFIenergy specification and can be summarized as follows:

Brief pauses (typically up to one hour) - These are pauses during the manufacturing
process which make it possible to put ECUs either into a standby condition, or switch
them off completely. In general, such pauses are planned - e.g. lunchtime breaks.
Interruptions like these last from a few minutes to up to one hour. The PROFIenergy
system selectively switches off those ECUs that will save energy during that time
but that can also be powered up again and on time. Safety-related functions are
retained and protected. When production restarts, the system activates the ECUs in a
pre-defined switch-on sequence and checks that they all have started correctly. The
system then restarts the production process. Whether and which ECUs are sent into
‘sleep mode’ has to be determined and configured by the user. For some devices it may
not be reasonable - or even possible - to put them into standby or switch them off
because it takes too long ... or perhaps it takes more energy than is saved.

Longer pauses (typically a range of hours or days) - This use case is similar to the
first one, the difference being the duration of the pause. It lasts hours (e.g. overnight) or
even days (e.g. weekends and holidays). Because the pause is longer, additional ECUs
can be put into standby, or switched off completely, or the same ones can be put in
a more energy saving state because more time is available. Nevertheless, the rules for
not switching off an ECU might still be valid, e.g. functional safety has to be treated
very carefully! A general benefit is that the longer the pause lasts the more energy can
be saved. An ECU could also have different levels of energy saving, especially complex
ones like tooling machines or welding robots. PROFIenergy allows for any number of
intermediate energy-saving modes to be triggered during the pause.

Unscheduled pauses (typically caused by equipment failures) – This Use Case is

also similar to the ones above, the difference being that the user doesn’t know when
the interrupt will occur, nor how long it will last. Initially, the ECU is put into a ‘stop’

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condition to reduce energy consumption as if for a brief pause. If it turns out that the
repair work will take a long time, the possibility exists to place the equipment into an
even more energy-saving state for the duration of the pause.

Measuring and visualization of the load – This covers the acquisition of

measurement data from the ECU, either directly or implicitly, and is needed because
knowledge of when, where and how much energy is required enables more effective
energy management. Possibilities include high energy machines being substituted
with lower energy alternatives. Moreover, the energy consumption of a machine
can be visualized and archived on an HMI. Semi-automatic responses then become
possible because the information can be used to control energy consumption
manually, leading to more flexible reactions especially during unplanned pauses.

The power consumption of some devices may already be available to the network
– for example if dedicated power monitoring devices are installed. Further, many
devices employ power monitoring techniques during normal operation - for example,
motor starters and frequency converters. These devices measure parameters such as
power, reactive power, current and power factor angle and, although this information
is not comprehensive, it may be sufficient to visualize energy consumption. Peak load
demand management also becomes possible with PROFIenergy.

The first version of the PROFIenergy Profile focuses on electrical energy. However,
other energy resources are consumed in manufacturing lines by systems such as gas,
steam, compressed air and water. The consumption of energy in these types of system
may be added to a future PROFIenergy specification.

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 8 Implementation

PROFIenergy requires only a simple set of commands to be used by the controls

engineer and, at the ‘entry’ level - where most PROFIenergy systems are likely to fit in
the short term - there is little additional work to carry out. This may change over time
as more sophisticated strategies are introduced.

Device and system manufacturers will embed software ‘agents’ in their equipment to
manage the pause procedures, so detailed knowledge of these is not necessary for the
user. Only the ‘start pause‘ and ‘end pause‘ commands need to be set.

To take into account the need for upgradability and compatibility, PROFIenergy
commands have been mapped onto existing PROFINET acyclic services. These do not
occupy additional addresses in the process image. So, the volume of user data is not
altered and the new PROFIenergy commands can be used in existing program libraries
without repercussion. Likewise, device manufacturers can use a firmware update to
expand their components to include new PROFIenergy functionality.

The separation of energy management and control functions means both parts of
the control program can be tested and commissioned independently. Structured
programming greatly simplifies the maintenance of the user program in the long term.

A future version of the PROFIenergy Profile may add functionality to the specification
– for example to aid engineering or to manage the consumption of non-electrical
forms of energy. It may even become possible at a later stage to simulate the energy
consumption of a plant and calculate the best PROFIenergy strategies for a particular
set of equipment.

PROFIenergy guarantees a uniform interface for energy management and is an open

technology, with all the benefits that brings in multi-vendor situations. The user is free
to choose devices from different manufacturers to best suit his application or budgets.

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9 PROFIenergy Benefits

PROFIenergy savings arise as follows:

• During Installation: Conventional energy savings systems - when used - are

hard wired, unsophisticated and proprietary. Networking eliminates all these
disadvantages since PROFIenergy comes ‘built in’ and therefore involves little
installation effort. This could be particularly significant in high labor cost countries.

• During Operation: Savings depend on the strategies used but in general the
biggest benefits will come from heavier power demand devices and sub-systems.
However, smaller devices with relatively low power consumption may also generate
substantial savings where large numbers are used (e.g. Remote IO modules).

• Asset Protection: Switching functions are integrated in devices. Instead of

clumsy ‘ON/OFF’ manual switching, equipment will be powered up and down
intelligently, resulting in longer life and fewer breakdowns.

• ROI: As cost savings are potentially significant, rapid ROI can be anticipated. Any
higher up-front costs will easily be offset.

• Engineering: Short and long pauses are managed by the interaction of IO

controller (PLC), PROFINET, and the software in the Energy Consuming Unit
(ECU). As experience grows, OEMs and device vendors will learn how to use this
interaction more and more intelligently.

• Peak Load Management: Measurements of energy consumption from the

ECU can be fed back to the IO controller (PLC) or supervisory system to allow
consumption to be reduced and peak demands limited.

• Competition: A standardized, ‘open’, solution can be supported widely by

vendors, OEMs and end users. Interoperability and choice lead to competition, with
performance and functionality rising as costs fall.

• Regulatory pressures: Cutting power consumption reduces carbon footprints,

and helps support ‘green’ strategies to meet growing regulatory requirements.

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