Even recycling companies must work in an energy-efficient manner – this is a world-wide requirement for the sector. Therefore, products for energy measurement, monitoring and saving are particularly important to continuously keep an eye on the energy consumption. For almost 20 years, NGR GmbH from the Upper Austrian town of Feldkirchen near Linz has been in the business of bringing plastic packaging back into the recycling circuit. To that end, the company develops and manufactures so-called Next Generation recycling machines, which make granulate from recycled materials, which can be fed back to the production cycle. In the framework of a digititalisation process, NGR developed a solution using which information regarding standstill times of machines can be transmitted in real time, maintenance can be planned better and the energy consumption can be optimised. For doing so, measurement is always the start of any process. In the search for different measurement quantities and locations, NGR hit upon the Rittal Smart Monitoring System. To start with, the system was used in a demonstration system for polyester technology; today it also measures the total energy consumption and other values in customer projects.
We have many customers who are members of large enterprise groups. This means that there are often product requirements. But we have found that there is a very high level of acceptance all over the world for Rittal products. Naturally, that is an advantage for us, because it minimises custom manufacturing.
The challenge of energy efficiency
The energy requirement gobbles about 40 percent of the costs of the recycling systems, for example, for the cooling. Since 2015, the Smart Monitoring System for NH fuse-switch disconnectors for use in low-voltage distribution systems has been available from Rittal – it is a system that can be integrated perfectly in the RiLine60 power distribution system. The Smart Monitoring System consists of a measurement value acquisition system, evaluation electronics and a communications module. Together with the power supply, all the components are located in one compact housing. As a result, the system can also be fitted on retrospectively. The communications module can forward the measurement values like the voltage, current, power and effective power to a superordinate control system. Datalogging of the measurement values and the energy consumption data themselves is also easily possible. Moreover, the NH measurement module also has alarm functions and limit value monitoring. Simple linking via plug-&-play to the Computer Multi Control (CMC III) monitoring system from Rittal is also available. Optionally, there is also a display available, with which more than 50 measurement values from up to 20 NH measurement modules can be visualised directly at the site.
NGR is convinced that with the rapid progress of digititalization and networking, making use of the Smart Monitoring System from Rittal would be advisable in many other systems.