Leading industrial companies from the automotive, pharmaceutical and food industries have clear CO2 targets for their products. These require machine builders to make significant energy savings in new machine generations compared with previous machines. Festo’s energy efficiency module MSE6-C2M offers a smart solution for the compressed air system market.

When it comes to condition monitoring in compressed air systems, the energy efficiency module not only enables measurement data to be gathered and analyzed, but it can also automatically reduce consumption by actively intervening in the supply. Now users can save up to 3.2 metric tons of CO2 and hundreds of euros in operating costs per year, as revealed by calculations and tests.

The energy efficiency module MSE6-C2M combines pressure regulator, on/off valve, sensors and fieldbus communication in one intelligent unit. It monitors the compressed air consumption, shuts off the compressed air after production has stopped for a certain amount of time, and simultaneously prevents the system pressure from falling below a specific stand-by pressure level. This works in a similar way to the automatic stop/start system in a modern automobile, so that no more energy is wasted.

The lower pressure level saves energy, without completely depressurizing the system. This means that machines and systems are permanently available. The MSE6-C2M can automatically detect leakages occurring over time and reports these to a controller. It can be fully integrated into the machine network via PROFINET. All measured values such as pressure, flow rate or system parameters are available in the PLC or cloud and can be displayed or individually further processed.

Measured values for flow rate, air consumption and pressure can be called up at any time. System operators can use this information as the basis for continuous intelligent energy monitoring of a machine. With the MSE6-C2M it is possible, for example, to determine whether a system is consuming more air now than a year ago, how much compressed air is needed for a production batch, whether the pressure is correctly adjusted or how high the pressure and flow rate were at the time of a machine failure.

Festo Corp.
www.festo.us