Energy management becomes more relevant than ever in times of ever-increasing electricity prices. This is true not only for private households but especially for the industry which has a very high demand for electricity and therefore a much higher savings potential.
In the past, power management or energy management has very often limited itself to switching devices on and off as soon as they were no longer needed and from time to time to read the meter reading for consumption. Due to the increasing networking of fishbones, sensors and actuators, the Internet of Things (IoT) provides an exact and permanent recording of the energy performance of different objects. To cope with the huge amount of data, smart routers and gateways like the SYS Tec CTR-700 are needed.
Smart Gateways from Sys Tec
The CTR-700 is an edge controller / gateway, which is derived from industrial controls but has been adapted very much for use in IOT applications. Its digital and analogue interfaces allow a variety of connections to other devices. Fieldbuses such as CAN and CANopen, Modbus and other interfaces are offered. On the software side, the Sys Tec Gateway also understands different programming languages such as C / C ++, C #, .Net, Node-RED, Java and Phyton.
For the Internet connection either the built-in LTE module can be used or the two Ethernet interfaces. The CTR-700 can also be used as an edge controller and as an IOT gateway, with pre-processing of data before it is sent to the cloud. As a result, the data traffic is significantly reduced, which is especially relevant for mobile connections.
Energy Management through Bacsoft Cloud
In the context of IoT platforms and dedicated software, the CTR-700 can leverage its full feature set for efficient energy management and optimization. The cooperation with Bacsoft, an Israeli solution for energy management, is a good example of the interaction between CTR-700 and specialized software in the field of water and agriculture or energy management of buildings. The data preprocessed by the CTR-700 are then transmitted to the Bacsoft Cloud for analysis and analysis. The Bacsoft application specializes in filtering out unnecessary data (so-called data noise) efficiently. For certain deviations from the rules, which can be freely configured, a warning can e.g. Sent to the smartphone to an e-mail or to the control room of the operator to permanently monitor the equipment.
Open Gateway Energy Management from Frauenhofer IIS
Another prominent application is Fraunhofer IIS, which offers a system called OGEMA (Open Gateway Energy Management) to ensure energy management for local use. The use of the system is both private, e.g. possible in smart homes as well as in the industrial sector. Thus, e.g. Installed in OGEMA apps that allow you to remotely control the systems, or query inverters to find out how much energy the solar system is currently producing. Also, one can e.g. get the weather report and the forecast for the coming days to adapt the energy management to the energy generation.
The CTR-700 is also used for the management of installations such as cell towers. However, such systems are not permanently supplied with power and are exposed to very strong weather and temperature fluctuations. The CTR-700 also performs this task and, thanks to its robustness, it can also provide constant data in situations with fluctuating voltages and difficult external conditions.
The CTR-700 is a versatile device that can be used both as a microcontroller or smart gateway and in areas where other gateways would not work at all. By understanding many heterogeneous protocols and interfaces as well as programming languages, it is very well suited for a versatile use. The integration of IoT systems via the gateway is a tried and tested means of being connected to the Internet even in older systems and thus being able to use the advantages of the cloud in data management, AI, analysis, forecasting and maintenance more efficiently than in the past.
