A smart low-voltage electrical infrastructure is essential for implementing connected energy systems. While traditional protection and switching tasks are still necessary, the real future is in intelligence. It’s all about transparency, data, and digitalization, notes Andreas Matthé
There is no question that our industry and infrastructure need to become more sustainable, and digitalization is one of the key enablers. Digitalization depends on a fully reliable power supply and the highest power quality. At the same time, today’s digital technologies are creating brand-new opportunities for meeting the growing requirements of electrical power distribution on all levels. The need to conserve valuable resources has become more urgent than ever. Especially for low voltage power distribution, energy efficiency, predictive maintenance, and cybersecurity are key trends shaping both current and future developments.
Today’s world is characterized by massive social and technological transformations. Globalization, urbanization, climate change, demographics, and of course the latest geopolitical and economic conditions are changing the way we live and work, how we design buildings, infrastructure, and industrial processes, and how we produce and consume energy. According to the International Energy Agency in 2023, the share of electricity in final energy consumption is projected to rise from 20 per cent today to over 50 per cent by 2050 in the “Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario”. This underlines the importance of electrification for decarbonization.
It’s not just a matter of using renewable energies. The goal is to find modern infrastructure solutions that guarantee a reliable power supply and sustainable mobility as well as connected living spaces where grids interact intelligently with buildings, infrastructure, and industries. This requires technologies that enable an exchange between the grid and consumers. We need solutions that allow consumers to generate, store, and use their own energy in connected structures as active “prosumers” – which also enable them to feed energy into the power grid or to share with others.
A smart low-voltage electrical infrastructure is essential for implementing connected energy systems. Distributed energy systems, digitalization, and the Internet of Things (IoT) require systems that provide automated plants, machines, anddevices with a fail-safe power supply while also managing bidirectional power flows, acquiring data, and transmitting this data to the cloud. Traditional protection and switching tasks are still necessary, but the real future is in intelligence. It’s all about transparency, data, and digitalization.
In view of these factors, webelieve that three specific trending topics are shaping technological developments in low-voltage power distribution today: energy efficiency through power monitoring, predictive maintenance based on condition monitoring, and cybersecurity.
- Energy efficiency through power monitoring
Over the past few years, energy prices have escalated in many countries. An especially sharp increase occurred in 2022. Since then, the situationhas been permanently tense, influenced among other things by the current geopolitical situation and the resulting scarcity of raw materials.For industrial and commercial consumers in Maharashtra for example, the average energy price increased by approximately 20 per cent between 2022 and 2024, according to Mercom India Research.
For energy-intensive industrial plants in particular – and also for building and infrastructure operators – there’s increasing pressure to reduce consumption, and that will in turn reduce costs.The demand to minimize power consumption hasalso been growing for years.
In process industries, one of the major costs is energy. At one of the largest manufacturers of chemical fertilizers in India, in the state of Karnataka, we implemented our energy management solution. With the SENTRON Powermanager, the company integrated their existing process data and energy meters to monitor their goals. Transparency increased substantially. The trends and comprehensive energy reports pinpoint areas for improvement. Benchmarking helps them to continuously improve on energy utilization. Also, optimal utilization of renewable energy helps to achieve their sustainability goals.
In the wake of the energy transition and the global climate protection agreement, government regulations are calling for ever-higher efficiency standards. In Germany, for example,the law on energy services and other energy efficiency measures (EDL-G) requires that companies above a certain size undergo an energy audit every four years.
One way to confront this challenging situation is with an operational power management system based on the ISO50001 and ISO50003 global standards. The foundation for successfully optimizing power consumption is laid by a continuous process of recording consumption, developing various efficiency measures, and implementing an appropriate and consistent concept from the management to the field level. It’s essential that energy flows be made as transparent as possible. Specific conservation measures can only be derived if a sufficient amount of energy data is acquired at all relevant locations and made available.
The technological basis consists of power monitoring systems comprised of measuring devices that acquire energy data and analysis software that evaluates and visualizes this data. The Siemens solution involves supplementing the SENTRON Powermanager software – for direct data transfer to the cloud – with the SENTRONPowercenter 3000 IoT data platform and the SENTRON Powermind cloud-based app.
One of the leading textile manufacturers from India with manufacturing facilities across the globe partnered with Siemens to achieve their sustainability goals. Siemens implemented the complete power distribution solution and energy management solution for their green field project. Systematic energy data management using SENTRON Powermanager now ensures efficient operation and helps to analyze power consumption trends and savings potential. An IoT data platform enables data storage in the cloud and easy remote access, while communication is secure and encrypted with SENTRON Powercenter 3000. They integrated their existing multi-location facilities using SENTRON Powercenter 3000 and ‘Watts’- a cloud-based app fora complete electrical overview of the company.
Energy data isn’t just acquired by measuring devices; it can also be collected by communication-capable protection and switching devices. The latest SENTRON 3WA air circuit breakers serve as a practical example. They combine protection and measurement functions in a single device. The electronic trip unit (ETU) is designed to acquire a variety of data on energy, power quality, and circuit breaker states in normal operation.
This data is usually transferred to higher-level systems via standard protocols. Multiple communication protocols can also be used simultaneously for fast and powerful data transfers. However, today’s new communication-capable devices go one step further by transferring measured values directly from the electrical infrastructure to the IoT. All of the data relevant to energy, power quality, and circuit breaker states can also be integrated in cloud-based power management systems.
This creates brand-new opportunities. The systematic use of IoT platforms has distinct advantages for electrical engineering and building technology, even beyond cloud-based power monitoring. It greatly reduces expenditures for a separate IT infrastructure for technical building management. In addition, huge amounts of data can be stored and processed that are then made available for comprehensive analyses, regardless of location. For example, Siemens’ open IoT platform allows users to process, evaluate, and compare large amounts of data from different devices and systems in buildings and infrastructures. The potential is enormous. Much shorter downtime and even higher energy efficiency are just two examples.
- Predictive maintenance based on condition monitoring
Electrical and building management systems are subject to high demand. They need to guarantee the fail-safe, around-the-clock operation of buildings and infrastructure. Planning their maintenance is similarly time-consuming and is associated with sizeable investments. In the case of commercial properties, for example, technical building management is responsible for over half of the overall operating costs.
Operators of non-residential buildings are also coming under increasing cost pressures. Electrical power distribution in particular requires effective maintenance concepts for electrical engineering and building technology in order to prevent unscheduled and costly plant outages and repair time.
One such concept is predictive maintenance, which is made possible by digitalization and the intelligent use of data – and it’s also a concept that pays off. According to a study by consultancy firm McKinsey, predictive maintenance can boost plant availability by five to 15 percent. At the same time, operators benefit from a reduction in maintenance costs by as much as 25 per cent.
The requisite information is provided by condition monitoring, which monitors and evaluates the technological condition of devices. For example, it reveals changes that signal the progressive wear of individual components. The communication-capable SENTRON 3VA molded-case circuit breakers are a concrete example. Their integrated condition monitoring feature allows them to acquire more than just basic information like operating cycles and operating hours. The smart circuit breakers also autonomously analyze the data and evaluate it using a patent-pending algorithm. Another way to acquire and analyze the relevant data is with the power monitoring system from the Siemens SENTRON portfolio. This system delivers accurate findings on the current operating state and on the remaining lifetime that can be expected.
One of the leading steel manufacturers in India having a long-term association with Siemens for all their electrical requirements, is using SENTRON Powercenter 3000 along with SENTRON 3WA air circuit breakers for their critical applications where they cannot afford downtime. Along with energy management using the web interface of SENTRON Powercenter 3000, customers can visualize operational data and health conditions of these breakers. The maintenance team is able to reduce the downtime and can easily plan for their maintenance activities based on condition monitoring data from switchgear. SENTRON Powercenter 3000 is part of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio. Siemens Xcelerator is an open digital business platform that enables customers to accelerate their digital transformation easier, faster, and at scale.
- Cybersecurity
For IoT-capable components, connecting to the Internet also means having to comply with the same high standards for cybersecurity as other connected systems, in order to guarantee the long-term operational safety of a company or building. The main issue is compliance with adequate cybersecurity standards – not just in the form of higher-level security concepts but also on the field level. In other words, safety features integrated right in the devices are becoming the central component of all consistent, end-to-end cybersecurity concepts. Specific approaches include systematically managing potential vulnerabilities throughout a component’s entire lifecycle, account management, write-protection restrictions, and signed firmware.
The SENTRON 3WA air circuit breakers, for example, have a number of integrated safety features that protect against tampering attempts. For instance, the PROFINET IO/Modbus TCP module COM190 has parameter-writing and remote-switching protection integrated rightin the hardware. This means that when parameter-write protection is activated, no parameters can be changed – whereas when remote-switching protection is activated, switching on and off via one of the communication paths is prevented. Both features are always activated as a factory preset and must be manually, meaning deliberately, switched off on the communication module itself. In terms of hardware, the 3WA is also protected from unauthorized access: for example, by means of numerous locking and interlocking components.
Even digitalization can become a stumbling block if systems aren’t completely up to date or if they don’t comply with legal standards and guidelines, because cyber attack resilience is compromised. That’s why beyond the individual components, appropriate cybersecurity also requires a defense-in-depth strategy of digital and systematic protection precautions that supplement conventional physical protections (access control, etc.).
Intelligence in low-voltage systems
In view of these trends, what we’ll need in the future is a smart electrical infrastructure on the low-voltage level that can be seamlessly integrated into connected, efficient, and sustainable ecosystems. Potential solutions include systems that provide a secure and reliable power supply with communication-capable components and digital applications that help companies significantly boost their energy and operational efficiency.
Today, many products can be designed, configured, digitally monitored, and seamlessly integrated into automation and IoT systems using software alone. Innovative components are already capable of acquiring all the energy and plant data during ongoing operation – at every point of power distribution and on the demand side, meaning rightat the consumer. They make power visible, from the power infeed to the electrical outlet.
Operators and users achieve maximum transparency over their energy flows and benefit from a consistent, end-to-end digitalization landscape. For planners, plant builders, and professional installers, engineering using the digital twin reduces outlay by up to 80 percent, and systematic power monitoring can increase operational energy efficiency by up to 30 percent. In addition, there are significant improvements in plant availability, ecobalance, maintenance, and service.
Intelligent gateways are ultimately capable of bundling and transmitting all energy and plant data to higher-level, cloud-based systems on the medium-voltage and grid levels. This allows electrical infrastructures to be completely integrated into IoT environments. As a result, power can be fully monitored, flexibly controlled, and used much more efficiently.
About the author: Andreas Matthé is CEO Electrical Products, Siemens AG
