OptoEMU Energy Monitoring Appliance Supports New Ways to Analyze Energy Data

by | May 20, 2011

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Opto 22 says it has expanded the communications and integration capabilities of its OptoEMU sensor energy monitoring appliance (pictured) — adding Modbus/TCP and OPC industrial protocol support, Microsoft SQL Server and Access integration, and a new Microsoft .NET developer toolkit.

The company says that the changes make it easier for facility managers, energy managers, and plant personnel to manage facility energy use with the hardware, interfaces, protocols, and databases they’re already comfortable using.

The OptoEMU sensor connects to utility meters, plant equipment, and facility systems to gather real-time facility and equipment energy use data. The sensor’s communication capabilities now include support for Modbus/TCP, a standard, Ethernet-based industrial communications protocol. This allows the sensor to perform in any Ethernet-based Modbus architecture — without need for translators, software development, or other middleware, Opto 22 says.

The OptoEMU Sensor now includes OPC connectivity and can also communicate with any OPC client, so personnel can use SCADA and HMI software packages like Wonderware’s InTouch, Intellution’s iFix, Iconic’s Genesis and other OPC-aware clients.

In addition, IT departments can use Opto 22’s OptoDataLink software to post their energy data directly into Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, MySQL, and other databases.

In other product news, the company says its most widely used power monitoring modules, SNAP-AIPM-3 and SNAP-AIPM-3V, can now monitor 480 VAC, 3-phase electrical equipment without the need for a  transformer. Both modules accept voltage inputs up to 300 VAC, so 277 volt line-to-neutral signals from lighting systems and other equipment can be wired directly to the module, eliminating the need to use transformers to step down higher voltages.

Additionally, the SNAP-AIPM-3 now accepts current inputs from 0-5 amps, doubling the module’s current input resolution.

In energy monitoring applications, the SNAP-AIPM-3 and the SNAP-AIPM-3V allow building managers and maintenance engineers to monitor three-phase equipment power in their facilities. Each module returns up to 14 channels of data including volts, amps, volt-amps, and true power for all three phases, plus true power sums. Customers can use the modules as part of a SNAP PAC System to correlate their energy use with specific business operations. At that point, real-time data can be used to identify specific problems and design energy management initiatives to reduce energy costs.

The OptoEMU Sensor is available at a list price of $1295. The SNAP-AIPM-3 and SNAP-AIPM-3V are available at a list price of $495.00 each.

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