JP5835638B2 - Standby power reduction device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a standby power reduction apparatus for reducing a loss due to standby power of various manufacturing facilities in a factory, for example.

Normally, in a production line in a factory, each production facility is not always operated over the entire operation time, and there is a production facility that is in a standby state depending on the operation state of the production line.
For example, as shown in FIG. 7A, in a production line in which a plurality of facilities (equipment 1 to facility 4) are connected in series until the material becomes a processed product (product), When the semi-finished product stays in the middle of the process with the equipment 3 with a slow processing time, the equipment 1 and 2 enter a state waiting for the operation for a certain period of time as a post-process waiting state. During this time, the facilities 1 and 2 do not operate and consume standby power exclusively.
In addition, as shown in FIG. 7B, in the production line in which a route of equipment 2 → equipment 5 → equipment 4 is branched from the equipment 2 of the production line of equipment 2 → equipment 3 → equipment 4 For example, when the branch destination equipment 5 is used, the equipment 3 is not used, and standby power is consumed by the equipment 3.
In the equipment in the standby state as described above, a current of about several [A] to 10 [A] may flow, and as a result, a loss of about several [kWh] continues to occur.

In recent years, while interest in energy saving has increased, losses due to standby power cannot be ignored, and various techniques have been proposed to reduce standby power as described below.
For example, in Patent Document 1, the standby current cutoff device constantly monitors standby currents of a plurality of electrical devices, and the standby current cutoff device is turned off by turning off the power supply circuit of the electrical device whose standby current exceeds a predetermined value. A technique is disclosed in which standby current is automatically cut off by judgment, or by manually operating the standby current cut-off device by remote control from a remote control device to turn off the power supply circuit of the electrical device. Yes.
Also, in Patent Document 2, the management server calculates a difference between the amount of power consumed by a consumer and the amount of power of a constantly operating electric device among the amount of power as a standby power amount, and calculates the calculated standby power amount. A technology for transmitting support information based on a terminal of a customer is disclosed.

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2006-115577 (paragraphs [0012] to [0016], FIG. 1 and the like) JP 2009-177972 A (paragraphs [0020] to [0034], FIG. 1, FIG. 2, etc.)

  In the prior art disclosed in Patent Document 1 or 2 described above, the operating state of electrical equipment and customer equipment is monitored from the aspect of power consumption, and the monitoring result is analyzed by dedicated software or the like. Based on the analysis result, in Patent Document 1, the standby current interrupting device automatically or manually interrupts the standby current after a predetermined time has elapsed, and in Patent Document 2, the standby time in which the electrical device or the like is not operating occupies the whole. The management server makes an energy-saving plan and creates and transmits support information (messages or advice) for customers, thereby encouraging the power-off of electrical devices in standby state to reduce standby power consumption. ing.

However, in a production line such as a factory, the process of shutting off the power supply of the production equipment is usually performed by a worker on the production site. In such cases, in order to reduce standby power without fail, it is necessary to change the worker's awareness of energy conservation activities, and depending on the worker, forgetting the power-off operation or changing the person in charge May fail to take over or contact you.
Further, Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2 do not disclose in detail a threshold value for cutting off standby current or standby power or a method for setting a monitoring time limit thereof. It is the present situation that provision of an appropriate standby power reduction device according to the state or the like is desired.

  Accordingly, a problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a standby power reduction device that can automatically and finely reduce standby power according to the type, characteristics, operation state, and the like of target equipment and contribute to energy saving. .

In order to solve the above problem, the invention according to claim 1 is an apparatus for reducing the standby power of a facility that consumes standby power when not in operation.
A first function of measuring the power consumption of the facility;
A second function for determining that a state in which the power consumption value measured by the first function is equal to or lower than a lower threshold exceeds a monitoring time limit and generating a lower alarm;
A third function for shutting off the power supply of the facility when the lower limit alarm is generated by the second function;
After blocking the power supply by the third function, when turned on again the power of the equipment by returning the low alarm is operated resuming instruction from the external input, the power consumption value is the lower limit until excessive electrical threshold and a fourth function for not generating said lower limit alarm,
The lower threshold and the monitoring time can be arbitrarily set and changed.

The invention according to claim 2 is the standby power reduction device according to claim 1,
The lower limit threshold is set between a power consumption value during operation of the facility and a standby power value during non-operation, and the monitoring time period is set to be less than the preliminary operation period or the remaining heat radiation time of the facility. Long set.

  The standby power reduction device according to the present invention has the first to fourth functions distributed among a plurality of devices as described in claim 3, and the first to fourth among the plurality of devices. This can be realized by transmitting / receiving information for realizing the above function or by providing the first to fourth functions in a single device.

According to the present invention, it is possible to arbitrarily set and change the lower threshold value and monitoring time limit of the power consumption value of the facility, so that it can be changed according to the operation state such as the type and characteristics of the facility, the preliminary operation period or the remaining heat radiation time Standby power can be automatically and finely reduced. In particular, by appropriately setting the monitoring time limit, the inconvenience of shutting off the power supply by misinterpreting a standby period, such as a pre-operation period or a remaining heat release time, that is not in a standby state, as a standby state There is no.
Further, when the operation of the facility is resumed, a lower limit alarm or a power supply restoration process is performed by an input operation from the outside, and the facility can be operated quickly.
In general, according to the present invention, it is possible to automatically reduce the power consumed by the standby equipment, and to realize energy saving without taking time and effort.

It is a block diagram which shows 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is an internal block diagram of the apparatus A in FIG. It is a timing chart which shows the relationship between the power consumption value of the manufacturing facility in FIG. 1, a lower limit threshold value, a monitoring time limit, and a lower limit alarm. It is a block diagram which shows the modification of 1st Embodiment. It is a block diagram which shows 2nd Embodiment of this invention. It is a timing chart which shows operation of a 2nd embodiment. It is a schematic explanatory drawing of various production lines.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
First, FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention. In the first embodiment and the second embodiment to be described later, it is assumed that the standby power reduction target according to the present invention is a manufacturing facility for manufacturing various products. In this specification, the term “equipment” includes “apparatus” and “apparatus”.
In FIG. 1, 10 is a main circuit electromagnetic switch (MCCB) connected to the power source of the system, 20 is a control switch, 30 is a manufacturing facility for which standby power is to be reduced, and these main circuits are for convenience. It is displayed as a single line diagram.

Reference numeral 40 denotes a standby power reduction apparatus according to the present embodiment, which includes apparatuses A, B, C, and D.
The device A has a function of measuring the power (power consumption) of the manufacturing facility 30, and the device B has exceeded the predetermined monitoring time when the power consumption value measured by the device A is equal to or lower than the lower threshold value. In some cases, the device C has a function of outputting a lower limit alarm, and the device C receives an input operation (operation resumption command for the manufacturing facility 30 after power-off) and a lower limit alarm from the device B via the device D, which will be described later. 30 has a function of generating an output signal to the control switch 20 for turning on / off the power source 30. The device D has a function of accepting an operation resuming command input operation when the operation is resumed after the power of the manufacturing facility 30 is shut off. I have.

FIG. 2 shows an internal configuration of the device A in FIG. In FIG. 2, the main circuit is shown as a three-phase circuit, but depending on the power supply used by the manufacturing equipment 30, a three-phase three-wire system, a single-phase three-wire system, a single-phase two-wire system, and a three-phase four-wire system. Various main circuit configurations are conceivable.
The device A includes a voltage measuring unit A1 that measures a voltage detected by a voltage detector 51 such as an instrument transformer, a current measuring unit A2 that measures a current detected by a current detector 52 such as a current transformer, and the like. The power calculation means A3 for analyzing the voltage / current waveforms output from the measurement means A1 and A2 and calculating the power consumption of the manufacturing facility 30 from the respective effective values and phases, and the power consumption values as the calculation results are serialized. And communication means A4 for transmitting to the apparatus B by communication or the like.
In addition, you may input the voltage into voltage measurement means A1 directly, without using the voltage detector 51. FIG.

The device B in FIG. 1 periodically receives the power consumption value or the current consumption value calculated by the device A. This is because, in general, the voltage value does not change greatly even when the manufacturing facility is in a standby state, and thus power consumption can be monitored by simply monitoring only the current value. Hereinafter, the power consumption or the power consumption value calculated by the device A also corresponds to the case where the current consumption or the current consumption value is replaced.
The device B compares the power consumption value with the lower threshold value to determine whether the manufacturing facility 30 is in operation or standby based on the magnitude of the received power consumption value. Outputs a lower limit alarm when the time below the threshold value exceeds the monitoring time limit. These lower limit threshold and monitoring time can be arbitrarily set and changed according to the manufacturing facility 30.

FIG. 3 is a timing chart showing the relationship between the power consumption value of the manufacturing facility 30 calculated by the apparatus A, the lower limit threshold value in the apparatus B, the monitoring time limit, and the lower limit alarm.
The lower threshold is a value for determining whether the manufacturing facility is operating or on standby. Since the current consumption during operation and standby differs depending on the manufacturing facility, it is necessary to determine whether the manufacturing facility is operating / standby. It must be able to be set and changed arbitrarily.
Regarding the monitoring time limit, depending on the manufacturing equipment, it is considered that the power consumption may be less than the lower threshold for preheating time before operation, heat release time for remaining heat during the transition from operation to standby state, etc. Is set. That is, if the manufacturing equipment 30 is preheating or radiating residual heat and the power consumption is low, it is not a standby state even if it is not in an operating state, so these states are mistaken as standby. It is necessary to prevent an operation that shuts off the power supply of the manufacturing facility 30. Therefore, in the apparatus B, it is desirable to set the monitoring time period according to the operation state such as the type and characteristics of the equipment, the preliminary operation period or the remaining heat radiation time. For example, a method of setting the monitoring time period longer than the preliminary operation period of the manufacturing facility 30 or the remaining heat radiation time is effective.

  As described above, the lower limit alarm is turned ON when the time when the power consumption value of the manufacturing facility 30 is equal to or lower than the lower limit threshold exceeds the monitoring time limit, and is immediately turned OFF when the power consumption value exceeds the lower limit threshold. (Returns). Although not shown in FIG. 3, the control switch 20 is turned off by a signal output from the device C simultaneously with the occurrence of the lower limit alarm to shut off the power of the manufacturing facility 30, and the control switch 20 is turned on simultaneously with the return of the lower limit alarm. The power is supplied to the manufacturing facility 30 by turning on.

Apparatus B transmits a lower limit alarm toward apparatus C in FIG.
In addition, when the operation restart command for the manufacturing facility 30 is input from the outside via the device D while the device B is outputting the lower limit alarm, the device B has a function of returning the output lower limit alarm. As described above, since the control switch 20 is turned off via the device C due to the occurrence of the lower limit alarm and the power supply to the manufacturing facility 30 remains cut off, an operation restart command is input to the device D. This is because if the apparatus B continues to output the lower limit alarm after that, the operation of the manufacturing facility 30 cannot be resumed thereafter.

Note that once the lower limit alarm is restored by the device B, the control switch 20 is turned ON and power is supplied to the manufacturing facility 30 again. However, since the power consumption value is often small immediately after the power is turned on again, in apparatus B, the lower limit alarm is not generated again until the power consumption value from apparatus A exceeds the lower threshold value. power immediately after resuming operation is that to prevent from being blocked again.

The device C in FIG. 1 has a function of outputting a signal by a relay, a transistor, or the like. When a lower limit alarm is received from the device B, the control switch 20 is turned off so as to shut off the power supply of the manufacturing facility 30.
Normally, while the lower limit alarm is output from the device B, the device C keeps the control switch 20 in the OFF state by the output signal. However, if there is a means for maintaining the output state like the keep relay between the device C and the control switch 20, the device C does not need to always output a signal to the control switch 20, and the device C There is no problem even if a one-shot type signal is output.

According to this embodiment, the device C turns off the control switch 20 to cut off the power supply of the manufacturing facility 30, thereby reducing power loss during the standby of the manufacturing facility 30 and monitoring the lower limit ( By automatically performing the lower limit alarm output by comparing the power consumption value with the lower limit threshold value) and automatically turning on / off the control switch 20, it is possible to reduce standby power that has been missed until now. Can do.
Furthermore, as described above, by locking the generation of the lower limit alarm for a certain period when the operation resumption command is input, it becomes possible to resume the power supply to the manufacturing facility 30 in accordance with the operation resumption operation.

The apparatus D is used to return the manufacturing facility 30 whose power is cut off to the operating state again. This device D is constituted by an input device such as a command switch or a key switch, for example, and a signal generated from the device D by an artificial input operation is sent to the device B.
After receiving the signal from the device D and returning the lower limit alarm, the device B starts the lower limit monitoring, and further notifies the device C that the lower limit alarm has been restored.
In response to the return of the lower limit alarm, the device C inverts the output signal that had previously turned off the control switch 20 and turns on the control switch 20. As a result, power is again supplied to the manufacturing facility 30 and the operation state is shifted to.

  In the first embodiment of FIG. 1, communication is performed in the order of device D → device B → device C to return the lower limit alarm and control the control switch 20, as shown in FIG. 4 (a). is there. As a modified example, as shown in FIG. 4B, the order of communication is set as device D → device C → device B, and the return of the lower limit alarm in device B and control of the control switch 20 are simultaneously performed by the output signal of device C. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 4C, the communication sequence may be changed from device D to device B and device C, and the return of the lower limit alarm and control of the control switch 20 may be performed simultaneously by the output signal of device D.

Next, FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention.
The second embodiment is an example in which the standby power reduction device 41 is configured by realizing the function of the standby power reduction device 40 (the function of the devices A to D) in the first embodiment by a single device E. In addition, the code | symbol 21 in FIG. 5 has shown another switch for performing input operation corresponded to input operation to the apparatus D mentioned above.
Although not shown, the standby power reduction device may be configured by distributing the functions of the devices A to D in the first embodiment to two or three devices.
Further, the functions of the devices A to D can be realized by a control device such as software on a personal computer or a programmable controller.

FIG. 6 is a timing chart showing an example of the operation of the second embodiment shown in FIG.
In FIG. 6, the power consumption value of the manufacturing facility 30 falls below the lower threshold during standby operation and standby, and when the monitoring time limit elapses, the lower limit alarm is generated and the control switch 20 is turned off. The power is turned off. Thereafter, the lower limit alarm is reset in conjunction with the ON of the separate switch 21 in FIG. 5 and the control switch 20 is turned ON to restart the power supply to the manufacturing facility 30.
The shaded portion of the power consumption value in FIG. 6 is the power consumption reduction portion according to the present invention.

  The present invention can be applied not only to manufacturing facilities but also to various facilities, apparatuses, and devices that require reduction of standby power from the viewpoint of energy saving. In addition, a usage form in which the standby power reduction apparatus according to the present invention is mounted on a part of the power monitoring apparatus is also effective.

10: Main circuit electromagnetic switch 20: Control switch 21: Separate switch 30: Manufacturing equipment 40, 41: Standby power reduction device 51: Voltage detector 52: Current detector A, B, C, D, E: Device A1: Current measurement means A2: Voltage measurement means A3: Power calculation means A4: Communication means

Claims (4)

In the apparatus for reducing the standby power of the facility that consumes standby power when not in operation,
A first function of measuring the power consumption of the facility;
A second function for determining that a state in which the power consumption value measured by the first function is equal to or lower than a lower threshold exceeds a monitoring time limit and generating a lower alarm;
A third function for shutting off the power supply of the facility when the lower limit alarm is generated by the second function;
After blocking the power supply by the third function, when turned on again the power of the equipment by returning the low alarm is operated resuming instruction from the external input, the power consumption value is the lower limit until excessive electrical threshold and a fourth function for not generating said lower limit alarm,
The standby power reduction device characterized in that the lower threshold and the monitoring time can be arbitrarily set and changed. In the standby power reduction device according to claim 1,
The lower limit threshold is set between a power consumption value during operation of the facility and a standby power value during non-operation, and the monitoring time period is set to be less than the preliminary operation period or the remaining heat radiation time of the facility. A standby power reduction device characterized by being set for a long time. In the standby power reduction device according to claim 1 or 2,
Standby power characterized in that the first to fourth functions are distributed among a plurality of devices, and information for realizing the first to fourth functions is transmitted and received between the plurality of devices. Reduction device. In the standby power reduction device according to claim 1 or 2,
A standby power reduction device, wherein the first to fourth functions are provided in a single device.

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