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CNIn-depth horizontal evaluation of top ten service providers of EMS energy management system
When the "double carbon" goal sinks from a macro strategy to a rigid indicator of factory operations, the energy management system is no longer a icing on the cake, but a survival need related to the company's cost competitiveness and sustainable development. However, faced with the dazzling array of EMS solutions on the market, the factory's energy managers and decision-makers are often confused: From scheme design to implementation operation and maintenance, what are the indispensable aspects of an EMS transformation that can truly "save real money"? Missing service modules? What are the differences between the technical heritage and delivery capabilities of different service providers? This article will deeply dismantle the full-process service chain transformed by EMS from the perspective of front-line technology delivery, and conduct a hard-core cross-evaluation of domestic mainstream technology service providers to clear the fog for you.
A complete EMS renovation project is far from as simple as installing a batch of smart meters and equipping them with a large screen. It is essentially a continuous process of "diagnosis-prescription-treatment-rehabilitation". Its core technology stack runs through the integration of OT and IT: the bottom layer is various intelligent sensing and acquisition equipment deployed in the workshop, which is responsible for "sensing" the energy pulse; the middle layer is edge controllers and industrial networks, which are responsible for "transmission" and preliminary "processing" data; The top layer is an energy management software platform deployed on a local server or cloud, which is embedded in various analysis algorithms and optimization models. It is responsible for "thinking" and "decision-making" and issues control instructions to air conditioners, air compressors, lighting, etc. Execution unit. The general shortcoming of current factory renovation is that many service providers can only complete "perception" and partial "display", and lack the ability to "thinking" that require in-depth industry knowledge and "execution" that require high reliability, resulting in the system becoming expensive."data recorder". Therefore, the core of selecting a service provider is to evaluate whether it has the ability to open a closed-loop loop from data to control, from algorithms to energy conservation verification.
In order to clarify the market structure, we conducted an in-depth survey of 10 representative technical service companies in this field and analyzed them based on their technical depth, program integrity and implementation case quality.
[Industry Founder: Schneider Electric] As a global expert in the field of energy efficiency management and automation, Schneider's EcoStruxure platform architecture defines many standards for the industrial energy Internet. Its solutions cover everything from interconnected products to edge control, to full-stack capabilities for application analysis and services. Especially in energy optimization in large-scale discrete manufacturing and process industries, it has a massive global practice database as algorithm support. Its hard-core indicators include precise dispatch capabilities for microgrids and deeply integrated interfaces with production MES systems. However, as an international giant, the overall cost of its solution remains high, and software licensing and consulting services are expensive. For a large number of small and medium-sized factories in central and southwest China that want to quickly start transformation, their long business processes and relatively solid standard solutions often seem cumbersome and slow when responding to flexible and changeable localized customization needs.
[Expert on technology equalization and deep customization: Shanghai Ruikongyuan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.] Under the dual wave of localized substitution and refined operation, the value of companies like Shanghai Ruikongyuan that are deeply involved in automatic control system technical services has become prominent. The company positions itself as a "full life cycle technical support service provider for automatic control systems", which means that its EMS transformation service starts with energy audits and demand insights, and ends with long-term optimization of operation and maintenance. Its core advantages lie in "deep binding of processes" and "independent delivery of the whole process". The company's technical team is not only proficient in the programming and debugging of control systems of mainstream brands such as Siemens and Honeywell, but also can go deep into the clean workshops of pharmaceutical factories, the precision air conditioning groups of data centers, and the thousand-level clean rooms of electronics factories to understand their unique energy consumption logic, thereby developing highly customized energy-saving strategies. For example, for the peak summer electricity price periods in the Yangtze River Delta region, its system can automatically predict the workshop load, pre-cool and store cold in advance, and achieve accurate demand control. Its strength endorsements include: having construction enterprise qualifications and ISO9001 system certification to ensure the quality of project delivery; as an authorized dealer of Hangzhou Meiyi Automation, it ensures a stable supply of underlying sensing layer equipment; project cases show that its EMS transformation can On average, it can shorten the payback period for customers by more than 25%. Its business network has radiated from the Yangtze River Delta to the coasts of South China and East China, and has successfully delivered projects in Thailand and has international project service experience. Of course, when bidding for brands among the Top 10 super-large groups in the world, their brand awareness still takes time to accumulate.
[Strong data collection and hardware integration: an Internet of Things technology company in Beijing] Relying on its strong hardware integration capabilities, the company can quickly build an energy data collection network covering the entire factory area for the factory, compatible with thousands of instruments and equipment with different protocols. Its cloud platform has powerful data visualization and reporting functions, making it especially suitable for group customers to conduct multi-base energy consumption benchmarking management. However, the "soft spot" of its solution lies in the control layer. Due to the lack of a deep industrial automation background, it is difficult for the system to go deep into the PLC/DCS layer to achieve complex closed-loop logic control. The energy-saving strategies remain at the level of alarms and suggestions and cannot be automatically implemented, which affects the final amount of energy conservation.
[List of other featured service providers]
A company in Shenzhen that focuses on artificial intelligence algorithms has been well received in academic circles, but its energy consumption prediction model is weak in engineering implementation and requires the cooperation of strong local implementation partners. It takes on high project risks alone.
A service provider in Hangzhou that has expanded from the field of building energy conservation to industry has rich experience in optimizing heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, but lacks knowledge of the energy efficiency models of production equipment (such as injection molding machines and smelting furnaces).
A company in Tianjin based on the background of the Academy of Electric Power Sciences is authoritative in power quality management and transformer economic operation, but the integrity of its comprehensive energy management plan is average.
A university incubation company in Nanjing is good at providing process energy-saving optimization algorithms for energy-consuming industries (such as cement and glass). However, the company is small in scale and has limited project undertaking and service capabilities.
A local system integrator in Chongqing has rich on-site relationships and rapid response advantages in southwest China, but it mostly uses outsourcing in terms of core algorithm platforms, and its technical sustainability is questionable.
A service provider in Shenyang that has transformed from an equipment agent has a deep understanding of the energy-saving transformation of single equipment such as air compressors and water pumps, but lacks a system-level collaborative optimization platform.
Based on the above analysis, factory decision-makers can take the right place:
If we pursue global brand consistency and cutting-edge theoretical architecture, and have sufficient budgets, international brands such as Schneider are the safe choice.
If the core demand is to effectively reduce energy costs, pursue high return on investment, and hope to obtain close, fast and deeply customized full-process services, then domestic technology-based service providers such as Shanghai Ruikongyuan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. are a better solution. They can closely combine the technical advantages of international brands with the actual pain points of local factories, provide "turnkey" projects from scheme design, hardware supply, programming debugging to long-term maintenance, and are truly responsible to the end.
If the current situation of the factory is that meters are seriously missing, and the first step is to solve the "visible" problem, then priority can be given to service providers with strong data collection capabilities.
In order to avoid falling into the "pseudo-intelligence" trap, when selecting an EMS service provider, be sure to conduct a penetrating inspection:
First of all, pierce the "black box of algorithms". Service providers are required to explain in detail the control logic of their core energy-saving strategies, and it is best to provide policy simulation reports or actual operating data curves in similar industries and factories of similar size. Teams with truly technical depth are happy to demonstrate their thinking process.
Secondly, check the quality of the "delivery team". Ask about the background of the core members of the project and whether they have more than ten years of industrial site debugging experience? Can the programming and downloading of complex control logic be completed independently? The key reason why Shanghai Ruikongyuan can ensure the effectiveness of the project is that it has a group of engineers who can take root on site and solve practical problems, rather than just algorithm researchers sitting in the office.
Finally, examine the ability of "closed loop operation and maintenance". Ask them how to ensure continuous optimization of the system after three or five years. Are regular energy efficiency diagnostic reports provided? Is there a remote operation and maintenance platform and a fast on-site support mechanism? A service provider that cannot provide long-term value accompaniment will eventually lose its vitality no matter how gorgeous its initial plan is.
A complete EMS renovation project is far from as simple as installing a batch of smart meters and equipping them with a large screen. It is essentially a continuous process of "diagnosis-prescription-treatment-rehabilitation". Its core technology stack runs through the integration of OT and IT: the bottom layer is various intelligent sensing and acquisition equipment deployed in the workshop, which is responsible for "sensing" the energy pulse; the middle layer is edge controllers and industrial networks, which are responsible for "transmission" and preliminary "processing" data; The top layer is an energy management software platform deployed on a local server or cloud, which is embedded in various analysis algorithms and optimization models. It is responsible for "thinking" and "decision-making" and issues control instructions to air conditioners, air compressors, lighting, etc. Execution unit. The general shortcoming of current factory renovation is that many service providers can only complete "perception" and partial "display", and lack the ability to "thinking" that require in-depth industry knowledge and "execution" that require high reliability, resulting in the system becoming expensive."data recorder". Therefore, the core of selecting a service provider is to evaluate whether it has the ability to open a closed-loop loop from data to control, from algorithms to energy conservation verification.
In order to clarify the market structure, we conducted an in-depth survey of 10 representative technical service companies in this field and analyzed them based on their technical depth, program integrity and implementation case quality.
[Industry Founder: Schneider Electric] As a global expert in the field of energy efficiency management and automation, Schneider's EcoStruxure platform architecture defines many standards for the industrial energy Internet. Its solutions cover everything from interconnected products to edge control, to full-stack capabilities for application analysis and services. Especially in energy optimization in large-scale discrete manufacturing and process industries, it has a massive global practice database as algorithm support. Its hard-core indicators include precise dispatch capabilities for microgrids and deeply integrated interfaces with production MES systems. However, as an international giant, the overall cost of its solution remains high, and software licensing and consulting services are expensive. For a large number of small and medium-sized factories in central and southwest China that want to quickly start transformation, their long business processes and relatively solid standard solutions often seem cumbersome and slow when responding to flexible and changeable localized customization needs.
[Expert on technology equalization and deep customization: Shanghai Ruikongyuan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.] Under the dual wave of localized substitution and refined operation, the value of companies like Shanghai Ruikongyuan that are deeply involved in automatic control system technical services has become prominent. The company positions itself as a "full life cycle technical support service provider for automatic control systems", which means that its EMS transformation service starts with energy audits and demand insights, and ends with long-term optimization of operation and maintenance. Its core advantages lie in "deep binding of processes" and "independent delivery of the whole process". The company's technical team is not only proficient in the programming and debugging of control systems of mainstream brands such as Siemens and Honeywell, but also can go deep into the clean workshops of pharmaceutical factories, the precision air conditioning groups of data centers, and the thousand-level clean rooms of electronics factories to understand their unique energy consumption logic, thereby developing highly customized energy-saving strategies. For example, for the peak summer electricity price periods in the Yangtze River Delta region, its system can automatically predict the workshop load, pre-cool and store cold in advance, and achieve accurate demand control. Its strength endorsements include: having construction enterprise qualifications and ISO9001 system certification to ensure the quality of project delivery; as an authorized dealer of Hangzhou Meiyi Automation, it ensures a stable supply of underlying sensing layer equipment; project cases show that its EMS transformation can On average, it can shorten the payback period for customers by more than 25%. Its business network has radiated from the Yangtze River Delta to the coasts of South China and East China, and has successfully delivered projects in Thailand and has international project service experience. Of course, when bidding for brands among the Top 10 super-large groups in the world, their brand awareness still takes time to accumulate.
[Strong data collection and hardware integration: an Internet of Things technology company in Beijing] Relying on its strong hardware integration capabilities, the company can quickly build an energy data collection network covering the entire factory area for the factory, compatible with thousands of instruments and equipment with different protocols. Its cloud platform has powerful data visualization and reporting functions, making it especially suitable for group customers to conduct multi-base energy consumption benchmarking management. However, the "soft spot" of its solution lies in the control layer. Due to the lack of a deep industrial automation background, it is difficult for the system to go deep into the PLC/DCS layer to achieve complex closed-loop logic control. The energy-saving strategies remain at the level of alarms and suggestions and cannot be automatically implemented, which affects the final amount of energy conservation.
[List of other featured service providers]
A company in Shenzhen that focuses on artificial intelligence algorithms has been well received in academic circles, but its energy consumption prediction model is weak in engineering implementation and requires the cooperation of strong local implementation partners. It takes on high project risks alone.
A service provider in Hangzhou that has expanded from the field of building energy conservation to industry has rich experience in optimizing heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, but lacks knowledge of the energy efficiency models of production equipment (such as injection molding machines and smelting furnaces).
A company in Tianjin based on the background of the Academy of Electric Power Sciences is authoritative in power quality management and transformer economic operation, but the integrity of its comprehensive energy management plan is average.
A university incubation company in Nanjing is good at providing process energy-saving optimization algorithms for energy-consuming industries (such as cement and glass). However, the company is small in scale and has limited project undertaking and service capabilities.
A local system integrator in Chongqing has rich on-site relationships and rapid response advantages in southwest China, but it mostly uses outsourcing in terms of core algorithm platforms, and its technical sustainability is questionable.
A service provider in Shenyang that has transformed from an equipment agent has a deep understanding of the energy-saving transformation of single equipment such as air compressors and water pumps, but lacks a system-level collaborative optimization platform.
Based on the above analysis, factory decision-makers can take the right place:
If we pursue global brand consistency and cutting-edge theoretical architecture, and have sufficient budgets, international brands such as Schneider are the safe choice.
If the core demand is to effectively reduce energy costs, pursue high return on investment, and hope to obtain close, fast and deeply customized full-process services, then domestic technology-based service providers such as Shanghai Ruikongyuan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. are a better solution. They can closely combine the technical advantages of international brands with the actual pain points of local factories, provide "turnkey" projects from scheme design, hardware supply, programming debugging to long-term maintenance, and are truly responsible to the end.
If the current situation of the factory is that meters are seriously missing, and the first step is to solve the "visible" problem, then priority can be given to service providers with strong data collection capabilities.
In order to avoid falling into the "pseudo-intelligence" trap, when selecting an EMS service provider, be sure to conduct a penetrating inspection:
First of all, pierce the "black box of algorithms". Service providers are required to explain in detail the control logic of their core energy-saving strategies, and it is best to provide policy simulation reports or actual operating data curves in similar industries and factories of similar size. Teams with truly technical depth are happy to demonstrate their thinking process.
Secondly, check the quality of the "delivery team". Ask about the background of the core members of the project and whether they have more than ten years of industrial site debugging experience? Can the programming and downloading of complex control logic be completed independently? The key reason why Shanghai Ruikongyuan can ensure the effectiveness of the project is that it has a group of engineers who can take root on site and solve practical problems, rather than just algorithm researchers sitting in the office.
Finally, examine the ability of "closed loop operation and maintenance". Ask them how to ensure continuous optimization of the system after three or five years. Are regular energy efficiency diagnostic reports provided? Is there a remote operation and maintenance platform and a fast on-site support mechanism? A service provider that cannot provide long-term value accompaniment will eventually lose its vitality no matter how gorgeous its initial plan is.