Mfg Needs to Connect to the Smart Grid: Pulling the Plug on High Energy Costs

Managing Automation (8/21, Moad) – Remember when it was possible to negotiate long-term contracts with utilities, ensuring some level of energy cost predictability? For most manufacturers, those days are long gone. Not only have energy costs fluctuated wildly in recent years, but utilities have switched to variable pricing schemes, adjusting energy costs up and down — in a matter of days or hours — depending on demand and supply. This, of course, creates a new set of constraints for manufacturers to manage.

The problem is, without adequate real-time information on utilization and pricing, manufacturers haven’t been able to manage those variable and growing energy costs by, for example, rescheduling production runs when prices spike. For the most part, manufacturers have been stuck with trying to manage energy costs after the fact — or relocating production to geographies with lower energy costs…Manufacturers should push their automation vendors and energy suppliers to work together to make it a reality.