1.Project Background:

One of our system integrator customers in UAE want a entire Online Energy Monitoring Solution (mainly of electricity) for their 10kV office building modification project in early stage and hope Acrel could offer hardware devices with MQTT protocol to be integrate with their own Building Energy Monitoring System in late stage.

Early Stage Plan

Late Stage Plan

2.Building Power System Overview:

The building is using a typical power system of 10kV (3-phase)→415Vac L-L (3-phase)→ 230Vac L-N (1-phase) in UAE. Most of incoming circuits&outgoing circuits 3-phase will be of centralized monitoring in a single Main DB (Distribution Board) room. A few outgoing circuits 3-phase are located in several places which were far from each other. Outgoing circuits 1-phase on the other hand will be of separate monitoring in separate floors (Each floor has 1 single floor DB with all the 1-phase circuits in it which will power supply this entire floor). 

Power System Illustration

3.Work-site Network Condition:

Both WiFi (2.4GHz) and 4G (LTE) will be available on work-site DB. Customers hope Acrel could set 2 early stage plan based on these two communication methods and test them to see which one could be more stable on work site.

4.FAQ for Main Technical Request:

[1]. Entire online energy monitoring solution for 10kV office buildings

- We can provide entire solution from system software to energy meter and IoT gateway hardware.

[2]. All incoming circuits&outgoing circuits 3-phase and outgoing circuits 1-phase need to be monitor by separate energy meters. Prefer high-class panel energy meter for monitoring 3-phase incoming circuits and economic DIN rail energy meter for monitoring all the outgoing circuits 3-phase and 1-phase.

- Select APM8xx Series High-class 3-phase panel energy meter for monitoring incoming circuits 3-phase.

- Select ADL400 3-phase DIN Rail Energy Meter and ADW300 3-phase Wireless DIN Rail Energy Meter for monitoring outgoing circuits 3-phase.

- Select ADL200 1-phase DIN Rail Energy Meter for monitoring outgoing circuits 1-phase.

[3]. Rated current and cable/busbar size of all the circuits we need to monitor are shown in the electricity distribution diagram attached. [Secret]

- According to the cable/busbar size and rated current of all circuits that we need to monitor, we will select energy meter via either direct connect for current input or via CTs for current input. The selected CTs specs is according to the cable/busbar size and rated current of all the 3-phase circuits that we need to monitor.

[4]. All common electricity data like kwh, current, voltage and etc could be checked on both user’s mobiles phones, PCs and on work-site energy meters.

- All these electricity data could be collected by our energy meter and be sent to our IoT Energy Monitoring System by using IoT gateway or built-in wireless communication module in our wireless energy meter.

[5]. Due to modification project, most Current Transformer (CT) need to be split-core CT for easy installation.

- AKH-0.66/K K-φ Series Split-core Current transformer will be suitable for such modification project while paired with 3-phase energy meter whose current input is via CTs.

[6]. WiFi or 4G should be the final data upstream methods, and only limited wired communication is allowed.

- Since for the most part of the project, the meter will be of centralized installation in the Main DB room and floor DB. So, for each place that we gonna centralize the installation of the meter, we will set a IoT gateway so that the wired communication of RS485 between gateway and energy meter could be as short as possible.

[7].There are several outgoing circuits 3-phase not located in main DB room, they are located in separate places which were far from each other but also need to be monitored.

- We will use ADW300 3-phase Wireless Energy Meter for monitoring these separate circuits 3-phase because the combination of IoT gateway and RS485 energy meter won’t be that economic for monitoring separate circuits. 

5.Solution Overview:

From a project stage perspective, overall solution can be divided into early-stage solution and late-stage solution. The aim of early-stage solution was to test the stability and feasibility of Acrel’s entire Energy Monitoring Solution based on 4G&WiFi communication in UAE office buildings. The aim of late-stage solution was to finish this entire modification project and integrate Acrel hardware products into third party’s Building Energy Monitoring System of our system integrator customers.

From a solution technical perspective, overall solution could be divided into 4G cloud solution and WiFi cloud solution. The aim of these two different solution sets was to test which kind of communication could work more stable and economic in budget. (Usually, WiFi is more economic but request stable WiFi signal at the places that we gonna install the energy meters and IoT gateways). Also, one of the reason why use cloud not local server is because Ethernet wasn’t really available for this modification project since work site doesn’t allow much rewiring to create Ethernet network condition in DB room. And the other reason is we usually use Ethernet as final upstream communication to be paired with local server to insure the stability of whole system. 4G and WiFi wasn’t really compatible for local server.

- Cloud Solution Structure

7.Conclusion

This project was divied into early test phase and late final stage and our partnet is system integrator. Yet no matter which phase we are in, to understand the technical request and business request from our partner is always No.1 priority. A complete and clear technical request from the discussion with our customers will lead to a clear solution set by us. Once the solution and quotation were approved by our customers, we can formally step into the pilot project and finish the rest of it.