Energy efficiency analysis modelling system for manufacturing in the context of industry 4.0

Abstract Emerging rise in power costs and sustainability of the available energy has prompted industries to seek alternative solutions that could address energy consumption as the second highest contributor to business expenditure compared to salaries and rentals. Regrettably, numerous industries are still reluctant to benefit from the opportunities that exist on energy saving and consciousness, due to inadequate knowledge on energy management, resources and tools to monitor the losses. Based on these facts, this paper proposed the Energy Efficiency Analysis Modelling System (EEAMS) as a tool to provide an estimate of energy costs using rail car manufacturing plant load profiles as a case study, to provide consumer-oriented analysis to produce first-cut energy efficient program baseline costs. Furthermore, the exploration of energy efficiency baseline may benefit the life cycle cost of the overall proposed facility through energy efficient means of production, and continuous improvement practises in big data analytics towards reduction of energy costs significantly through integration of energy efficiency software (EES). To achieve this, a bottom-up approach methodology was adopted, using information on energy cost as a baseline to allow centralisation and cloud hosting of data through a web-based interacting energy efficiency sustainability framework platform, to determine the economic impacts of energy measurement and verification on energy consumption and environment. Minimum Efficiency Performance Standards established to provide opportunities for the support of the rail car manufacturing company to prepare themselves for the issuing of certificates for energy management (ISO50001).