ABB has launched the world’s first low-voltage breaker to be used for energy management and smart grid communications
Emax 2 is the first low-voltage circuit breaker with integrated energy management functions. It is intended for use where protection and control of large amounts of energy are used in a low-voltage environment like industrial and commercial buildings, data centers or ships.
According to ABB, replacing existing traditional breakers with the Emax 2 breaker has the potential to achieve annual savings of 5.8 million megawatt-hours (MWh), providing a typical ROI of one year.
The breaker contains a protection trip relay with an integrated power controller that measures and evaluates energy consumption, then manages the loads to maintain or reduce the peak power usage as determined by the user. This will also help prevent blackouts since the root cause is often peak demand exceeding supply.
To manage energy, the electricity supply to non-essential equipment is switched off and back on again as soon as acceptable power levels are reached. Intelligent decision making is achieved by a built in controller and software that uses complex algorithms to decide when it is appropriate to switch the power while maintaining the overall functionality or productivity of the connected equipment.
The breaker also has a communication module that allows it to share vital consumption and system reliability data directly with smart grid and other protocols.
ABB says breakers provide one of the largest untapped opportunities in the electric system to achieve energy savings. Due to the number of breakers used in buildings and industry, the total energy savings potential is massive.