India expected to grow at fastest CAGR for digital panel meters: ABB

Digitalization is changing the way energy is managed, from the integration of renewables into smart grids, up to the emerging demand for smart buildings. Detailed metering and monitoring of the entire electrical system is essential in order to achieve maximum energy efficiency. New and coming standards require high-accuracy monitoring of all electrical parameters and power quality in many acquisition points.

ABB smart solutions for metering and monitoring are flexible and grant a 7% improvement in energy efficiency, ensuring access to LEED certifications, and allowing a payback time of less than 3 years.

Here, Himanshu Tangri, Division Head, Smart Buildings, ABB, tells us more. Excerpts from an interview:

DQ: Elaborate on the smart metering solutions for efficient energy management for India.

Himanshu Tangri: One of the biggest challenges in business applications is energy management. This is because energy has a great impact on the cost of operations. To ensure optimal energy efficiency, ABB India has launched a new range of electrical measuring and power monitoring meters for the electrical market with its latest addition of smart solutions in metering and energy monitoring are flexible and enables users to make better choices about their power consumption.

The M1M11, M1M DS, M1M 20B, and M1M 30B cover the main submetering easily and cost-effectively by powering quality monitoring requirements inside power factor correction boards, motor control centers or sub-distribution switchboards of commercial and industrial buildings.

The emerging panel meter market, and our introduction of new range of meters offers a huge potential for customers to better manage energy performance across industries. Thanks to their connectivity capabilities, M1M can now leverage on the integration in ABB’s Ability Energy and Asset Manager cloud-computing platform to monitor, optimize, and control the complete electrical system.

DQ: How does ABB see the digital panel meter growing in India?

Himanshu Tangri: As technology continues to advance, global markets will get faster and more convenient. This growth provides a golden opportunity for digital panel meters. Globally, the market for digital panel meters is expected to grow over by the end of the forecast period. Data center and health care segments will have high potential where energy monitoring and management is a mandatory requirement to ensure continuity of supply.

Digital panel meters provide a visual display that shows you the required measurement based on your input. Apart from the unit count of voltage, these meters can measure time, pressure, vibration, etc., which is unlike analog meters. With their accuracy and ease of reading, digital panel meters are steadily replacing analog panel meters. As a result, their market size is expanding on a global scale.

India is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR when it comes to digital panel meters owing to the advancements in technology in this market and companies' interest in supplying these products to customers.

DQ: Do the solutions cover low-, medium-, and high-voltage apps? Across which areas specifically?

Himanshu Tangri: Yes, connecting meters through the CTs and PTs, it is possible to measure the energy parameters across low, medium and high voltage applications. ABB’s portfolio suits from residential, commercial and industrials, enabling electrical installers, building owners, facility, and energy managers to collect and visualize their data – both on-site and remotely.

This demonstrates optimum energy consumption and allocation, continuous operations, and simplified maintenance. The benefits of connectivity and data availability can result in considerable saving.

DQ: What are the advanced power quality parameters that can be measured?

Himanshu Tangri: ABB’s network analyzers provides basic and advanced power quality measurements, which includes THD, individual harmonics up to 40th harmonics, unbalances, neutral current measurement, phasors, waveforms, etc. These parameters add value to facility management or the end user to understand and improve the power quality of the installation which leads to energy efficiency.

Better access to information about consumption and improvement opportunities makes cutting waste and improving energy efficiency simple. Consumers also benefit from lower energy bills and reductions in unplanned downtime.

DQ: What are ABB's plans moving forward?

Himanshu Tangri: With digitization, the world of energy distribution is becoming safer, smarter, and more sustainable. A fundamental aspect of this is that technology is making it easier to collect useful data and to use it for analysis. By using connectivity-based solutions, resources and process behaviors can be better understood, allowing for cost control and asset management to be optimized.

ABB continues to invest in the energy efficiency portfolio to focus on high-end network analyzers and a more growth driven market.