GE Industrial Solutions POWER LEADER PMCS Network Architecture Guide - Manual (Page 11)

Power Management Control System
Preface
1
Welcome to PMCS!
Hello and welcome to POWER LEADER Power
Management Control System (PMCS). You are about to
begin using your computer in an exciting new way: as a
tool to help you increase productivity and reduce
downtime and energy costs through power management.
What is Power Management?
Inside every switchgear lineup, switchboard, panelboard,
and motor control center flows a vast amount of
information that can save and even make you money. The
data is in the form of power (volts, amperes, and their
time-dependent waveforms) that passes through the
equipment every second of every hour of every day. With
the proper IEDs, you can selectively access this wealth of
information and use it to become more efficient and more
productive. Your power distribution equipment can go
beyond its fundamental protection role to become a profit-
generating asset. This is what power management systems
are all about.
Benefits of Power Management
A power management system provides the tools to control
energy costs, minimize downtime and outages, and
optimize operation to increase productivity. With such a
system in place, you can benefit from:
Less downtime – Identify and correct problems before
they lead to loss of power and/or costly damage to
loads such as production equipment and computers.
Reduced energy costs – Find ways to conserve power,
correct billing errors, reduce peak usage surcharges,
and leverage interruptible rates.
Improved predictive maintenance – Identify simple
maintenance tasks so you can make scheduled
corrections before they become problems.
Faster corrective maintenance – Quickly pinpoint the
root causes of problems using tools such as time-
tagged alarms, sequence of events logs, and triggered
waveform capture conditions.
Increased safety – Provide a centralized source of
information, reducing the need for physical contact
with equipment and shop-floor or sub-station
presence.
Higher productivity – Free up maintenance and repair
personnel to perform other needed duties.
Improved power quality – Identify sources of “dirty”
power, otherwise invisible, and take corrective action
to save wear, tear, and possible damage to critical
production equipment and other loads.
It should come as no surprise that approximately half of all
switchgear is now shipped with power management
features. What began as an option is fast becoming an
absolute necessity for efficient facility management and
increased profitability.
What is PMCS?
PMCS is the latest Power Management Control software
from GE Industrial Systems’ robust line of POWER
LEADER power management products. PMCS seamlessly
integrates with the comprehensive family of POWER
LEADER IEDs as well as with many new Modbus RTU and
Ethernet IEDs and systems.
The Power Management Control System supplies the
power-system information you need to optimize usage and
minimize power cost and downtime.
Its state-of-the-art graphical interface is easy to use, with
the ability to view systems from both the physical and
electrical perspectives. Additional features include:
• Viewing metering information at remote locations.
• Historical trending of any metered data.
• Tracking the status of protective and metering IEDs.
• Alarm and event management.
• Report generation.
• Waveform capture and analysis.
• Remote control of IEDs.
• Remote configuration of IEDs.
• Interaction with Cost Allocation software to provide
facility energy and demand data.
The Power Management Control System accomplishes
these tasks through a network of attached IEDs that serve
to protect equipment and collect and transmit data.
These IEDs include trip units, metering IEDs, protective
relaying IEDs, and others. They communicate on either
the POWER LEADER communication network
(commnet), Modbus RTU communications protocols, OR
Ethernet to transmit data to the PMCS software.
You can operate PMCS software from either a PC running
directly on the Modbus platform or from a PC connected
to an Ethernet network, which is linked to the Modbus
network via the POWER LEADER Ethernet Gateway.
(Some devices, such as the EPM 7700, communicate
directly over an Ethernet network and do not require an
Ethernet Gateway.)