At the recent Hannover Fair, Sercos International announced the development of an energy profile for the Sercos III real-time Ethernet communication system.

Sercos Energy is intended to reduce energy consumption in three ways:
♦  it reduces the permanent load when a motor or machine is at a standstill;
♦  it adjusts consumption dynamically according to target completion times and dates (partial load operation); and
♦  it saves energy during processing by switching off components that are not needed at a particular time or point in the process (partial machine operation).

Sercos Energy is an application layer profile that defines parameters for cutting energy consumption in a uniform and vendor-independent way. The controller reads standard parameters of each Sercos Energy component via the Sercos III network, receiving status information and detailed consumption values. Depending on the situation – for example, whether there are scheduled or unscheduled breaks, or if machine components are not needed in the current production process – the controller can switch components such as drives, I/O and sensors, into energy-saving modes (up to a complete shut-down), in a targeted manner. 

“The energy profile is an important complement to the existing Sercos profiles and proves the claim of Sercos to be an open and complete real-time interface for machine and plant manufacture,” declares Peter Lutz, managing director of Sercos International.  “Sercos III – the only communication system in production with Sercos Energy – offers the potential for energy saving in combination with full productivity.“

A working group consisting of several member companies of Sercos International has worked out a concept and a first draft of the energy profile specification. The final specification is expected to be released in June 2010.

Sercos (SErial Realtime COmmunication System) is a digital interface for communications between controls, drives and decentralised peripheral devices. It has been used in machine engineering for more than 20 years and implemented in more than 2.5 million real-time nodes. With its open, manufacturer-independent, Ethernet-based architecture, Sercos III is intended to be a universal bus for all automation applications.