The ABB Ability Asset Manager is at the forefront of asset management for the electrification portfolio. What does it mean for electricians?

Homer Simpson is not the perfect model of safety, everyone knows that. If he was in charge of an electrical portfolio today instead of Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, it wouldn’t go too well.

However, if you give him ABB’s new asset management solution, he’d still be the lazy, sleep-on-the-job, donut-eating Homer, but he’d be fooling himself if he didn’t think he had less power over what’s in front of him.

The ABB Ability Asset Manager would make it too easy for him not to understand all that’s happening, what condition each component is in and while the comedy element of the show might take a hit, he’d be alerted ahead of time when a component or the entire system is about to go down.

The average cost of downtime to a data centre is $740,000. That’s a lot of money and while sometimes the world gets in the way and things are inevitable, sometimes they’re not, ABB Ability helps to minimise the latter scenarios.

Using ABB’s asset management technology, users can have a complete view of their entire electrical system to see how components are performing, what areas need maintenance and so on.

By constantly collecting data across medium- and low-voltage switchgear and circuit breakers, it gives users a more complete overview of how their system is performing. With this additional information, electrical professionals can replace regular scheduled maintenance with reactive condition-based maintenance, predicting equipment faults before they happen.

The software-as-a-service solution sets new benchmarks and gives asset managers and electrical professionals a plethora of information which helps them complete the tasks at hand, save time and resources, and streamline their work.

“It’s a combination of software, platform and physical hardware devices, sometimes called field devices,” ABB product and market development manager for digital transformation Milad Mostowfivala explains.

“The idea is being able to digitally monitor the situation of these field devices across a plant or a network or an existing building. Being able to provide that information back in real-time.”

It builds on the functionalities of the past solutions: ABB Ability EDCS and ABB Ability Asset Health for Electrical systems MyRemoteCare.

The Ability EDCS is a cloud-computing platform which aims to save energy by analysing power usage. MyRemoteCare lets users continuously monitor MV switchgear and circuit breakers, similar to what’s available in the newest solution but with plenty more abilities.

One of the main benefits of the new system is how the entire asset management platform can be viewed in a single dashboard. Users can also make online upgrades to software and access other subscription-based services through ABB Ability Marketplace.

“For a day-to-day electrician, the notification pattern would be what gives them the largest benefit,” Milad says.

“Being in all locations at once throughout the day is the major benefit for sparkies because that will help them to omit and reduce the travelling time and site visits. Also, being able to monitor and log into these facilities that they manage, individually, across from the ease of their handheld devices or mobile phone is the major benefit that they’re able to see and being able to advise their end customers or facility managers about the situation that is occurring or taking place in real-time in a particular plant.”

As the operator of a plant, for example, the more information consumers have about its electrical systems the better, so that they can understand when and where maintenance may be required or when equipment should be replaced. You are also in a better position to plan the production process and to, ideally, move from a typical one to two-year maintenance cycle to a far longer one.

Milad adds that one of the best features of ABB Ability is the notifications before an occurrence or fault. This lets end users know prior to a potential shut down or blackout, getting either a text message or email. It’s a streamlined way to keep people up to speed with their systems, meaning less disruption if the right measures are taken and happy customers.

ABB adds that the solution is ideal for small and midsize factories, shopping malls or data centres, and could save customers up to 30% on their energy bills and up to 40% on maintenance costs.

—

ABB Ability is available now and you can find out more by clicking this link or contacting them on 1800 60 20 20 or AU-EL-Communications@abb.com