ABB announced today that the readers of Control Engineering have selected its cpmPlus Energy Manager software to receive the magazine's 2010 Engineers' Choice award for the best new product in the "Dashboard Software – Energy" category. The magazine's readers chose the top product in each voting category based on the product's technological impact, service to the industry, and market impact.
"With more than 600 votes cast in the Engineers' Choice Awards this year, all entries across the 29 product categories were exposed to an array of voting engineers' scrutiny. As a result, ABB's win of the 'Dashboard Software – Energy' category for its cpmPlus Energy Manager indicates a high level of end-user respect for the product in this rapidly growing and important technology segment. We congratulate ABB for its success in bringing to market a product of such high interest and value to the automation & controls engineering community," said David Greenfield, Editorial Director, Control Engineering.
Every month, in print and online, Control Engineering covers the proven solutions and game-changing technologies that are available to automation, instrumentation and controls professionals. Every year, the magazine holds a competition to highlight those products that engineers find most useful and desirable. Products that were introduced and available for purchase in the North American market between January, 2009 and November, 2009 were nominated for the competition. The magazine's readers received an electronic ballot and voted for the best products at the end of the year. Control Engineering announced the 2010 winners in their February 2010 issue, published this week.
ABB's winning product, cpmPlus Energy Manager, helps customers in all industries and building sector monitor, manage and optimize their energy usage for maximum efficiency and cost savings. It addresses the business side of energy management by producing accurate energy demand plans and taking advantage of them in energy supply planning and optimization. Being able to accurately plan the energy requirements a day-ahead provides significant financial advantages, especially in the open electricity market, and ultimately lowers energy costs.
Energy Manager also includes reporting and analysis tools that evaluate the energy use patterns of all processes and pinpoint areas for improvement.
A key element in any company's energy management program, Energy Manager offers dramatic cost savings for customers in all industries, especially for processes that are particularly energy-intensive, or if multiple energy sources are available. Opportunities for cost reduction are greatest when both electricity consumption and prices vary over time, which is common in the process industries and in the open electricity market environment. Energy Manager clearly indicates the cost of electricity and provides support to schedule electricity consumption for off-peak hours. It coordinates electricity purchases and sales with its own generation capacity, then schedules this generation during on-peak hours, when purchased electricity is most expensive, to provide additional cost savings.
Typically, cpmPlus Energy Manager can help customers achieve overall cost reductions of 2 to 5 per cent of their total electricity cost. For some process manufacturers, this can translate into millions of dollars saved annually.
Energy Manager is a core component of cpmPlus (www.abb.com/cpm), ABB's Collaborative Production Management suite of applications. cpmPlus provides process and production management, advanced optimization and connectivity solutions for the process industries.
ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 120,000 people.