Siemens: SENTRON power measurement and energy management

Siemens supplies SENTRON power meters, commissioning tools and energy-management software for low-voltage distribution in buildings and plants.

Summary

Best for
Buildings and industrial plants combining SENTRON measurements with energy reporting and distribution-system monitoring.
Less suited to
Simple plug-in appliance monitoring: the cited SENTRON meters and software are designed around electrical distribution in buildings and plants.
Deployment
Local power meters with commissioning software, Powercenter or Powermanager according to project scope.
Data in
PAC variants offer Modbus TCP, Modbus RTU or M-Bus. Powermanager also documents specific IEC 61850 power-quality instruments.
Pricing
Meters, commissioning and monitoring software are separate product choices.

Overview

Siemens separates measurement hardware, commissioning and ongoing energy management within its SENTRON portfolio. That makes it useful to distinguish the task of setting up a meter from the task of collecting years of site data. A configuration utility and an energy-management application are not alternatives for the same job.

For a building or plant, the starting point is the required electrical measurement and physical installation. The PAC2200 range offers DIN-rail devices with communications variants. Broader monitoring software can combine that data with other connected electrical equipment, but the software's capabilities should not be mistaken for functions available in every individual meter.

Offering

The SENTRON PAC2200 catalogue includes different communications choices, including Modbus TCP, Modbus RTU and M-Bus. It also names direct-connected three-phase variants. The ordering code matters: a family-level reference does not establish which electrical input or communications port is present on a particular unit.

Siemens' PAC3120/PAC3220 manual describes another part of the measurement range and its use with Powerconfig. For the surrounding software layer, the low-voltage software portfolio separates commissioning tools from preinstalled monitoring and broader energy-management applications. This gives an operator a choice between reading equipment into an existing system and adopting a more complete Siemens monitoring environment.

Products and platforms

  1. SENTRON Powermanager

    Energy-management software

    Energy, electrical condition and reporting software for buildings and plants.6

Technology

Powerconfig is the commissioning and service tool for communication-capable SENTRON devices. Its role includes parameterisation and checking measurements. It should not be confused with the continuous data collection and reporting role of Powermanager. Keeping those roles separate makes the communications plan easier to specify and maintain.

Powermanager's published capability includes power-quality monitoring through PQ Advisor using IEC 61850 with SICAM Q100 and Q200 instruments. That named support is narrower and more useful than describing the entire SENTRON range as IEC 61850-compatible. For PAC2200, the catalogue instead identifies the relevant Modbus or M-Bus ordering variants. Protocol selection follows the exact device and application.

Markets

Siemens describes Powermanager for energy managers, energy consultants and facility managers working across buildings and plants. Its functions include consumption monitoring, distribution-system condition, power quality and reports supporting operational energy management. Those functions address related but distinct needs: a consumption trend, an electrical event and a management report each depend on suitable underlying measurements.

The SENTRON portfolio also places Powercenter 3000 as an entry point for energy monitoring and Powermanager as the more extensive application. That product distinction helps avoid specifying a large software environment for a small monitoring requirement, or expecting a commissioning tool to provide the reporting and retention of an operational energy-management system.

Company

Siemens dates its origins to 12 October 1847, when the predecessor of today's Siemens AG began in Berlin, according to its 170-year company history. The group's headquarters account identifies its corporate headquarters in Munich. These corporate facts provide context but do not determine the scope of an individual product line.

The energy-measurement products considered here belong to SENTRON's low-voltage distribution offering. Siemens' wider industrial portfolio is broader than this selection. Comparing named PAC meters and named software products is therefore more useful than treating Siemens as a single communications implementation, or assuming a capability documented for a power-quality instrument is present in every submeter.

Alternatives in power metering and monitoring

What to look for in power metering and monitoring

References

  1. 170 years of Siemens: from an inner courtyard to the cloud (opens in a new tab)
  2. New corporate headquarters, Munich (opens in a new tab)
  3. SENTRON 7KM PAC2200 measuring devices (opens in a new tab)
  4. SENTRON low-voltage distribution products (opens in a new tab)
  5. Software for low-voltage power distribution (opens in a new tab)
  6. SENTRON Powermanager (opens in a new tab)
  7. PAC3120 and PAC3220 manual (opens in a new tab) (PDF)

This profile does not imply a commercial relationship with Siemens and may contain inaccuracies.