Creating Channels in EnergyCAP

There are three types of channels in EnergyCAP, manual channels, automatic channels, and virtual/simulated channels.

• Manual channels are created in the EnergyCAP program.
• Automatic channels are created via import of channel (interval) data.
• Virtual/simulated channels are created manually and populated via a virtual equation processor that executes the formulas associated with each virtual/simulated channel.

EnergyCAP Enterprise ‘channel data’ is any time-series stream of data OTHER than utility bills. Examples of channel data are: electric meter 15-minute interval data, weather data (dry bulb temp, wind, humidity), production data (pounds, linear feet or units of production), counter data (occupancy, sales volume, gallons pumped) and submeter data (hourly, daily or monthly consumption).

Once a channel has been created, it can be populated via data import and data may be viewed with an EnergyCAP analysis.

Creating a Manual or Virtual Channel

1. Open the Properties window for a Meter or Channel.
2. Click the Channels tab.
3. Click the "+" button. The Create Channel window will open.
4. Select the Type of channel to be created (manual or simulated)  using the drop-down list.
5. Select the Rule for handling channel data (odometer or trip) in the same fashion.
6. Select the appropriate Data type from the drop-down list corresponding to the meter/counter type.
7. Select the appropriate data Interval and unit of measure.
8. Select the desired method of handling multiple values by clicking the associated radio button.
9. When done, click OK. Or click Cancel to cancel channel creation without saving the channel.

Advanced Channel Operations

It is often necessary to perform arithmetic on channel data available in different channels to derive useful information. For example, net gas consumption of an industrial process = Submeter 1 minus Submeter 2. Both submeters track daily gas consumption in channels. It is possible to create a third, virtual/simulated channel with an associated equation that will subract submeter 2’s channel data from submeter 1’s data and store the result.

To illustrate this functionality, the example below will calculate the ECI -- energy consumption index (total consumption/total production, measured in KWH/MFT) for a plant with the following situation: Wire is produced on manufacturing lines labeled P1 and P2 and measured in thousands of linear feet (MFT). P1 has production data at 1 hour intervals. P2 has production data at 2 hour intervals. Electricity consumed by both manufacturing lines is recorded by meters M1, M2 and M3 and channel data is available at 1 hour intervals for these three meters. The following steps will allow us to calculate the energy consumption index:

1. Create meters M1, M2 and M3 (Setup > Facility Manager).
2. Create counters P1 and P2 to handle the production data (Setup > Facility Manager).
3. Import channel data for M1, M2, M3, P1 and P2 . (Setup > Facility Manager >File > Import)
   NOTE: When you import data into a channel, a new channel of type ‘automatic’ is created if one doesn’t already exist.
4. Create a new counter named ECI to handle the result of the calculation (Setup > Facility Manager).
5. Open the Properties window for this counter (right-click and select Properties from the popup menu options), then specify its code (ECI), display name, time zone and commodity under the General tab. (A commodity type of ‘miscellaneous’ is generally sufficient. New commodities can be created using Tools > Unit System.)
6. From the Properties window for the counter, click on the Channels tab. Click the + button to create a channel.
7. Specify Type (simulated), Rule (trip), data type and interval information. Click OK.
8. Now select the channel and click on the Properties button  (below the + and – buttons) to launch the Channel Equation Editor.
9. Add a version by specifying the start date with the + button. (This date is used when the equation is executed, so make sure that data is available for the meters and counters for this date).
10. Enter the arithmetic script. For this case we want (M1+M2+M3)/(P1+P2). The equation will be as follows:
    
    (( Meter(“M1”,”KWH”) + Meter(“M2”,”KWH”) + Meter(“M3”,”KWH”)) / (Counter(“P1”,”MFT”) + Counter(“P2”,”MFT”) ))
11. Click OK.
12. Execute the equation by choosing the execute button on the Channels tab (the ! button) or by using the Virtual Channels menu item under Tools–Processors.
13. The ECI channel data can be viewed by using the Facility Manager/Edit Readings, or through Analysis/Charts, or by using the channel reports (see reports CH01-Ch04).
14. The ECI channel data in this example will be calculated only at coincident time points where data is available for all five channels used in its equation. So, if four channels are hourly and one is daily, the resultant ECI virtual channel will be daily.

Below is another example of a virtual channel operation:

Issue: The object is to calculate a Daily Energy Intensity value and store it as Channel Data in a counter. The Daily Energy Intensity, for Natural Gas, is = ((Use [MCF])/(Production [MSF]))*1000. The difficulty is that the Natural Gas Use data has an interval of 1 hour and the Production data has an interval of 1 Day(s). Is there a helper function that can be used in the Virtual Channel Equation to sum the hourly Natural Gas Use data into a Daily Natural Gas Use value?

Solution: Use "Rollup" to add all the hourly Natural Gas Uses into a sum.

Rollup(“metercode”,”channel unit”, lookback_minutes)

In this case lookback_minutes will be 1440 (number of minutes in a day)

Storing the result in a separate Simulated Channel is almost essential for debugging problems.

The separate Simulated Channel CANNOT reside on the same Meter, because it results in two Channels with the same Units, but different intervals. Most of the ChannelScript Equation Objects (Channel Equation Helper functions) use the Channel Unit to find the appropriate data. The Virtual Channel Equation Processor does not handle multiple channels with the same unit assigned to the same Meter.