Endress+Hauser tests pilot projects with wireless flow meters

Switzerland-based Endress+Hauser is likely better known as a manufacturer of measurement technology than a cleantech one.

But its 1,250-employee Flowtec subsidiary has some new products on the market that are making inroads in smart sensing and software technology that can monitor remotely. The parent company supplies liquid and solid level measurement and limit detection sensors for all types of industries, the company’s Director of Marketing Jorg Herwig told the Cleantech Group today at its Reinach corporate headquarters.

However, the monitoring software comes from a partnership with an undisclosed company that specializes in building management. On the product side, both 2-wire and wireless, is being embedded within E+H's flow meters that look to automate processes, offer reliability and reduce their own energy consumption by a factor of 30 for its customers, Herwig said.

The products still have some challenges to overcome as high power instruments and processes move to lower power in the future, Herwig said.

Flow meters measure the flow of liquids, gases, and steams, with Flowtec’s potential applications in pharmaceutical, chemical, oil and gas, wastewater treatment as well as the food and beverage industries.

See a photograph of executive Amann Winfried demonstrating how the flow meters work »

E+H’s International Gas Manager Oliver Seifert said the company differs from others in that it is focused on providing energy metering solutions with the software directly to businesses, rather than through utilities, as well as the full package of products needed to implement the energy savings (see What's so smart about smart metering?). E+H doesn't focus on household electric smart metering. 

“That’s a major competency of ours—to provide energy as an outlet,” Seifert said. 

U.S.-based companies such as California's Fat Spaniel Technologies released a new version of its energy monitoring software last month that could help it secure utilities and major developers as customers (see Fat Spaniel hopes to hook utilities on new monitoring software).

Seifert said Siemens would probably be E+H’s closest competitor, as it has recently been acquiring some metering companies and has the ability to produce flow metering products.

For now, with its recent trials Flowtec is giving away its wired and wireless sensing technology for testing purposes in hopes that it will lead to further improvements and adoption by its customers.

“The logistics behind working with batteries has to be defined in certain areas,” Herwig said.

The company has investigated differing battery types and the lifetime of such battery technology in its wireless products.

Flowtec is currently engaged in a six-month pilot with the world's leading chemical company BASF of Germany to try out the wireless instruments to see if they can work in an industrialized environment. The technology measures aspects such as pressure, level management, and temperature, and is being compared to the BASF’s standard processes.

In oil tank farms, for customers such as Shell, which has a pilot installation planned, E+H is working on tank level measurement, maintenance, and monitoring that can all be done wirelessly.

And in the food and beverage sector, for companies such as Ohio-based Procter & Gamble, Flowtec is looking at how its wireless technology can help to fill and complete processes in rotating filling machines, as an alternative to cables and specialty devices that have to be exchanged annually, Herwig said.

E+H, with 8,400 employees worldwide, has 19 production facilities in 11 countries, bringing in net sales of more than €1.2 billion ($1.8 billion) for 2009. Flowtec operates at four of those production facilities in France, the United States, India, and China. Herwig said E+H is producing the same products everywhere it manufactures its products.

“It’s a little bit like McDonald's,” he said.

The majority of the company's income is in Europe, followed by Asia/Pacific, America, and lastly Africa. The family-owned E+H invests about 10.5 percent of its earnings in research and development, Herwig said, which is standard for many Swiss companies.

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