LEM has introduced the Wi-LEM (Wireless Local Energy Meter) family of components, an innovative system that allows electricity consumption to be monitored and reduced. By using wireless communication, Wi-LEM greatly reduces the time, cost and disruption involved in deploying a sub-metering installation, increasing both the potential financial savings and removing many of the barriers to adopt this proven approach to reduce energy consumption.
The Wi-LEM family consists of:
Energy Meter Nodes - an assembly of 1 to 3 current transducers with its signal processing module. They can be deployed to measure energy consumption at any point in the power cabinet and transmit the data.
Mesh Nodes - a repeater linking various Nodes. They enable wireless communications throughout a large installation;
Mesh Gate - a gateway managing the mesh network. It provides data through serial interface to a PC.
By measuring active, reactive and apparent energy plus maximum current and minimum voltage, Energy Meter Nodes provide much more information than a simple sub-meter.
A variety of Energy Meter Nodes – all of which have their accuracy certified to IEC 62053 Active Energy Class 1 and Reactive Energy Class 3 – are available for 120 and 240 VAC voltage and configured for nominal currents from 5 to 100A. The compact sized, split-core transducers can easily be installed inside the limited free space of existing cabinets. Energy Meter Nodes take measurements at 5 to 30 minute intervals and transmit the results over the 2.4 GHz ISM band. The technologies make installation and commissioning very easy. Mesh Nodes act as repeaters, and can be added to the network without any need for additional configuration or programming.
The Mesh Gate is a stand-alone wireless network management gateway that connects the transducer network with a PC using a serial interfaces RS-232 or RS-485 with a MODBUS RTU protocol. Each Mesh Gate allows monitoring of up to 240 Energy Meter Nodes. The 802.15.4 ZigBee-based communication standard has a proven robustness in industrial and commercial environments.
Mesh Gate and Mesh Nodes were developed in close cooperation with Millennial Net, a specialist in Wireless Sensor Mesh Network technology.
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