Febuary 11, 2023/by Bob McIlvride

Remote Monitoring for Boiler Systems

A hot topic in Japan right now is energy production, use, and conservation, with a renewed concern for the environment. Industrial and commercial users are looking seriously at implementing alternative energy systems, and making the best use of their resources.

One company that has built a solid reputation in this arena is TESS Engineering, in Osaka. TESS provides installation and remote monitoring for solar generation systems, co-generation systems, boilers and other equipment. They are always looking for new ways to save energy, reduce costs, and preserve the environment.

A major challenge facing TESS has been monitoring and maintaining boiler systems for large, decentralized companies. Site visits are expensive, particularly at remote, out of the way locations. Each visit requires shutting down the boiler, taking readings of up to 500 data points, and then restarting. This approach can lead to inaccuracies, since in a rapidly-changing system environment the data may be out of date even by the time the engineer returns to the home office.

For some time TESS had considered remote monitoring via the Internet, but there were drawbacks. “Some of our client’s remote locations don’t have Internet access,” said Mr. Kinya Oji, General Manager at TESS, “and for those that do, creating a process visualization system would require a significant development effort over a long period of time. If we were going to make such an investment, we wanted a complete solution.”

 Through Cogent’s partner in Japan, Nissin Systems Co. Ltd., TESS learned about the Cogent DataHub®, as well as a new service that Cogent has started offering on a limited basis in Japan: remote, real-time data access through cloud computing. Engineers at TESS determined that this approach might be sufficiently flexible to meet their needs, and easy enough to implement that they would not need to embark on a lengthy development project. So, TESS assigned an engineering team to investigate.