Overview of Hardware Groups
The MPL architecture comprises several key elements:
i. Measurement Hardware: A range of high resilience
power strips and in-line units offering scalable
intelligence and feature sets. The units are capable
of measuring volts, amps, kW, KW/Hrs, kVA, PF
and environmental conditions (temperature and
humidity).
Further, options are available to accommodate for
Residual Current Monitoring (RCM) and MID application
(for billing purposes). None of the measuring devices
require an IP address.
ii. Individual Circuit Monitoring: A building block
approach to power and energy monitoring bringing
together a scalable configuration utilising a Voltage
acquisition module (for the entire system), multiple
Current acquisition modules to measure consumption,
combined with a wide portfolio of sensors to measure load currents (both AC and DC). This includes sensors
to support the non-invasive monitoring of circuits.
iii. Measuring Instrument Directive (MID) approved
devices: Including MID sub metering products and MID
compliant PDUs and In-Line Units for legacy and new
build programmes.
iv. Sub Metering: Installed in addition to existing primary
billing meters. This allows the client to measure, record
and profile the electricity/utilities usage for individual
areas within their estate
v. Data Collection Gateways: Designed to centralise data
collection from the power strips, in-line units or
third-party equipment, including sub-metering. The
Gateway range will monitor up to 32,128 or 256 devices
using a single IP Address. The power strips/in-line units are connected to the Gateway via the MPL Comms
Bus (RS485). Thresholds can be set up in the Gateway
(user defined) to provide instantaneous alarming and
alerting via email or SNMP. For individual circuit
monitoring applications, the N-GEN Gateway is deployed
to centralise data collection from the data acquisition
modules.