Visualization and control of the technical installations and energy consumption at the AU Optronics plant in the city of Trencin, Slovakia

AU Optronics, one of the largest manufacturers of thin-film-transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCD), was founded in 2001 through the merger of Acer Display Technology, Inc., and Unipac Optoelectronics Corporation.

In 2006, AU Optronics merged with Quanta Display Inc. to become a leading manufacturer of large-sized TFT-LCDs. AU Optronics is headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and its operations are spread across Asia and Europe. In 2011, a brand new LCD module plant was put into operation in Trencin, Slovakia, to increase the company's production capacity in Europe.

AU Optronics Trencin (illustrative image)

Control system

The construction project was completed in cooperation with BUILDSYS, a Czech company that was responsible for the installation of the technical installation and energy consumption control systems. In view of the fact that the entire project meets the LEED certification standards (GOLD rating), it was essential to implement systems that would meet the high requirements of the certification. Therefore, devices with low power consumption were needed.

To control the building's technical installations, WAGO PLCs are used. The Reliance SCADA/HMI system was installed on the operator room's PC to visualize and control the plant's technical installations and energy consumption. The visualization project can be displayed not only on the operator's PC, but also on any computer connected to the enterprise intranet using Reliance Web Client.

Reliance SCADA is used to monitor and control:

• Cooling machine room (12 MW)
• Heat pumps and gas boilers for heating
• Air-conditioning units
• Water treatment unit
• Wastewater treatment plant
• Ceiling-mounted fan coil units in the administrative part of the building
• Air compressors and air dryers
• Frequency converters (of consumption, voltage, current, etc.)
• Heat/cool consumption (M-Bus)
• Cool and heat pump compressors (failures, currents, consumption)
• Electrical distribution substations (communication with PowerLogic PM710 current meter devices)
• Fire sprinkler
• Electrical substations

Examples of visualization windows