Recently, I have been working with bringing Electric Panels into the Haystack Realm. The company I work for, Activelogix, has been working with "Smart" Electric Panels for quite some time now. However, when it came to bringing data from these Panels into Haystack compatible software, such as SkySpark, we realized the necessity for some additional tags to describe the equipment. For this proposal, we have two equips we'd like to define: elecPanel and circuit, as well as some accompanying tags.

An elecPanel is more or less, the "housing" for the circuits and other hardware/sensors within it. Any data points that would be considered "panel wide" would be modeled with an equipRef pointing to the elecPanel. In a parallel to the elecMeter tag, you can have a mainPanel for a site, and additionally you can specify that the elecPanel is a subPanelOf another elecPanel. We have also found that in some cases we may need to find the elecMeter the panel is connected to, so we would also like to suggest the tag elecMeterRef for referencing to the elecMeter a panel is connected to.

The circuit tag is designed to represent any Electrical Circuit that has data points tied to it. For our use case with Electric Panels, any circuit within an elecPanel would reference it using the panelRef tag. Also, like all other equipment, data points associated to a circuit would reference it with equipRef.

So in summary, the tags we are proposing are:

• elecPanel - Defines that an equip is an Electric Panel
  • mainPanel - Defines this panel as the Main Electric Panel for a site
  • subPanelOf - References the "parent" elecPanel if this is a "sub panel"
  • elecMeterRef - References the elecMeter that this panel is connected to
• circuit -- Defines that an equip is an Electrical Circuit
  • panelRef -- References the elecPanel the circuit is connected to

Thus far, we have tested using these tags in some of our applications, and they seemed to fit any need for defining Smart Electric Panels. Additionally, we have conferred with Duke Dunsford and others at Schneider Electric, a manufacturer of Smart Electrical Equipment, to see if this model made sense to them for tagging from an analytics standpoint, both for their equipment, and other Electric Panels.

In our conversations, while we spoke about lots of potential future additions to this model, we agreed that at the equipment level, these tags could serve as the basis for defining Electric Panels. We also agreed that this model would leave room for including other "Smart" components of Electric Panels, such as Smart Breakers (though since we were aiming for simplicity right now we chose not to tackle breakers yet).

At this point, we would like to hear what the community has to say. If anyone has any additional tag ideas, or other suggestions for robustly defining Electric Panels and their contents.

Thank you for your input!

-- Tommy Farley, Activelogix

I like it, it's needed. Got my vote.

I like that model. I think Greg showed a diagram of it today during the conference. Can you email that file to turn into diagram for documentation?

Couple thoughts / questions...

1. panels are commonly used in control systems to contain other devices, wiring, etc. So should we try and define them as more generically as just panel? Or really focus on just elecPanel?
2. If we stick with elecPanel, then I think we should use elecPanelRef instead of panelRef.
3. So circuits are equipment right? Then they would contain the sensors such as kw, volt, etc right?
4. Would breaker just another point on the circuit?

From my understanding, a breaker and a circuit are synonyms.

But it would be a good idea to expand the tag panel wich would allow us to tag controlPanel (wich contain controllers) and elecPanel (wich contain circuits breakers)

I would think about something telling me

deviceX, inside controlPanel_x, fed by circuitBreaker_X, inside elecPanel_X

I'm not sure if he used my rough diagram I made or if he had a different one, but I will send you my diagram and include him on the email just in case it was a different one.

1. My question would be, if we made it just panel, how would we differentiate between an electrical panel and say a networking panel? I'm not sure what questions were asked when meters were tagged but I'd imagine many of them would apply to panels as well.
2. elecPanelRef is fine with me if we stick with elecPanel.
3. From the Haystack standpoint, yes, a circuit would be equipment and its sensors would be mapped under it. However, in the physical world a circuit would be nothing more than copper wire of the appropriate gauge connected between the panel and plug or equipment while the sensors would be external to that. Though they aren't necessarily what you would call equipment "in real life" I think it is important to consider circuits as equipment in Haystack.
4. From the standpoint of "We just want to model this breaker as a single cmd point to see if it's on or off", yes it could be. However, I think with many Smart Breaker applications they would be much more useful as their own equip record with circuits referencing to them, if for no reason other than that one breaker can control more than one circuit. There is also the possibility of additional information other than on/off status that could come from the breaker that is dependent upon the design / manufacturing.

@Christian

Circuits are the carrier for electrical load between the equipment and the panel while Breakers are the on/off switch and safety mechanisms that control circuits within the panel.

It would be more accurate to say device -> circuit -> breaker -> panel, but for analytics I think both the device and breaker can be safely invisible to the model for many applications.

In an office building where the main concerns are safety of property and cost, you wouldn't necessarily care about what's plugged into the circuit or if the breaker is on or off. All you would need to know is if the circuits are exceeding their maximum safe loads or if a circuit is consuming more electricity than it should.

However, in a data center you would probably be concerned with every facet of the electrical infrastructure. In this case you may need to reference and have data points from everything up the chain from equipment to circuit to panel, additionally breakers and even controllers in the panel in some cases.

That said I definitely would be in favor of also adding circuitRef as a way for other equipment to reference the specific circuit they are on.

@Tommy From my point of view, a circuit breaker cannot be taken apart from the wire(s) that is/are connected to it. In fact, breaker or fuse has to be sized to protect the wires installed. For example, one could not install a 20A breaker on 14AWG wires... But beware, breakers are not switches. Breakers (or fuses) are security devices installed to protect wires when current load goes over spec. It protects us from melting cables and electrical fires.

This said, there's nothing wrong about the circuitRef because it allows a generic tag that would cover breakers and fuses protected circuits.

I'm always trying to figure what plus-value I could get from tagging and I can easily see nice advantages when browsing an equipment and see where it is connected, what voltage, etc... And someone else could easily have a nice view of all electric panels, circuits...

I would propose to add information to the circuitRef

• circuit -- Defines that an equip is an Electrical Circuit
  • panelRef -- References the elecPanel the circuit is connected to
  • current -- Amp rating of the breaker or fuse (wich is supposed to protect wire...)
  • volt -- References voltage of circuit (120, 240, 575...)
  • phase -- This one is tricky... and can be guessed from volt... but is this simple phase, 3 phases, not exactly the same as the phase tag using A,B,C,...
  • typeOfProtection? -- fuse, breaker
  • elecMeterRef -- Allow a reference to an elecMeter that this circuit is connected to

While I think we need to come up with alternatives to current and volt since they are marker tags already, I would have no problem with including some optional tags to define the load rating and voltage rating of a circuit. I actually use maxLoad as a "custom tag" on my existing project I'm working with for defining the maximum safe amperage load for circuits.

phase I think can already safely be used in its existing form.

typeOfProtection is not something I think should necessarily be standardized. While I'm not positive about this, I do not believe there will be many smart electric panels that use fuses as their "safety" mechanism. I'm not saying it may not have an application for someone, but that might be something they would want to custom tag for that specific application.

elecMeterRef is also fine, everything referencing everything it relates to is good design in a Haystack environment.

My idea for handling breakers was to have them "beside" the circuit, under the panel, while still being a parent object for circuits.

A rough idea would be:

• breaker -- defines an equip as a breaker.
  • panelRef or elecPanelRef -- references the panel they are in
  • ampRating -- defines the amperage rating of the breaker
  • etc... (because with multipole breakers and other configs I don't know every tag we might need yet)

Then on the circuit there would be an additional tag breakerRef that references the breaker from the circuit. This allows multiple circuits to be connected to a single breaker (which is apparently common). Also, this allows data points other than simple cmd on/off status to be mapped under the breaker (like diagnostic data) or even writable control points to be put in for the breaker

I like where we're heading with this topic. You seem to be aware of cases where circuits and breaker need to be distinct, I'm ok with this. It will make haystack more flexible.

Well for now, lets just take the official proposal as Tommy's original post except we'll turn panelRef to elecPanelRef. That seems a pretty solid start, and I have a the diagram. So unless there is any disagreement, I can add that to the docs as next step.

No disagreement here. Though I am wondering, should we begin a new thread for any additions later on or should we continue in this thread?

No disagreement here. Though I am wondering, should we begin a new thread for any additions later on or should we continue in this thread?

I think just adding to this thread is fine. Although sometimes in complicated multi-step proposals, it is good to regather all the final decisions in a new post.

To be consistent with meter tagging, shouldn't the main panel be called the "sitePanel" instead of "mainPanel"?

Actually yes, it probably should (insert embarrassed emoticon here).

I am in agreement with what has been posted so far.

Does electPanel tag apply to motor control centers, MCC? Should MCC be their own topic/type?

Background: Motor control centers, MCC, are large electrical panels. A MCC normally has one main feed and disconnect. MCC's usually have bus bars that supply the powers to each motor starter.

A starter can be rack-out/racked-in and On/Off The starter's overload relay can be tripped/normal. The overload relay will have an maxCurrentRating. The starter's current is actual amps like a meter. Not the rated amps. The starters can be smart or hardwired.