When is it really too early, or too late, to turn on the snow-melting system? Do you press "start" when you feel the biting cold wind? Or when the first snow hits the ground?
Snow and ice-free areas with a snow-melting facility
For businesses in the northern hemisphere, a snow-melting facility on loading bays, parking lots, or other outdoor surfaces is invaluable during winter. It's a luxury to know that you don't have to start the workday by quickly getting your property's surfaces plowed.
While snow-melting systems are a practical solution, they need a considerable amount of energy to keep surfaces safe and clear. It can be a costly challenge. The high energy consumption quickly results in high costs, that keep increasing during the long, snowy winter. Not to mention the impact high energy consumption has on the environment.
This is where combining smart technology with a snow-melting system comes in.
Automate and optimize energy use
With our SCADA system, IWMAC, you get a hybrid web-based solution to control your technical installations linked to refrigeration, freezing, buildings and manufacturing. The feature forecast-based control, in IWMAC, is a smart, automated solution to optimize energy consumption. By putting data and statistics into the system, the outcome gives you a high accuracy and lower energy consumption.
Today, many systems stay in standby mode for too long and are slow to start up, and switch off – simply a waste of energy.
Get your own meteorologist
*Smart weather forecast integration
Winter can be unpredictable, and it is impossible to guess when there will be snow. With smart weather forecast integration*, the plant is preheated at the optimal time before the snow arrives. Not too early and not too late. So, the second the sensor detects snow on the ground, the system is already "good to go."
With forecast-based control, you can sit back and relax, without having to press the start button before snowfalls, or turning it off when the warm weather returns. Forgetting the first can be inconvenient, while forgetting the latter can become costly.
We had a customer who had their ground heating running over the summer, costing them 5 000 EUR every month. The problem is that people don't know about it. They might be told that something is broken, but what about when it's just burning through your cash? You have to actively monitor it, and most people don't have time for that.
The perfect winter duo - not only for snow
Forecast-based control does not only work with snow-melting systems. It can be used as an alternative to calendars or sensors and can connect outdoor lighting to forecasts of sunrise and sunset times. It can also be used to "prepare" the building when cold periods are predicted. This lets you avoid a situation where, for example, your ventilation systems are blowing at full speed when the weather is at its coldest.
In short, if you are looking for an efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly solution to winter's snow and ice challenges, combining a snow -melting system with IWMACs forecast-based control is the way to go. It's the perfect winter duo that ensures both safety and sustainability.
Learn more about IWMAC smart functions