The Indian power sector is at the cusp of a massive transformation. There are various factors that are driving the change in the sector such as rapid urbanisation, the addition of renewables, advent of electric vehicles, consumers becoming generator etc. – making it more complex than ever before. The digital transformation of energy management and automation lies at the core of this journey, enabling the emergence of a new landscape of energy, a paradigm shift for the industry, and a revolutionised experience.
“Digitisation in power plants fundamentally means combining technology such as IoT (Internet of Things), AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Big Data with advanced hardware to deliver reliability, affordability and sustainability. It can help to pull down costs, improve efficiencies, and lower carbon output of a power plant,” said Ponniah Sankarakumar, Director- Power Systems, Schneider Electric India.
Technology can enable fast ramp-up or ramp-down of thermal units, run them on part load and make their overall operations more efficient as well as reduce carbon emissions.
According to Gerd Deusser, Head of Gas and Power, Siemens Limited, advances in the energy sector will depend to a great extent on the degree to which we fully leverage the power of digitalisation. “By increasing automation and intelligence in the system, rich data can be translated into better and faster operational decisions and leverage major efficiency and safety gains across the entire value chain,” Gerd Deusser added.
Service digitalisation can provide seamless monitoring of real-time conditions for optimising the uptime and performance of an installation and extending the life of missioncritical equipment. It will enable the efficient running of equipment, improved life-cycle management and paves the way for predictive maintenance. Innovative approaches like these are critically important and are transforming the industry at a speed that was unimaginable just a few years ago.
Similarly, a thermal twin powered by thermodynamic analysis and machine learning allows power plant operators to diagnose performance gaps for every asset in the cycle in real-time and provides recommendations for improving performance, observed Gerd Deusser. He adds, “A co-creation approach, where OEM experts in close collaboration with plant operations team provide remote performance monitoring and diagnostics, can assist the plant team in identifying and rectifying performance gaps in a timely manner.”
Furthermore, digitalised operations can lead to rise in safety and dependability, reduce unexpected failure, and lead to higher capacity factors and operational excellence. Hence, in Sankarakumar’s opinion, digital solutions have the ability to fulfil India’s energy ambitions by maximising performance and efficiency across power plants. He adds, “As power plants adapt to digital technologies, it will not only enhance day-to-day operations but will also bring about the kind of disruption in the power sector.”
How companies are gearing up
Digitalisation, globalisation, urbanisation, demographics, and climate are the forces that are shaping our world – both currently and in the future. These forces also drive Siemens business strategy, which is working with our customers to develop solutions to navigate these significant shifts, based on our knowhow and experience, opines Gerd Deusser.
Siemens helps customers to meet the evolving demands of industries and societies – comprehensive portfolio for utilities, independent power producers, transmission system operators and the oil and gas industry. “Siemens is the only company able to support the entire energy value chain enable through accelerated collaboration and co-creation and strengthened collective know-how of our people,” Gerd Deusser claims. He adds, “Among the strengths of Siemens in the journey toward energy transition are installing technologies to optimise asset performance with digitalisation, improving supply chain with Additive Manufacturing to protecting assets through Cybersecurity and setting up application centers for co-creation and collaboration.”
On the other hand, Schneider Electric believes that digitisation of the power plants will ensure better optimisation of resources in the power sector. “We aim to strengthen our commitment through the digitisation of the power distribution thereby creating a ‘New World of Energy’ which is more efficient, sustainable, reliable and connected,” said Sankarakumar.
Storage technologies – a major trend
One of the major trends is storage technologies such as gridscale batteries and Power-to-X technologies – to help manage the complexities of the grid; improve and de-risk aging assets; and connect supply and demand. Siemens has technologies to produce, store and distribute hydrogen. Green hydrogen will be a major contributor towards a carbon neutral society. Recently, Siemens has introduced various digital applications for the power transmission industry like Sensformer and Sensgear which enable energy and power operators to have access to a Cloud-based platform that visualises collected data and enables a comprehensive overview of all assets and power grid’s status in real time. “We are now taking the physical technologies the digital way and allow users to build the energy future in a way this will represent a digital twin of the entire grid where optimal operation can be achieved,” said Gerd Deusser.
Continuous monitoring and diagnostics of assets
Digitally linking the critical power units to utilities’ monitoring stations can serve to analyse huge amounts of fleet data for continuous monitoring and diagnostics of these assets. This will enable proactive maintenance to help reduce unplanned outages, thereby, optimising costs and increasing availability of the utility’s power assets. Siemens Digital Fleet Center Solutions provides maintenance and service support, enabled by digitalisation, to help ensure continued reliability and operational performance.
Digitisation of power plants will ensure better resource optimisation
Digital power plants need to be supported by efficient and optimised power evacuation. Also, it is equally important to ensure that the sustainability gains made in the power plant are not lost in distribution by embedding environmentally superior and compact distribution switchgear. Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure architecture with connected transformers and the connected SF6 free switchgear ensures this.
In small scale power plants, EcoStruxure Architecture supports with apps, analytics and services to enable operational decisions through a microgrid management software.
Lastly, it is equally important to enable real-time data through proper integration to the regional SCADA systems taking into account EV charging peaks and addition of largescale energy storages. In pursuit of this, Schneider Electric’s unified, IoT-enabled EcoStruxure Power architecture delivers innovation at every level, from connected products to edge control, apps, analytics, and services.
