POWER January 2022 - 35

CONNECTED PLANT
the necessary tradeoffs in real time.
In this scenario, generators require
remote operations technologies to centralize
data and decision-making. Digital
twins enable asset knowledge and predictions
conducive to smart fleet dispatching
at the command center-all
with less people and less overhead on
the individual plant to make unilateral
predictions.
2. Digital tools such as tablet-based applications
are helping plant operators be more
productive and enabling real-time analysis of
critical operations. Courtesy: GE Digital
blueprint is made up of several pieces,
which include:
■ Subject matter expertise that sets up
your blueprint for maximum impact.
■ Failure modes/degradation mechanisms
and multivariate diagnostics to
calibrate the blueprint to your asset.
■ Configuration/operating context to
assure that the digital twin " understands "
the operating parameters of
that asset.
■ Sensor inputs.
The digital
twin provides a " single
source of truth " for action related to
asset maintenance. It provides a central
recommendation management
engine for risk mitigating actions and
automated decision-making based on
conditional state and the risk of failure.
Ultimately, it is an extra set of eyes for
plant engineers.
Changing operational profiles have
brought other challenges to address the
reliability of your fleet including readily
available experts, travel constraints,
weather conditions, and other variables.
The extra benefit of digital twin technology
is that engineers don't have to be
on top of the asset to monitor it-that's
what the digital twin does. By leveraging
resources across geographical locations
via remote operations, expertise
can be shared across the entire fleet.
Operators are no longer required onsite
24/7, even when generating equipment
is not being used, saving money.
Many power generators have mixed
fleets (renewables and legacy systems
like coal, fossil, and steam) and they
have to generate a certain number of
megawatts to remain profitable. In that
context, the ultimate need is to have a
central environment to manage the full
ecosystem and the tools to forecast the
contribution of each asset to achieve
that goal. Further, generators need the
right digital tools (Figure 2) to perform
January 2022 | POWER
Remote Operations Are Normalized
The pandemic has shown companies
worldwide the importance of accelerating
the digitalization of operations to run
from a central location (Figure 3). Because
workers could not physically be in
the plant at all times, power generators
had to quickly implement remote operations
to keep the power flowing. This
also had to happen fast.
While implementation of new techniques,
technologies, and workflows
drastically accelerated, it happened faster
than many companies were comfortable
with. They also realized the benefits
of a flexible monitoring process that enabled
insights from experts not located
onsite and validated contingency strategies
across plants.
While remote operations provide
great value to an organization, there
are challenges. Companies must build
a scalable cross facility approach to operations
with a variety of data feeds.
They will need to normalize information
presented by that data, and understand
how it can be acted on no matter where
the worker is located.
Remote operations
give
operators
the ability to access aggregated data
from anywhere. It helped our customers
in their moment of crisis manage
facilities from flexible locations. That has
been very helpful to the industry. But
once operators grew confidence in this
approach, it quickly became evident additional
value could be leveraged by operating
multiple plants across a fleet from
a shared infrastructure. Some of the benefits
of remote operations include:
■ Contingency Operations. Emergency
remote plant controls to handle health
crises, weather conditions, and other
unforeseen events and circumstances.
■ Multi-plant Control Flexibility. Centralize
operations to monitor, augment,
or manage control rooms and maintenance
across a fleet using digital twin
technology.
■ Unstaffed Plant Operations. Remote
monitoring and operation of plants
www.powermag.com
3. Many power companies have incorporated
remote monitoring into their operations.
Some have their own monitoring and
diagnostics centers, while others utilize the
services of original equipment manufacturers
to accomplish the same goals. Courtesy:
GE Digital
running with zero onsite staffing.
■ Leveraged Expertise and Support.
Remote experts to aid local in-plant
troubleshooting and maintenance
activities.
■ Onsite Mobility and Collaboration. Empowerment,
productivity, and safety
of onsite maintenance and operations
staff.
■ Flexible Worker Location. Work from
anywhere flexibility for key staff
members
from
maintenance.
■ Third-party Monitoring and Support.
Enabling contracted services and support
to actively monitor, manage, or
augment plant operations.
Power generators see remote operations
as an important technology pillar
enabling contingency operations, digital
worker capabilities, and intelligent
and efficient operations at every level.
Others are using remote operations to
empower their workforce and improve
safety with remote location flexibility
and in-plant operations.
As the power sector continues to
reshape itself responding to market
forces including distributed energy
resources,
climate
change,
energy
demand, and aging infrastructure, solutions
like remote operations leveraging
digital twin technologies can help
companies adjust and thrive. Modern
work processes to achieve equipment
reliability and optimized maintenance
procedures, while making the best use
of valuable people assets, will utilize
valuable data to drive performance and
ultimately impact profitability. ■
-Martha Saker is a product manager for
GE Digital's Edge Optimization and
Remote Operations portfolio.
35
management
to
http://www.powermag.com
POWER January 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER January 2022
