The ability to cooperate
intelligently
Kosisko stresses that today’s plant
owners are serious about driving
performance. “Many of our customers
have actually started to mention
this in their quarterly report to the
market, identifying that they see the
potential for a 15-20 per cent improvement
in overall operational performance,
through reduction in maintenance
costs, improvement in output
and yield. They are publicly stating
this to the investment community.”
Driving operational performance is
becoming an increasingly important
topic worldwide. Different countries
may be at different levels of adopting
this kind of technology but the trend
is global.
“We see very high interest in Europe
and North America, and strong
interest in Asia,” said Kosisko. “But
I was in the Middle East recently and
had several conversations, which all
led back to digital. So it’s pretty
universal.” In line with this trend,
ABB plans to open two more COCs
for power and water in Singapore
and Mannheim, Germany, this year.
Arguably, the industry is still at the
beginning of what can be achieved
through greater digitalisation and data
analytics but the possibilities are
huge.
“It’s always a bit hard looking into
the future because there’s so much
potential right now. We’re just really
scratching the surface with what’s
available to us and the solutions that
we can provide,” said Kosisko. “But
certainly when you go down the path
of things like machine learning and
AI, you can envisage scenarios
where you get more autonomous
operations as we move forward.”
While we may not see things like
operator-free plants in the near future,
Kosisko does expect that operators,
field technicians, managers and
those responsible for delivering results,
will be in a position to augment
their decisions with better data,
which has been packaged in a way
that helps them understand how
processes are behaving.
Going forward, data analytics will
increasingly be applied in different
ways – and not just for operating
assets. It will also be used to improve
projects from the outset by feeding
data from existing projects back into
the modelling and design phase.
Kosisko concluded: “We are in the
early stages of what is going to be a
transformational trend… and as we
move forward, it is going to become a
bigger and bigger part of our business
and our customers’ value.”
Digitalisation is cutting across
many sectors. And, arguably,
the electricity sector is at the
heart of the digital transformation. In
its report on the interplay between
digitalisation and energy, the International
Energy Agency (IEA) said:
“Energy and digitalisation intersect in
many ways. Many of the energy companies
we speak to are increasing their
investment in digital technologies.
Our numbers show that the investment
in digital electricity infrastructure
has increased by 20 per cent each
year over the past couple of years.”
It is a view that was recently echoed
by Kevin Kosisko, Managing Director,
ABB Power Generation & Water.
Speaking at the launch of the company’s
new ABB Ability Collaborative
Operation Centre (COC) in
Genoa, Italy – the first such centre
dedicated to its power and water business
– Kosisko said: “There are numerous
studies around how much
digitalisation is going to bring in total
value to the sector… it is getting a lot
of traction with our customers right
now, who clearly see the value.
Whenever I meet with them, I can’t
recall a single meeting in the past 12
months where, at some point, we
don’t talk about what we could do
with digital and data analytics to help
them solve some of their most pressing
challenges.”
There is no doubt that utilities and
other generating asset owners are serious
about driving performance.
Certainly the savings can be huge. A
report released by the World Economic
Forum in 2016 talks about
unlocking €1.1 trillion of opportunity
within the energy industry in the next
10 years.
There are a couple of key areas
where digitalisation is having a significant
impact – predictive maintenance
to reduce operation and
maintenance costs or extend power
plant lifetime is one; the other is fleet
optimisation. According to industry
calculations, 50 per cent of that €1.1
trillion could be achieved by reducing
unplanned outages – it has been
estimated that more than 75 per cent
of unplanned outages can be predicted
through digitalisation and
better data analytics.
A more recent report by Bloomberg
New Energy Finance (BNEF) said
that, currently, the biggest use of
digital technologies like sensors,
data collection and analytics in the
energy sector is to improve the bottom
line of fossil fuel generators.
Revenue for digital services for fossil
fuel operation and maintenance
(O&M) are estimated to be $24 billion
in 2017 – some 44 per cent of the
total market size for digitalisation
measured by BNEF.
Kosisko notes that while ABB, like
others, has been doing remote diagnostics
and troubleshooting for many
years, the introduction of platforms
like ABB Ability brings an opportunity
to “take it to the next level” in
terms of collaborating with customers
in real-time in order to deliver value.
This is the crux of the thinking behind
the new COC in Genoa.
ABB Ability Collaborative Operations
is a remote operations and
maintenance model that helps power
generation and water companies harness
the potential of digitalisation.
Through a high-speed, cyber-secure
connection to the plant’s distributed
control system, the centre continuously
monitors key performance indicators
(KPIs) across a comprehensive
suite of applications to ensure that
each plant is operating within regulatory,
load, environmental and cyber
security requirements, automatically
notifying the customer if a KPI is
underperforming or a reference limit
is broken.
“Traditionally, digital projects tend
to start with a vendor having a specific
proposal around solutions that
they have… and implementing a
project,” said Kosisko.
“Collaborative Operations gives us
more of a real-time opportunity. When
you have this 24/7 real-time connection
ability to not only diagnose issues,
but to also monitor data around unit
performance, device performance,
fleet performance and collaborate
with customers in real-time, these are
the areas where we can find opportunities
to improve operations – improve
maintenance, reduce downtime, improve
availability. They aren’t specific
one-time projects, but real-time
collaborations.”
At the newly opened Genoa facility,
ABB demonstrated a scenario where
it was able to view a customer site
from the centre and with the help of
augmented reality and data analytics
was able to get the equipment back
on line in the quickest and safest way
possible. In another scenario, ABB
showed how it could look at the
performance of specific pieces of
equipment or entire units and identify
the need for maintenance to
avoid an unplanned outage.
In the final demonstration, the
company compared the performance
of operating units against each other
to determine how improvements
could be made on the under-performing
units.
THE ENERGY INDUSTRY TIMES - APRIL 2018
14 Energy Outlook
Generating asset
owners are serious
about driving
performance. Data
analytics and closer
cooperation with
digital solutions
providers are key
tools in this drive.
Junior Isles reports
from Genoa,
Italy, at the recent
opening of ABB’s
first Collaborative
Operations Centre
dedicated to power
and water.
Extended operator workplace at the ABB Ability Collaborative Operation Centre, Genoa, Italy
Swedish solutions
ABB Ability, launched nearly one and a half years ago, is the technology component of ABB’s Collaborative
Operations centre. It is a unified, cross-industry digital platform that enables ABB to securely
integrate and aggregate data, apply predictive analytic and generate insights that can help drive
profitability for ABB’s customers.
ABB says Ability is not simply a platform, but is a “solution-driven approach” to the market. Some
200-odd solutions have already been developed on the platform. “Over the past 14 months or so,
we’ve launched about 210 ABB Ability solutions,” said Kevin Kosisko, Managing Director, ABB Power
Generation & Water. “There are solutions built not only on our platform, but built from the various
pieces of software and systems that we have, in order to drive value for our customers.”
In February ABB signed a contract with Swedish energy company, Mälarenergi to develop “smart
city solutions” that will make Västerås, Sweden’s fifth largest urban area, more attractive as a community
for citizens and industry.
Mälarenergi provides a range of essential services for Västerås’ 150 000 residents and businesses.
The utility operates hydropower plants, the local power grid, a waste-to-energy plant, heating
and cooling networks, water and wastewater treatment plants, a water distribution network and a
fibre-optic network.
In 2017, Mälarenergi and ABB formed a team to develop digital solutions that will minimise environmental
impact and create high-value digital services for customers. A key objective of this digital
investment is to integrate the control rooms of the many automation systems that manage these
expansive operations to create one unified operating environment.
This “smart city solution” will leverage the ABB Ability Collaborative Operations approach to
integrating ABB technologies and services with Mälarenergi’s existing operational expertise. Collaborative
Operations will combine deep control and domain knowledge of both parties, to make more
useful information available faster. This approach will transform Mälarenergi from a traditional utility
infrastructure company to a provider of integrated “infra-services” with the end-user experience in
mind.
Applied to the district heating network, for example, which serves 98 per cent of the city’s buildings,
Collaborative Operations will optimise operational performance and reduce energy consumption.
Data analytics will make it easier for operators to identify, categorise and prioritise potential
issues with assets, processes and risk areas, so they can increase efficiency and reduce costs.