GE Renewable Energy is to support the digitization of EDP’s hydropower fleet in Spain and Portugal as part of a wider deal that covers the operations and maintenance of all EDP’s energy production assets
In a statement it was announced that EDP signed a contract with GE to enable preventive and more optimized management of its water, natural gas and coal-based power generation assets throughout the Iberian Peninsula.
The five-year agreement supports the implementation of the Group’s digital strategy in asset management through a platform that will allow monitoring the performance of the equipment and anticipate potential events that may jeopardize the normal operation of the plants, optimizing their maintenance and operation costs.
The contract enables the use of artificial intelligence algorithms, which will evaluate in real time all energy production variables. The first phase of the project is already underway. This new agreement with GE will support the activity of a new monitoring and diagnostics centre for all these plants, currently in the process of being created.
“This agreement represents an important step in EDP’s Digital strategy, ensuring an even more efficient management of its plants in the Iberian Peninsula, at a time when technology is central to the future of companies and is transforming the energy sector,” states Rui Teixeira, EDP’s administrator.
“We are very proud to partner with EDP, one of the most innovative leaders in the utilities sector, to help them optimize their global generating capacity through the adoption of GE’s digital industrial solutions,” said Maher Chebbo, chief executive for innovation at GE Power Digital. “Together, we are re-shaping the energy landscape to help EDP achieve their digital transformation goals.” With regards to the hydropower assets, GE Renewable will now:
Deploy its unified hydro APM on EDP’s 23 key hydropower plants which produce about 5.5GW, including the implementation of Reliability Management Edge Analytics platform at 12 power plants.
Support EDP on operating range extension for 5 of their hydropower plants building on the feedback of experience gained through initial work done at Alqueva
Launch an APM Asset Strategy Optimization (ASO) pilot at one of EDP’s hydropower plants which, if successful, is expected to extending the solution to the remaining 34 hydropower plants.
