The power generation segment is evolving rapidly to meet new and emerging requirements. India has a large fleet of thermal power plants (TPPs), aggregating over 200 GW of capacity. These TPPs, which were the main source of baseload power in the past, are now expected to play a supportive role in balancing the variable renewable energy generation. Amidst this shift, power plant operators are increasingly modernising, digitalising and automating their operations to remain competitive.
Digitalisation and automation will help respond to the market changes expected over the next three to five years. Utilities are focusing on new business models, improving the customer experience, and optimising financial performance and operational efficiency. Many utilities have already started building capabilities and investing in various digital solutions such as AI, IoT, ML, cloud, digital twins and analytics to meet these goals.
Adopting digital technologies and building capabilities around data and analytics, cybersecurity, ML and AI can help gencos and utilities improve regulatory compliance, reduce carbon emissions, run more effective operations, scale up resources to meet shifting demand, optimise asset management, manage a digital workforce and use data more effectively.
In remote operations and fleet monitoring, optimisation centres offer 24×7 monitoring of fleet reliability and performance parameters of all plants centrally. Digital dashboards give operators quick access to real-time plant performance, providing automated notifications, performance monitoring and reporting, and diagnostics of critical plant equipment and systems. Furthermore, digital twins, constructed using smart sensors and simulation models, enable automatic real-time analysis of plant parameters.
That said, digitalisation and automation threaten security and lead to higher vulnerability to cyber risks. Utilities need to proactively build a robust cybersecurity strategy to manage such risks.
Going forward, a clear vision and a well-defined roadmap for holistic power plant automation will be critical.
Power Line’s Infocus section on power plant automation explores key growth drivers, new and emerging technologies as well as the major issues, challenges and the future outlook in this space.