4 Benefits of AI in the operation of power plants

As we are becoming more environmentally aware, followed by a shifting political landscape, and with new technologies emerging, the energy industry is undergoing a shift from traditional operation to more sustainable business. With this, technological innovation becomes an evermore powerful tool for company’s success by helping to improve processes, increase efficiency, and allow for better decision making.

One technology that is gaining wider recognition in the energy sector is artificial intelligence (AI). More and more firms are investing heavily in the adoption of AI to keep ahead, giving this trend the power of shaping the systems we use for generating, trading, and consuming energy.While using AI for analytics and condition monitoring has developed over the past years, AI in operations of power plants is currently at an early stage of development. Quite some operations are still done manually by humans in the control room. Many companies are already looking into possible opportunities for autonomous systems in improving operations. One of these companies is Uniper, which has developed an AI system that is to be implemented at a range of power plants in Europe. The project has completed the proof of concept, as well as the piloting phase in waste-to-energy plants and is now entering the market with the new product. The pilot project has been a success with the emergence of several concrete benefits. In this article, we will delve into a few of these benefits, which directly impact value creation, cost reduction, and emission level of the power plant.

Optimize combustion process

When the AI is properly set up, it does what the best human power plant operator can. By taking into consideration more factors and evaluating each problem set without subjective bias, the AI can make faster decisions based solely on data for how to optimize operation. We have seen specifically that the software solution improves the efficiency of the waste incineration plants with waste throughput achieving a 10% increase from the implementation of AI. Since the plant receives a gate fee from each ton of waste burned, burning more increases the profit earned by the plant. Furthermore, the plant can generate additional energy to be sold on the market, in which we also saw a 10% rise from the pilot.

Reduction of airflow

For waste to energy plants, it is especially important to reduce the amount of air flowing through the system. The air will directly influence how much flue gas is emitted at the end of the process, with more air meaning more flue gas. By reducing the air that goes through the combustion, you will have less flue gas, which means less cost in maintenance and corrosion. Because it is more difficult to calculate maintenance costs than the profit from increasing waste throughput, noticing the benefit of reducing air not very obvious. However, we do see at least a 30% reduction of O₂ level in the system, which brings it to the optimal range. This improvement is a clear upside to the operation of the plant.

CO peaks reduction

The AI can predict CO peaks before they appear by noticing developments before they happen. It understands the complete system and patterns in data, which leads at a later stage to increase in CO. The AI acts against the increase before it takes place, thereby reducing the overall level of emission. The ability to predict and act againts those developments before they happen is a clear advantage to traditional automation.

More time for the human operator to focus on other essential tasks

Most importantly, the AI saves time for the human operator by taking over tasks the human otherwise would have to do themselves. Each operational individual usually has to supervise and optimize multiple lines at the same time. With the AI, the human does not have to continuously fine-tune those lines and can instead focus on other, more important things. On smaller plants where operators have to go during their shifts to inspect machinery while also managing operations, the AI can run simultaneously on autopilot, which allows the operator time for tasks such as to fine-tune the combustion engine.

To conclude, the AI is a tool for operators to optimize plant operations and free up time for effective use of human resources. There are so many systems in the plant that the operator cannot watch them all to an optimum level. With the AI, the plant can run on autopilot with the human being able to interfere whenever necessary. The rest of the time, the operator is free, and the process can run by itself.