In his recent article in Power magazine, Emerson’s Mike Ames shared that the power industry, historically, hasn’t typically been a source of sweeping changes. However, recent events have changed that trend:
“As the steady state behavior in power grid’s generation, transmission and distribution begins to change more rapidly, the next few years are shaping up to be remarkably dynamic. The industry will face a wide variety of new market conditions that are converging to create one of the most exciting times in history for those involved in the power industry. Consequently, companies will face increasingly—and alarmingly—more demand for energy to power data centers and other loads.”
The need for power for these data centers is great, and that means teams are increasingly required to deliver more and more complex operations on much shorter timelines. Coupled with a need to manage data across these complex endeavors, organizations are frequently struggling to deliver operational excellence.
Fortunately, Mike shares,
“As operational conditions continue to increase in complexity, the robustness and practical scope of automation platforms are increasing in parallel, creating the perfect onramp for emerging technologies to fuel the future of power generation and distribution.”
Control systems are leveraging advanced simulation, cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI), and powerful embedded software to improve operations. Teams have more automation technology at their fingertips than ever before to help capture the best institutional knowledge in automation while upskilling and providing decision support for personnel to help lock in best practices.
Supporting the workforce
The power industry is no exception to the global skilled workforce shortage. Expert personnel are retiring, and the people replacing them typically have far less experience. Moreover, those same people are more transitory—likely to change roles every 3-5 years, rather than staying in one position for decades.
This means that tribal knowledge is hard to maintain. What organizations had is quickly going away, and what they gain often disappears before it can be passed on. As a result,
“organizations are looking for ways to bring information closer to the people that are maintaining and designing systems, as well as trying to find ways to help operators make better decisions more quickly.”
Modern automation software can capture those pockets of expertise and build them into decision support tools to help every operator be the facility’s best operator. Tools like Emerson’s Ovation™ Virtual Advisor are using generative AI to provide real-time guidance and troubleshooting support, dramatically reducing system maintenance or downtime and empowering operators to optimize system performance. Operators can interact with the advisor in natural language to receive guidance for improving troubleshooting and performance.
Smarter simulation
However, AI is not only present in advisor tools. It will also help uplevel simulation software—like the simulation seamlessly integrated into Emerson’s Ovation automation software— to become a powerful test bed for new control strategies and technologies, helping teams assess how any change will impact production without putting live systems at risk.
A digital twin simulation tool with built-in AI support can run hundreds or thousands of scenarios to see which ones will produce the best outcomes—and can do so in seconds. Moreover, that same simulation tool can compare the best options under a wide array of environmental factors to help teams determine the best solution for many different situations.
When the team has the new controls or technologies they want to use, AI can far more quickly synchronize simulation systems with production systems to ensure seamless, error-free implementation of new strategies. It can then build out training scenarios that mimic the exact controls operators will use, and focus on the most critical strategies to ensure operators are optimally trained for every scenario.
In his full article over at Power magazine, Mike shares ways organizations can begin preparing for these industrial AI technologies today, as well as specific examples of what these strategies would look like in practice. Head over to Power to read the article in full!
