Published
June 10, 2018, 10:00 PM By Myrna M.
Velasco
Beijing, China – Being
the region’s first-mover, the “digital twins” of the gas-fired power facilities
of First Gen Corporation of the Lopez Group has been stamped with the ‘gold
standard’ and is being elevated as a “showcase to the Asian market’ when it
comes to digitalization of energy projects.
In an interview on the
sidelines of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) International Summit at the
World China Hotel here, Dr. Armin Bruck, regional chief executive officer (CEO)
of German conglomerate Siemens AG, has indicated that the Philippines is the
first among the Southeast Asian countries to have ‘digital twins’ on power
plant operations – even ahead of its Singaporean counterparts.
Siemens is the turbines
supplier as well as the operations and maintenance (O&M) service provider
of the First Gen plants in Batangas – namely the 1,000-megawatt Santa Rita,
500MW San Lorenzo and 414MW San Gabriel plants.
“First Gen has two
digital plants. So we install the digital tools and applications that we have.
And at the end of the day, they have shown improvements in operations and they
have been much more efficient…so it’s a showcase for our customers,” he said.
Bruck expounded that
the First Gen plants’ digital twins have been engendering “further improvements
in the power plants’ operations on a daily basis, so we want them to be a
showcase for Asia.”
The digital twins of
power plants refer to the “virtual replication” of the physical electric
generating assets – wherein big data on the facets of everyday operations are
being stored in the ‘Mindsphere’ cloud-based and open internet of things (IoT)
system of Siemens; and algorithms are subsequently analyzed so they can aid in
improving the generating facilities’ operations, extend their maintenance cycle
as well as pare their carbon emissions.
“This can also be done
in other parts of Southeast Asia and this will further bring our countries in
competencies together,” he said, referring to near-term targets in Vietnam,
Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Beyond power plants,
digitalization has also grown to be an emerging trend for buildings as well as
industries in the Philippines; while Siemens had also cemented deals for such
for a Petronas refinery in Malaysia; as well as a tunnel — being a mobility
solution for Singapore.
On the First Gen
plants, Bruck noted that Philippines and Singapore have agreed on synergies to
collaborate on having the Lopez gas-fired power plants be the ‘business model”
it can show as proof-of-concept to all of its customers in the region.
No comments:
Post a Comment