GE Digital Introduces Three Outsourcing Solutions to Optimize Power Generation Asset Reliability and Plant Efficiency

GE Digital today announced three new Industrial Managed Services (IMS) offerings to help drive customer success in asset reliability, O&M strategy, and plant thermal performance. These solutions are designed to make it simple and affordable for any power generator, regardless of size, to achieve reliability and execution goals. By including software, analytics, and expert services in a single solution with an annual low-commitment subscription, GE Digital IMS teams deliver critical benefits with minimal customer cost and complexity. The services offer complete flexibility in equipment coverage choices across asset types and regardless of manufacturer.

“The energy transition is changing operating modes and increasing cost pressure for traditional power generation plants, and equipment is now being pushed to the boundaries of normal operating conditions,” said Linda Rae, General Manager of GE Digital’s Power Generation and Oil & Gas business. “These new operating modes, such as increased cycling, can introduce asset performance and maintenance challenges. Advanced software, analytics and experienced guidance can help but until now have been beyond the reach of some smaller operators and individual plants.”

The services are based on GE Digital’s Asset Performance Management (APM) and Operations Performance Management (OPM) software and leverage Digital Twin analytics tailored to the specific customer environment by GE. Each service includes regular weekly, monthly and quarterly live team reviews and online access to relevant dashboards, reports, and software functions.

Asset Reliability Service brings the benefits of predictive maintenance to any size plant or number of assets. Predictive maintenance has proven to reduce unplanned downtime, optimize O&M costs, and increase asset life. GE Digital IMS teams provide Digital Twin analytics-based monitoring, alerts regarding emerging issues, and expert remediation and strategic guidance for equipment such as the Gas Turbines, Heat Recovery Steam Generators (HRSG), Condensers, Pumps, and other plant equipment. Expert guidance, dashboards, reports, and APM case management functions help customers gain the full benefits of predictive maintenance at a fraction of typical cost and complexity.

O&M Strategy Service optimizes maintenance plans for today’s changing conditions. With equipment being utilized outside of normal ranges, traditional maintenance plans are inadequate. GE experts can assess operating modes and historical performance, recommend an optimal plan, and help track and drive sustained success through the utilization of asset health indicators, asset criticality and maintenance spend analysis. The service also includes access to APM Rounds software to digitize manual data collection.

“Renewable energy is changing the O&M practices of traditional power plants,” said Chad Stoecker, Vice President, Global Managed Services for GE Digital. “Implementing optimized, up-to-date O&M strategies leveraging our APM software and best practices based on years of equipment maintenance experience can help operators of all sizes to balance cost, risk, and availability.”

Plant Performance Service is dedicated to optimizing plant thermal and economic performance. Maintaining and improving plant efficiency and cost factors across today’s fluctuating operation modes and loads demands deep analytical domain expertise coupled with extensive experience on the equipment and O&M processes. GE experts monitor key metrics and guide customers to improve heat rate, capacity, turndowns, and startups – while minimizing fuel costs.

This service features a total performance view of more than 20 equipment and system metrics over operating modes and loads. Degradation detection and diagnosis is powered by tailored analytics and GE expert analysts. Fuel cost and efficiency are tracked, analyzed, and optimized for all proposed actions.

The three new services are delivered by GE Digital IMS teams who augment plant O&M staff, acting as a trusted expert, advisor, and partner. The IMS teams have been assisting industrial customers in their digital initiatives for more than 15 years, providing a full range of customer services. IMS centers worldwide monitor more than 8,000 customer assets and have saved customers a total $1.5B+ USD in avoided costs.