Global Technology Experts (ACC)
The Challenge
As the best subject-matter experts can be located anywhere in the world, working together on projects often involves time-consuming and costly site visits, with critical data only available as a one-off and not in a user-friendly format.
Our Solution
Our secure platform has allowed us to connect one of our clients with a global expert in ACCs (Air Cooled Condensers). The performance of multiple assets is now continuously reviewed in real-time, avoiding costly one-off visits and enabling faster identification of issues.
Automated Real-Time Notifications
The Challenge
One of our clients has a particularly small consumable silo which has on several occasions run empty, forcing a costly plant-shutdown because re-supply orders could not be placed in time.
The Solution
EcoPowerSoft offers notifications as a part of our standard service. These can either be periodic or trigger-based from real-time changes in process data. EcoPowerSoft now notifies the client and its supplier directly of the live silo level so that deliveries are always scheduled in time.
APIs for Business & Financial Tools
The Challenge
Immensely powerful business analytics tools such as PowerBI are only as good as the data fed into them. We work with clients who previously had problems with delays and inconsistencies in getting KPIs from their various assets into their business analytics tools.
The Solution
EcoPowerSoft makes the data available to our clients via APIs, meaning our clients’ internal tools and process have access to exactly the data that they need, when they need it.
Boiler Fouling
The Challenge
Fouling in boilers is nothing new. In biomass boilers, the fouling reduces the efficiency of the process and thus the energy extracted from valuable, paid for, fuel. In Energy from Waste boilers, there is an optimal level of fouling required to maximise the commercial balance of waste throughput with electrical generation output. In all boilers, excessive levels of ash fouling on critical boiler tube surfaces can be detrimental to the life of the components. Therefore, the ability to measure and analyse fouling levels, and the subsequent effect on the process, is imperative to maximising revenues and minimising maintenance costs.
Our Solution
EcoPowerSoft utilises installed instrumentation to monitor closely the performance of critical boiler tube surfaces. Real-time boiler tube-fouling metrics are calculated and displayed on an easy-to-interpret dashboard, enabling plant operators optimally to plan online cleaning activities, such as sootblowing, shock-pulse cleaning and explosive cleaning. The operator uses the dashboards to target more accurately the most significant blockages at the required frequency to be most effective. Furthermore, understanding the extent of boiler-fouling prior to planned plant outages helps streamline the planning of offline cleaning activities, reducing costs and outage durations. Operators using our innovative boiler-fouling metrics have significantly reduced cleaning costs and maintenance down-time whilst maximising the life of boiler tube components.
R1 Energy Status
The Challenge
There are significant commercial advantages from EfW plants being classified as recovery rather than disposal facilities. The R1 formula facilitates EfW moving up the waste hierarchy. However, this has predominantly been a time-consuming annual task of manual data extraction and manipulation of very large data sets, with inevitable calculation inconsistencies.
Our Solution
The R1 Module offered by EcoPowerSoft streamlines the process by automatically accessing and analysing the large volumes of stored plant data necessary for the R1 Formula and outputting the results and evidence required for the submission to the EA. The EfW plants receive real-time R1 status calculations on a dashboard, enabling them proactively to manage operations throughout the period to ensure compliance, thus avoiding costly shortfalls in additional revenue.
Fleet Metrics
The Challenge
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. Biomass and EfW fleet operators need to measure their KPIs in order to meet their financial goals. These KPI’s measure a broad range of metrics including, for example, boiler availability, waste throughput, electricity generated, fuel quality (NCV), plant utilisation and consumable usage. These metrics need to be timely and collected accurately and consistently for the business to perform optimally.
Our Solution
EcoPowerSoft works closely with fleet operators to embed their KPI’s into its software. This enables individual plant performance metrics to be integrated and displayed on common fleet dashboards in real-time. Operators, owners and investors then have access to accurate and consistent fleet performance information on a timely basis to enable management decisions. EcoPowerSoft can also, via APIs, enable the sharing of this critical business information to other business systems, such as those frequently used in finance.
External Data Sources
The Challenge
Additional data from external sources other than the asset itself can also be critical for insightful decisions and forecasting. For example, asset performance may be significantly impacted by ambient temperatures. One of our clients producing a week-ahead forecast of daily power generation found them almost always to be inaccurate.
Our Solution
EcoPowerSoft integrates weather forecast data from an independent source to provide clients with a more accurate forecast of the plant’s performance given the expected ambient temperatures.
Remote Asset Management
The Challenge
Many power generation assets in Solar, BESS, Wind, and AD are either unmanned or have low staff numbers. In addition, they are frequently in hard-to-reach locations. Gathering plant information from an AD plant in rural Germany for a UK-based owner is a case in point. Previously, this had required frequent, time-consuming, and expensive travel to the site in Germany from the UK to gather plant data to enable operational improvements or to troubleshoot issues.
Our Solution
EcoPowerSoft implemented our software solution at site to enable the management team in the UK real-time access to all plant tags and performance management dashboards. The plant operators can now access and use the system remotely when the site is unmanned overnight and at weekends. This has significantly reduced the need for travel with the obvious benefits to budgets, management staff effectiveness and carbon footprint of their business.
Offsite Data Backup
The Challenge
Some assets have little or no local storage of historical process data and those that do typically have a “historian” which overwrites data older than 1 to 3 years. This can make it difficult to evaluate asset performance retrospectively over longer periods, for example when trying to compare performance before and after an upgrade. Historical data is also particularly useful in warranty claims.
Our Solution
EcoPowerSoft has a fully scalable infrastructure so historical performance data is not limited by an asset’s local storage limitations. We store our clients’ process data and act as an independent off-site backup, giving them peace of mind that any required data is always accessible.