Finnish utility optimises plant efficiency and decarbonisation with AI
Finnish utility Vantaa Energy and Japanese energy company Sumitomo have co-developed an artificial intelligence (AI) solution the two companies claim increases the efficiency of power generation assets.
Vantaa Energy and Sumitomo kickstarted the development of the AI solution in 2020 and based the technology on process data and advanced analytics to monitor the performance of generation boilers.
In 2021, the two introduced a new capability that helps optimise soot blowing at power plants. The solution is built on Sumitomo’s IZANA platform to check the cleanliness of boilers.
The solution is enabling Vantaa Energy’s plant operators to visualise events within boilers in real-time and schedule maintenance and optimisation projects in line with the operational status of the plant for improved efficiency, reduced emissions and longer life span.
Soot blowing is the removal of soot that is deposited on the internal furnace tubes of a boiler during combustion to prevent plugging of the gas passes and to ensure a more efficient energy production.
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Vantaa Energy claims the technology has enabled the firm to increase its use of biofuels and reduce the use of fossil fuels at the Martinlaasko power plant since early 2020. This has resulted in lower carbon-dioxide emissions and operating costs.
The pilot falls under efforts by the Finnish firm to achieve its target of becoming carbon negative by 2030. Vantaa Energy has set a target to end the use of fossil fuels by 2026 and the use of coal by 2022.
Sumitomo and Vantaa Energy partnered with IT service companies CGI and Pinja to develop the applications.
Samuel Bjorkbacka, production engineer at Vantaa Energy said: “The production of the soot-blowing optimisation application was a natural continuation of the development collaboration between Sumitomo SHI FW and Vantaa Energy.
“The idea of improving soot blowing had been discussed before, but now we finally succeeded in packaging it into a compact utilization tool for making the impacts of the process a visible part of the everyday operations of the power plant.”
Jari Sundqvist, product owner, digital services at Sumitomo SHI FW added: “The application that was confirmed at the production site is now readily available for use in the next plants, and at the same time we developed a method that is suitable for other boiler types as well.”
