I was privileged last week to be among the few suppliers able to attend the EPRI Fleet-Wide Monitoring Interest Group Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. I thought I’d share some of my observations and notes.

The meeting was not a trade show, but rather a forum for generators subscribing to this particular EPRI interest group to share information and brainstorm about the different approaches, objectives and challenges of monitoring performance and equipment health (as it pertains to reliability) for heterogeneous, geographically dispersed generating assets.

Themes
The major theme throughout the afternoon "open" sessions was underutilization of technology investments and the need for a dedicated service component to help realize total value. Almost all presenters felt that anomaly detection and performance management systems add a lot of value but there was also consensus that obtaining the maximum value takes time, effort and people to realize. (Note: If you’re interested in learning how NeuCo and Black & Veatch are combining integrated optimization products (addressing reliability, unit performance, boiler cleanliness, and combustion) and B&V’s Powerplant MD service, click here.).

Several other themes and conclusions emerged during the meeting:
The need for integration between thermal process and equipment health monitoring hit so many hot buttons that a full session will be dedicated to this topic next time. In fact, many companies in attendance are no longer making active use of their unit performance monitoring systems, and there was acknowledgement that integration of equipment health and thermal processes is the "next frontier." This topic is very near and dear to me -- for years now, several of NeuCo's customers and our partners at Black & Veatch have been saying that you really can't do one without the other, and in fact this belief is the reason why NeuCo and B&V formed a business partnership back in 2001 and why we've invested many millions in dollars and manpower to develop a technology platform and specialized applications to do just that.

Another interesting theme was that redundancy in anomaly detection, given the challenges imposed by the problem, can be a good thing. Virtually all of the companies represented use at least one anomaly detection package, and acknowledged the value of having different systems looking for problems from different angles.

Finally, there was discussion about how to ensure that such technology applications are positively received and benefits are quantified. It was suggested not to quantify benefits without deep plant buy-in and credit assignment.  The importance of capturing the ways operators "look, feel, hear, and taste" problems on their shift rounds was also noted.

One theme I was somewhat surprised did NOT arise was the critical role that boiler cleanliness and combustion processes play in determining unit performance and reliability. People from two companies I spoke with at the conference also noted their surprise at this gap. I and they firmly believe the need to address boiler cleanliness and combustion with respect to the increasingly interrelated goals of efficiency, emissions, and availability. But the fact that the majority in attendance view fleet-wide generation asset issues either in terms limited to KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), anomaly detection, and in some cases thermal performance suggests that we still have a lot of work to do.