ENGIE Chile Unveils How Digital Twins Can Enhance Efficiency of Solar Plants
ENGIE strives to change lives by improving access to solar energy. Stakeholders and partners worldwide are pushing for the transition toward reduced energy consumption. Benedicte Piret, one of ENGIE Chile’s leaders, said the challenge of the energy transition is finding the right balance between production and demand.
Leveraging the Power of 3D Laser Scanning Services & Digital Twins
To achieve the efficiency of solar plants, digital twins technology can help monitor solar panels located thousands of miles away. In addition, 3D laser scanning services can help with the simulation, where the virtual world is paired with the physical world. By doing this, 3D laser scanning can provide enough data for further evaluation of the physical model.
Bénédicte Piret noted that integrating digital twin technology helped to foster better interventions due to remote systematic measurements and diagnostics. In addition, a physical model created using 3D laser scanning services also reduced the instrumentation required for precise monitoring.
Plus, 3D laser scanning services helped to create a model that integrated real-time maintenance records and performance on the SAP platform. This is a huge benefit to performance teams. They can easily access data since it’s centralized.
3D scanning services also lead to significant improvements in performance. For instance, when rain washed away the grime on the solar panels, this could be easily detected, and the team adjusted the maintenance plan to suit specific weather conditions. This move helped to lower the maintenance cost of sending workers to the site.
The pilot project with digital twin technology ran for seven months, delivering promising results. Accurate and timely alerts prevented production losses, and CO2 emissions dropped by 10%. These improvements were attributed to enhanced monitoring.
ENGIE Chile acknowledges the idea of integrating digital twins as an innovative strategy to achieve several set goals. For instance, the technology can easily detect inconsistencies in solar plants and suggest recovery actions that should be implemented. Moreover, 3D laser scans can efficiently evaluate maintenance’s impact on equipment performance to optimize costs.
Bénédicte Piret asserted that digital twin technology generally provided valuable insights on how to act efficiently.