Today’s energy markets are undergoing major changes, all of which have a direct impact on hydropower asset management and operations. Energy price volatility is increasing together with the complexity of regulatory conditions and the need for flexible operations. New financing models are driving the need for more secure long-term reliability of equipment. Meanwhile, maintaining technical know-how is becoming a challenge. The reality of hydropower operations and maintenance is radically changed.

“Developing an O&M strategy suited to today’s business environment offers considerable benefits at several levels,” says Mario Arquilla, ANDRITZ Hydro’s Senior Vice President, Global O&M. “The need for adequate information is key to help decision-making, risk assessment, and selecting appropriate maintenance strategies and business models, such as deciding on a predictive or scheduled maintenance program. Assessing the condition of aging hydropower components since the very beginning is therefore a cornerstone of modern hydropower asset management. The focus is on the pure asset tasks, be it the maximization of energy production, the capacity availability or the fleet optimization. Once this is clarified then we define and propose a tailor-made business model to achieve, improve, and guarantee them.”

“ANDRITZ is probably the sole company of this kind that is Asset Management ISO 55000 certified. With this transparency, ANDRITZ and our customer approach are aligned,” says Diego Saccon, Global O&M Sales Manager of ANDRITZ Hydro. “Globally, we are implementing a radical change from traditional, calendar-based scheduled maintenance to a condition-based, long-term and predictive maintenance posture by anticipating when any given inspection/maintenance task should be executed in the plant’s lifetime.”

This ANDRITZ modelling not only allows hydropower asset owners and operators to optimize maintenance programs with the objective of reducing costs and having guaranteed availabilities. Indeed, it enables operation optimization, with respect to local objectives and constrains, considering short to long term perspectives. And it also directly translates into a wide portfolio of remote and local services, to support operation and maintenance, ranging from remote assistance or full O&M responsibility at site.

Moreover, a state-of-the-art system for monitoring our clients’ plants has been set up in ANDRITZ Hydro premises located in Schio, Northern Italy. This Global Control Center (GCC) has been working for several years on different plants located all over the world.

Data analysis, cost reduction, prompt and punctual intervention in case of need, and maximized annual generation are some of the major advantages available for clients and their assets with the GCC.

This lies not only in our remote and GCC 24/7 service model, but also on more than 50 service locations around the globe. ANDRITZ takes care of its customers and partners in their language and in their time zone. ANDRITZ’s commitment to services is built on proximity, reactivity and a customer-centric approach.

The technological core of Andritz O&M – based on a wealth of expertise, which takes in the full measure of ANDRITZ Hydro’s nearly two centuries of experience – is embedded into the Metris DiOMera Digital Platform.

It has no effect on the control system or on the operation of the hydroelectric power station. The intelligent monitoring platform performs continuous analysis of the data received from the hydroelectric plant and delivers results, trends, curves and other useful forecasts that enable optimization of the operations and maintenance activities for the full asset.

The meta-model technology developed within Metris DiOMera is applicable to any system/subsystem, provided some understanding of its operations and operational patterns is available. This makes Metris DiOMera an extremely flexible platform that is easily extended to meet the varied needs of our clients.

In parallel, in applying fault tree structures, Metris DiOMera supports asset management evaluations by using all the different indicators that define and predict the risk status of all the monitored systems.

“Globally, we have installed several different DiOMera applications. Metris DiOMera ranges from large predictivity fleet platform ongoing contracts to systems/subsystems continuous predictive monitoring,” says Etienne Parkinson, Global O&M Innovation and Business Development at ANDRITZ Hydro. “From index efficiency to recording clogging of oil filters. In addition, aging of axial runner lever arms or damage in a Pelton runner due to hydro-abrasive water, as well as generator winding aging or any other component in the power plant, can be encapsulated by Metris DiOMera to support rapid and data-led decision-making.”

In short, Metris DiOMera is a highly advanced and intelligent hydropower assistance tool. It allows ANDRITZ Hydro to provide its strategic partners with added value assistance to maximize their generation output and optimize maintenance costs in addition to a continuous and comprehensive risk evaluation of the asset throughout its life cycle.