Case Study: Italian Green-Tech Power Generator, Sorgenia, Leverages GE APM Software for Reliable and Efficient Power

Power availability in Italy – and Europe overall – is at risk. In 2023, Italy’s net energy costs are set to double to more than $1B euros, according to a recent Reuters article.

Ensuring access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy is the mission of Italian-based power producer, Sorgenia.

Sorgenia set up four ‘combined-cycle’ gas turbine (CCGT) power plants between 2006 and 2012 due to their efficiency in converting gas energy into electricity. Since that time, the power generator has added wind and other renewable assets for low-carbon generation.

Sorgenia wanted to go further maximize the state-of-the-art efficiency of the CCGT technology. They sought out a software provider that could help provide insights to optimize their plants’ efficiency and help further reduce CO2 emissions while simultaneously improving availability and reliability.

According to Sorgenia, GE Vernova’s Reliability application within its Asset Performance Management (APM) software has given them insights to better plan maintenance around annual outages, specifically at their Termoli and Modugno plants. Doing so allows them to avoid unnecessary downtime on critical assets such as Heat Recovery Steam Generators (HRSG) or condensers, which in turn allows them to operate at higher efficiency and satisfy their customers’ need for electricity.

“The real goal is to figure out the measure’s feeble eccentricities. In a super automated facility, the reliability of the measure is a key point. APM gets this result surgically,” says Giovanni Bordiga, head of Engineering and Technical Services in Sorgenia.

Founded in 1999, Sorgenia is one of Italy’s main energy operators. Positioned as the country’s leading digital energy company with over 450,000 customers, it’s CCGT plants produce a massive amount of installed power. Being a digital-forward company that is pursuing innovation and sustainability, Sorgenia selected GE Vernova’s APM Reliability deployed in the cloud as a perfect fit for their path forward.

To ensure that their investment in sustainable and efficient energy was successful, moving from preventive to predictive maintenance was a necessity. APM Reliability is designed to provide visibility and analysis of asset performance utilizing predictive analytic techniques to help operators reduce unplanned downtime by predicting equipment issues through data anomalies and weak signals. Advanced modeling capabilities and data analysis, helps users investigate, collaborate, uncover, and remediate emerging issues while driving long-term performance improvements.

“We know that human analysts still work better than an automatic system but when the organization is lean, human ability is focused on main issues and ancillary systems risk to pay the bill. APM in its massive scanning capacity put an eye on daily basis even on the smallest piece of equipment”, continues Bordiga.

Powered by SmartSignal, APM Reliability is built upon years of deep industry expertise as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). With more than 340 digital twin blueprints that are agnostic to supplier, the solution can provide near immediate benefits and yield faster time to value.

Sorgenia usually operates on a once-per-year planned outage so it can operate closest to maximum availability. This means that running at optimally efficiency for the entire year is critical.

Recently, Sorgenia was alerted by APM Reliability that a condenser was experiencing a 10% decrease in its cooling capability. This led to a sub-optimal efficiency that was adversely impacting the amount of carbon dioxide (C02) emissions being released. Once the alert was received, the team used the analytics from the software to investigate and determine there were debris in the cooling tower water circuit creating the issue.

With a planned outage a few months away, the team had to determine if the fix was required immediately or if it could wait. By leveraging the time-to-action capability in APM Reliability, Sorgenia decided other factors surrounding the asset could be changed to increase efficiency while also being able to schedule maintenance on the condenser during the outage. In short, the team decided to manage plant operation till the scheduled outage while taking immediate action to help lessen the impact on emissions and efficiency.

“We believe in digitization as a powerful tool to perceive in advance possible issues to better arrange maintenance activities and keep our assets as reliable and efficient as possible.”