Techno Vision

UTILITIES

By: Rafael Thomas - CEO,

Datamatrix InfoTech (P) Ltd

Utilities are like the blood supply for an infrastructure, which brings it to life. Bulk of the commercial production of energy goes into the utilities. An improvement in the performance of the utilities would result in major savings in the energy cost.  Information Technology has opened new avenues for improved performance and better management.

Often poor infrastructure results in poor performance. But more often the poor performance is contributed by the inefficient operations. Any marginal change in the operating conditions can drastically alter the performance of the machines. The key to high performance lies in simultaneous management of the infrastructure along with the operations responding to every change in the demand and the operating environment. This pressing need will eventually transform this industry into a performance driven knowledge based industry. The increasing trend of privatization and the emphasis on energy performance will hasten this process.

The utilities across the world are poised for making a great leap in performance. Millions of dollars worth of instrumentation can be moved into a computer chip through smart software, eliminating the need for intricate external instrumentation at prohibitive cost. This technology will bridge the gap between the Demand - Operations and Infrastructure. The cost and the convenience with its detailed analytic capabilities in a ready to react form will give this technology a cutting edge.

This technology will also facilitate the following:

►Remote monitoring

►O&M Outsourcing

►Collaborative solutions

►Energy and water audits

►Performance Contracting

►Performance Optimization.

►Total automation

How this technology works
The powerful software being developed will help to replicate the plant operating environments in the computer. With the help of elementary sensors, computers will be able to keep track of each machine and the entire plant operations. The computer will be configured with the machine data such that it can predict the behavior of each machine as well as the system and create a virtual instrumentation of the plant operating parameters. The virtual instrument data is validated with the help of other inputs to the system. This technology will dynamically link the machine data with the operating conditions and plant operating parameters.

Whom it helps
This technology will help to extract billions of dollars trapped in the inefficiencies of the utilities. This gives the highest return of investment to the customer. It helps the suppliers with greater opportunities for offering their services. Specialists can be hired from any part of the world and would be able to view all the plant operations from the convenience of their office. The saving opportunities will shorten the life cycle of many of the plant machinery and services offering better incentives for early upgrades. It helps the country to reduce the stress on energy resources and help the world to be less polluted.

The Utilities of tomorrow
A pump house located in New York or Mexico may be managed from India, while the consultancy is provided from London, and the vendors for major overhaul are selected from Canada and Korea, where all of them work on real time basis to fix a problem at the site through a web based application. The best part is that an independent vendor/banker finances the whole project from Brussels, which is linked to the savings from energy performance.

How long would it take
Well, the development of the technology, testing and deployment would take a long time. But Datamatrix has started its work on this opportunity way back in 2001 and released the totally integrated solution for pumping utilities for implementation in India during the last year. The technology will be ready for full-scale implementation for international release soon. Thereafter, it should take only a click of a button in the computer to reach the technology to your pump house!