LAHORE: General Electric (GE) has inked agreements with Halmore Power Generation Company Limited and Orient Power Company Ltd to provide its Predix-enabled Digital Power Plant solutions at two power plants in Pakistan. The software aims to reduce costs and make the power plants more efficient.

This complements the government’s Vision 2025 to double power generation to over 45,000 megawatts (MW) and increase electricity access from 67 to over 90 per cent of the population, said a press release issued here on Monday.

GE estimates there is $1.3 trillion in value creation between now and 2025 for companies that are going digital and $90 billion is expected to be invested in the energy industry’s digitisation by 2020.

The deployment of GE Power’s Digital Power Plant solutions will enhance the thermal efficiency of Halmore’s power plant in Bhikki and Orient’s plant in Balloki Punjab by using GE’s Industrial Internet to integrate advanced data analytics with heavy machinery. The implementation of GE’s solutions will commence at Balloki later this year.

Zaheer Ahmed, managing director of Halmore Power Generation Company Limited, said on the occasion: “We have a long-term partnership with GE, which brings advanced digital industrial solutions that enable us to achieve unprecedented levels of productivity. The new software solution is another innovative step that we are implementing at the Bhikki Power Plant to support the nation in securing reliable power supply to meet the growing need.”

Nadeem Babar, CEO of Orient Power Company, said: “We are looking at innovative technologies to strengthen the operational efficiency of the Balloki plant to meet the growing energy needs of the country. GE Power’s software solutions are ideally suited for the power plant as they bring strong predictive maintenance, which will in turn reduce the downtime of operations. The modifications in software and hardware components, using GE technology will lead to the most efficient utilization of our resources.”

“The new software solutions at Bhikki and Balloki will enable our customers to focus on predictive maintenance to avoid problems before these happen. This will drive unprecedented levels of efficiency and productivity by reducing downtime and helping to identify operational challenges in advance,” said Dr Azeez Mohammed, president and CEO of GE Power Services, MEA.

Sarim Sheikh, president and CEO of GE Pakistan, added: “GE’s Predix-enabled software solutions will help improve asset management and predictive maintenance. Pakistan is one of the early adopters of GE’s Industrial Internet solutions, which will contribute positively to reducing the energy shortage in the country.”

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2016