Vedanta First in India to Digitize Aluminium Plant
Vedanta Limited, the mining major from India, has signed an agreement with General Electric (GE) India for digitization of its Aluminium plant in Jharsuguda, Odisha. Vedanta’s Jharsuguda plant which is the largest aluminum smelting unit in India would now also be the first Aluminium smelting plant in the country to deploy digital twin technology.
GE’s Digital Smelter Solution
GE’s Digital Smelter solution is a customized solution for Aluminium smelting plants built on GE’s Predix Platform, the operating system for industrial IoT connectivity.
The solution includes digital twin technology and data analytics. Digital twin is a replica of real plant in the cloud with all the instruments running on real-time data. Analytics of this data will help the system to predict and prevent any malfunctions like pot leakage, machine failure etc. It would also generate alerts on energy wastage and actionable data for process optimization.
Digital Twinning Benefits for Vedanta
As per a press release by Vedanta the digital smelter solution will significantly reduce power consumption of the smelter. As per Vedanta’s press release a reduction of 1% in power consumption by smelter of 1 million ton per annum (MTPA) Aluminum production will result in savings of USD 4-5 million annually. The current capacity of Jharsuguda smelter stands at 1.75 MTPA.
The implementation will also improve raw material utilization, increase smelter pot life, operational efficiency and reduce wastage.
Commenting on the subject Mr. Ajay Kapur, CEO – Aluminium & Power Business, Vedanta Ltd said, “Being the largest producer of Aluminium in India, with an extensive value-added product portfolio, this partnership with GE will help us enhance sustainability and bring in more predictability to our business as we are constantly looking at innovative digital technologies to optimize our business’ performance levels”.
Stating his views on the partnership, Mr. Mahesh Palashikar, President & CEO, GE South Asia said, “We are proud to support Vedanta’s efforts to drive operational excellence across its Aluminum smelter plants which will include advanced data analytics to model plant assets and deliver process advisories to enhance business outcomes. This will set new benchmarks in the industry”
GE’s Smelter Solution is being jointly developed by GE Digital and GE Global Research Center. The cost and time of the project or implementation has not yet been disclosed by either of the companies.
About Vedanta Limited: Vedanta Limited is one of the major mining firms in India. It’s Aluminium and Power Buisiness became the largest producer of aluminium in the country with production of 1.95 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) in the FY 2018-19.
About GE Digital: GE Digital is a direct subsidiary of the General Electric Corporation. It is headquartered in San Ramon, California, U.S.A. The major offerings by GE Digital include edge to cloud-based software and analytics, field service management software, cybersecurity, and digital twin and industrial machine learning technology. It has around 26000 employees around the globe.
