Connecting the industrial world

Just about every business uses data to optimise its own operations. Advanced industrial enterprises share data to help optimise their extended ecosystems and drive better, more sustainable outcomes with customers, partners and suppliers.

Consider Dominion Energy, a leading North American power provider with an extensive network of renewable and low-carbon power generation. To manage power supply across its grid, Dominion gathers and shares data internally using AVEVA Data Hub, an industrial SaaS solution available on the AVEVA Connect industrial cloud platform.

Data sharing helps Dominion customers validate their transition to low-carbon energy

Because much of Dominion's energy comes from renewable sources, the team discovered that sharing energy source and performance data in real time with customers unlocked a new source of value.

Dominion enables customers to track and validate their decarbonisation commitments within embedded carbon reporting schedules, providing data proof that each customer is using energy from low-carbon sources.

Accelerating to market 50% faster

Dominion's customers can prove their own net-zero progress to investors and environmental, social and governance (ESG) auditors. Today, Dominion is now sharing data across its network in real time as a new, revenue producing service. The company has also realised a 50% increase in speed to market for vital environmental data.

AVEVA is helping Dominion Energy grow profitability and accelerate the transition to a low-carbon energy future in North America.

“With AVEVA, we enable our data to reach the cloud quickly, and from there, we can share it with our utility customers so that they can use it.

We're turning real-time data on energy sources into a selling point for our company, providing benefits that encourage our customers to select Dominion over other energy providers. The intelligence of the AVEVA tools means that we can achieve speed to market and realise benefit more quickly, for ourselves and our customers.”

Riley Moore, Dominion Energy

Advancing the University of California's pledge to become carbon neutral by 2025 draws on the ingenuity of talented engineers and operators, working with advanced data tools like AVEVA PI System and AVEVA System Platform

UC Davis, the university's largest physical campus with over 1,000 buildings, started using data to optimise its chilled water system. Using AVEVA's PI System, engineers dispatched water chillers more effectively, at times when electricity was cheaper on the market. This sustainability measure alone generates annual savings of $150,000.

A second initiative focused on HVAC scheduling. Using building occupancy data combined with custom analytics and notifications, all built on PI System, the facilities team can make scheduling heating and cooling more efficient and identify scheduling errors.

“We have scripts that look at the schedule and change our control system to turn off when we don't expect anyone there.”

David Trombly, UC Davis Engineering Supervisor

A third initiative, named “The Big Shift,” is an ongoing project to improve efficiency throughout the university's heating system. By running different scenarios, campus engineers determined that switching to a low-temperature hot water system would save the campus money and emissions in the long run. Electricity use will rise, but energy consumption can be offset with renewable energy sources that maintain carbon neutrality. After the switch, the campus expects a 62% reduction in annual gas usage.

Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) is a leading liquefied natural gas producer with production capacity of 22 million tonnes per annum. The company's digital transformation programme is a key enabler for its competitiveness in the short and long term.

One of its flagship projects is the implementation of the NLNG digital twin, developed in partnership with AVEVA and Schneider Electric. The digital twin uses AVEVA Unified Operations Center for visualisation, integrated with AVEVA Information Management and artificial intelligence from AVEVA Predictive Analytics.

Open, agnostic technology integrates with existing landscape

NLNG selected AVEVA as its partner for developing the digital twin for our domain-specific expertise and open, agnostic model, enabling NLNG to build on its existing technology infrastructure.

The project's first phase created a data-centric digital twin of one of NLNG's six LNG trains, visualised through an interactive AVEVA Unified Operations Center (UOC). The digital twin draws data from AVEVA Unified Engineering using AVEVA Asset Information Manager and AI optimisations from more than 60 AVEVA Predictive Analytics models.

The UOC displays the LNG train's production status compared to planned performance, supplemented by contextual information across the production value chain, and integrated with maintenance activity and alerts from the predictive models.

Interactive screens highlight areas which should be investigated before suggesting changes or addressing maintenance issues. With the successful completion of the first phase of the deployment, the team has commenced rollout to NLNG's other trains in a second phase.

Predictive analytics prevent unplanned downtime and loss

One of the tangible benefits of the digital twin is the success of the Predictive Analytics module. The predictive capability enables early identification of anomalies. On at least two occasions, it has provided intervention and corrective support, preventing unplanned downtimes and potential revenue loss. The digital twin also has transformation potential to optimise production, improve productivity, assure asset integrity and ensure health, safety and environment protections.

Schneider Electric and AVEVA have been partners on the NLNG digital transformation journey from the ideation and strategy stage. In addition to the technical capabilities of the digital twin, NLNG has noted the team's collaborative attitude and flexibility in delivering to plan, despite the challenges posed by the pandemic.