industry

Vedanta Limited signs an agreement to deploy GE's Digital Smelter solutions


KOLKATA: Vedanta Limited‘s Aluminium & Power business has signed an agreement to deploy GE’s Digital Smelter solutions at its largest smelter in India at Jharsuguda in Odisha. The move, which is tipped to significantly increase its operational efficiency and productivity, will be the first such deployment of digital twin technology at any aluminium smelter in India.

The initiative is expected to substantially reduce specific power consumption at the smelter. Typically, a one-percent reduction in specific power consumption based on digital smelter solutions can save about $ 4-5 million annually in the smelter potlines alone, for every one million ton per annum (mtpa) of aluminium production, an official statement said. In addition, this digital solution is expected to improve raw material utilization, increase smelter pot life, operational efficiency, safety and reduce wastage, the statement added.

“As one of the largest producers 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” Ajay Kapur, CEO, Aluminium & Power Business, Vedanta Ltd said. The application of digital industrial solutions is an extraordinary opportunity to accelerate productivity levels to benchmark beating standards, he added.

Commenting on the partnership, Mahesh Palashikar, 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 Digital Smelter solutions are a significant step in charting the next generation of smelting operations globally.

“Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) solutions are becoming mission-critical for industrial companies around the world,” Bhanu Shekhar, Chief Commercial Officer at GE Digital said. “By combining machine learning and predictive analytics with the deep domain expertise of our teams we are helping customers like Vedanta’s aluminium business to better operate, analyze and optimize their operations.”

These predictive insights and process advisories improve operational performance and reduce risks such as unplanned shutdowns. “Together with Vedanta we will work on improving asset health and production processes through the application of big data analytics, advanced failure mode analysis and process optimization modeling,” he added.

Historical information and real-time data will be processed using data analytics to generate alerts and insights which will be shared with plant operators and maintenance teams to help them execute their duties more effectively and achieve greater business outcomes for the plant, the statement added.

GE’s suite of Digital Smelter solutions is being internally developed jointly by GE Digital and GE Global Research Center to address all the elements of a large-scale operation in the potlines, as well as for the other operational adjacencies that make up the entire smelter plant ecosystem.

Vedanta Limited -Aluminium & Power business is one of India’s largest producers of aluminium with an installed capacity of 2.2 mtpa and has an extensive portfolio of value-added aluminium products which are used by a wide gamut of core industries.





READ SOURCE

Leave a Reply

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.