18 energy plants under one reporting system

In 2019, Oulun Seudun Sähkö Oy deployed KPA Unicon’s PlantSys Reporting system. All of its connectable plants were linked to the system. For KPA Unicon, the delivery of the system was one of the largest in the history of the PlantSys service platform.

“In addition to Reporting, we also use the PlantSys platform to manage the plant’s maintenance and logbook. Those features were introduced at the same time, but reporting is the most important for us in our daily work,” says Joni Pekkala, District Heating Production Manager at Oulun Seudun Sähkö.

The oldest Oulu Seudun Sähkö plants connected to PlantSys Reporting are from the early 1990s, and the newest ones were completed in 2014–2015.

“A solar collector heating system completed in 2018 is also connected to PlantSys Reporting. The other connected units are oil-fired boilers, solid fuel plants, and pellet boilers. In fact, no production plants were left out.”

The largest of the plants is 6 megawatts, and the smallest is 300 kilowatts. The plants generate heat for the networks located in the municipalities around Oulu. There are three networks in the Liminka area and two in Muhos. Lumijoki, Päivärinne area, and Tyrnävä each have their own district heating network. The largest network can be found in Kempele.

Production monitoring anytime, anywhere

KPA Unicon and Oulun Seudun Sähkö already had an existing operation and maintenance (O&M) agreement. In practice, KPA Unicon takes care of the day-to-day operation and maintenance of the plants, employing four plant managers and an operations manager. From the customer’s point of view, the co-operation is functional, but according to Pekkala, an easy system for monitoring the production was needed.

“In the past, we had the challenge of getting real-time plant production data. We received information about individual facilities through a separate device or connection. With this system, I have access to the data from any device, and the data is easy to find. I can monitor that the plants are run as intended,” he states.

He continues on to say that the “monitoring is related to the operating economy of the facilities. For us, the actual load of the plant, the flue gas temperature, and the oxygen level of the flue gas are essential – these numbers tell us how efficiently the boilers are run. Concerning the district heating networks, we closely monitor the temperature of the supply and return water. If necessary, the system also provides easy access to various reports and has also helped to identify some maintenance needs when we have detected a failure in production based on values.”

The reporting service displays all key information in hourly averages. In addition, the system depicts measuring data by the minute. From the smallest plants in the Oulun Seudun Sähkö, data is available for only a few variables, but the point of the system is that it suits plants of all sizes.

“In this case, compared to a new facility, the amount of data available is relatively small due to the age of the plants. But this is a good example of how scalable PlantSys Reporting is: on the one hand, it can be applied to an old plant that is very small and has, for example, 15 types of measurements, and on the other hand, the system is also very suitable for a plant with 7,500 types of measurements,” explains Joni Räsänen, Digital Director, KPA Unicon.