The video presents Tata Consulting Engineers' (TCE) DigitalPoint solution, an AI‑driven platform for monitoring and diagnosing water chemistry in power‑cycle plants. It begins by emphasizing water as the lifeblood of a plant and explains how optimal water chemistry reduces corrosion, deposits, and downtime, while improving safety and profitability. The speaker then outlines the conventional, manual approach—operators watch parameters (conductivity, pH, sodium, dissolved oxygen, phosphate, silica) on local panels, consult chemists, and act based on experience—highlighting drawbacks such as expertise gaps, training demands, manpower needs, and slow response. TCE’s DigitalPoint captures decades of expertise in a data‑driven system that provides centralized real‑time monitoring, logical decision support under complex conditions, feedwater control during cyclic loads, subsystem and root‑cause analysis, early‑warning alerts, and key performance indicators. The solution’s recommendations enable reductions in boiler‑tube and pressure‑part failures, unplanned shutdowns, maintenance costs, and startup time, thereby increasing equipment reliability, availability, and overall plant profitability.
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Tata Consulting Engineers, with decades of domain expertise in plant engineering, has leveraged artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics to develop a digital point solution for power cycle chemistry monitoring and diagnosis. This innovative digital point solution can help plants optimize the water chemistry, assist in anomaly detection, provide root cause analysis, better O&M awareness, and hence improve the plant profitability. Let us have a look at water chemistry and its implications in a power plant, the conventional management of water chemistry in a power plant, the possible drawbacks in this approach, and finally we will look at our innovative DigitalPoint solution. Water is known as the lifeblood of a power plant. It is the water that generates steam, which in turn rotates the turbine that produces the electricity. It is essential that this water is free from impurities so that its parameters are maintained at optimum level. A sound understanding on power cycle chemistry helps us to achieve the optimum level. Let's now look at what an optimum water chemistry does in a power plant. Optimum water chemistry can reduce flow-accelerated corrosion, waterside deposits, corrosion fatigue, and stress-corrosion cracking. Maintenance of optimum water cycle chemistry provides the operator of a power plant with a lot of benefits, such as reduction in boiler blowdown, safer operation of a power plant, and reduction in plant downtime maintenance costs. Let us understand the conventional management of water chemistry in a power plant. In a conventional approach, the operator looks for deviations in parameters such as conductivity, pH, sodium, dissolved oxygen, phosphate, and silica from local or main control panel. As soon as the operator notices any deviation, he communicates with the chemist and takes up remedial measures to address the situation. The chemist, based on experience, suggests corrective action to the operator. Possible drawbacks in this approach are: lack of expertise might lead to non-optimal operation and diagnosis. Need for continuous and extensive training is a must for the chemist. Need for more manpower based on expertise levels, slow response to urgent plant needs. TCE, with its decades of experience, has captured its expertise and developed a digital point solution which can analyze and optimize the power cycle chemistry of a power plant. Data-driven digital point solution can provide centralized real-time monitoring of power cycle chemistry. It can aid the operator in making logical decisions under complex operating conditions such as abnormal spillage of critical parameters and part load operation. The Digital Point solution can also help the operator to have a good control on feedwater chemistry during cyclic and flexible load operations. The Digital Point solution can provide detailed subsystem analysis root cause analysis for deviation, early warning alerts for deviations, and key performance indicators. The recommendations from the Digital Point solution, along with the actions of the operator, can provide key benefits such as reduction in boiler tube and pressure part failures that happen due to non-optimal power cycle chemistry, reduction in maintenance cost that happens due to unplanned shutdown, increase Increase in reliability and availability of cycle equipment in a power plant. Reduction in unit startup time, ultimately improving the profitability of a power plant. Tata Consulting Engineers Limited, a trusted partner for digital solutions. Stay tuned to this space to know more about our upcoming DigitalPoint solutions.
