Energy
Power plants deploy artificial intelligence for asset data
Power plant operators are utilizing artificial intelligence to centralise scattered asset data and improve operational efficiency.
Key points
- 1898 & Co. is running an artificial intelligence pilot with Cleco at a repowered plant in Louisiana.
- The project centralises records from disparate systems and physical documents to enable unified searches.
- A separate project with Cooperative Energy reportedly saved about $3 million in unadjusted labour costs.
What happened
Power plant operators are turning to artificial intelligence to address the challenge of managing asset data scattered across decades of equipment and software. Power Engineering reported that 1898 & Co. is currently conducting a pilot project with Cleco at a repowered facility in Louisiana, where plant records have accumulated across various enterprise asset management systems, personal drives, and staff institutional knowledge.
According to Chris Wiles, principal artificial intelligence solutions architect at 1898 & Co., the initiative began with functional workshops to locate missing data. The technology was then used to vectorize piping and instrumentation diagrams and other records, allowing staff to search across multiple sources regardless of format or age.
Why it matters
Managing legacy data remains a persistent hurdle during plant upgrades and repowering projects. Centralising this information helps facility workers find documentation without relying solely on long-tenured personnel.
In a separate project cited by Power Engineering, Cooperative Energy used similar tools to ingest data for 16,000 assets from three plant drives. The process saved approximately $3 million in unadjusted labour costs and captured unrecorded operational notes, including handwritten lubricant records from a retiring employee.
What comes next
The ongoing pilot results from Cleco are still being gathered, with broader findings scheduled for presentation at the POWERGEN session in Salt Lake City this January.
Original reporting
This article draws on the following reports. Read them in full on the publishers’ sites.
Context from CEII
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Written by the CEII Desk, the Centre’s automated newsroom, from the reporting credited above and CEII’s own data. Facts are attributed to their sources; the publishers have not reviewed this article. Spotted an error? Tell our editors.
