EDP has signed a contract with General Electric (GE) to enable preventive and more optimized management of its water, natural gas and coal-based power generation assets throughout the Iberian Peninsula.

The five-year agreement supports the implementation of the Group’s digital strategy in asset management through a platform that will allow monitoring the performance of the equipment and anticipate potential events that may jeopardize the normal operation of the plants, optimizing their maintenance and operation costs.

The contract enables the use of artificial intelligence algorithms, which will evaluate in real time all energy production variables. The first phase of the project is already underway. This new agreement with GE will support the activity of a new monitoring and diagnostics centre for all these plants, currently in the process of being created.

“This agreement represents an important step in EDP’s Digital strategy, ensuring an even more efficient management of its plants in the Iberian Peninsula, at a time when technology is central to the future of companies and is transforming the energy sector,” states Rui Teixeira, EDP’s administrator.

“We are very proud to partner with EDP, one of the most innovative leaders in the utilities sector, to help them optimize their global generating capacity through the adoption of GE’s digital industrial solutions,” said Maher Chebbo, chief executive for innovation at GE Power Digital.  “Together, we are re-shaping the energy landscape to help EDP achieve their digital transformation goals.”

This commitment marks a new era for the power generation business and comes at a time when EDP, despite already being heavily digitized, has clearly showed its willingness to be a leader on this front. 
 
Recently, EDP X was launched, a cross-group-wide project aimed at speeding up digitization. Digital transformation affects the entire EDP value chain and has implications for the customer relationship, the operation of assets (such as energy production) and the way people work and interact with one another. 
 
Although it involves technology, digitization is primarily a matter of people and most of the innovations in this new era are the result of co-operation between human and technological factors.