Digitalisation of pumping stations – smart data-driven solution in hydropower condition monitoring

Digitalisation, analytics and remote monitoring already play an important role in maintenance, but even more so in the future. In industrial condition monitoring, all this becomes increasingly important as different data collection methods are introduced, the available data is crushed and utilised in the maintenance of different production environments.

Kemijoki Oy is the most important producer of hydropower and regulating power in Finland. Kemijoki Oy’s pumping stations are in the northern part of the country, and the distances between them are long. Inspection visits at sites have taken a lot of time and thousands of kilometres of driving. In cooperation with Kemijoki, Caverion decided to pilot remote monitoring of pumping stations and utilise a vibration expert team and new data collection methods, such as image and sound analytics.

The pilot confirmed that large-scale remote monitoring of pumping stations is a viable concept. It helps to observe  energy savings from the heating of wells of the pumping stations. In addition, remote monitoring  demonstrates the potential of the demand response system for the pumping station based on the measured levels of basin surfaces and the running times of the pumps during the flood season in spring 2020.

“The digitalisation of pumping stations supports Kemijoki Oy’s data-to-knowledge, knowledge-to-action thinking. We see that the utilisation of data solutions and analytics, as well as better information sharing, are key to the development of hydropower generation. The pumping station project is a great example of how digitalisation helps to develop our operations,” says Heikki Kusmin, Vice President at Kemijoki Oy.

Cooperation of experts

The customer, Kemijoki Oy, has access to analytics and is able to take full advantage of it. Caverion’s analytics experts and Kemijoki’s hydropower experts collaborate on data analysis and the development of remote monitoring. In practice, this means that data collected through Caverion’s system can be transferred from the Caverion data platform to the customer’s cloud system. Caverion is able to make efficient and flexible use of its organisation and expert services in different locations. At the same time, the system’s cloud and edge analytics are constantly being developed to meet the needs of different industries.

Scope and content of the implementation:

• 13 pumping stations in Northern Finland
• implementation according to the pilot of the first pumping station (Poikkioja)
• condition monitoring of pumps
• temperature control of wells and rooms
• level measurements and screen control
• calculation of pump running times
• image analytics and camera surveillance from the station
• implementation of demand response for stations
• interface to logic
• logic program changes

What happens next?

We will continue to analyse and develop the solution model together with Kemijoki Oy. Our common goal is to connect the pumping stations to the demand response system during 2021.

Watch a video of the pumping station IoT pilot

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