GE implements digital twin technology at Vedanta – the first ever implementation at an aluminium smelter in India

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GE and Vedanta Limited – Aluminium & Power business, signed an agreement to implement GE’s Digital Smelter solutions at its largest smelter in India at Jharsuguda in Odisha to significantly increase its operational efficiency and productivity. This will be the first such deployment of digital twin technology at any aluminium smelter in India and is part of Vedanta’s long-term digital transformation initiatives.

The digital twin technology and advanced data analytics being deployed are expected to substantially reduce specific power consumption at the smelter. Typically, a one-percent reduction in specific power consumption based on digital smelter solutions can save about USD 4-5 million annually in the smelter potlines alone, for every 1 million ton per annum (MTPA) of aluminium production. In addition, this digital solution is expected to improve raw material utilization, increase smelter pot life, operational efficiency, safety and reduce wastage.

“Aluminium is a metal of strategic importance and it finds applications in key sectors such as aerospace, electrical distribution, construction, transportation etc. Being the largest producer of aluminium in India, with an extensive value-added product portfolio, this partnership with GE will help us enhance sustainability and bring in more predictability to our business as we are constantly looking at innovative digital technologies to optimize our business’ performance levels,” said Ajay Kapur, CEO – Aluminium & Power Business, Vedanta Ltd. “The application of digital industrial solutions is an extraordinary opportunity to accelerate productivity levels to benchmark beating standards.”

Commenting on the partnership, Mahesh Palashikar, President & CEO, GE South Asia said, “GE has a strong history of leadership to enhance competitiveness, efficiency and sustainability for our customers. We are proud to support Vedanta’s efforts to drive operational excellence across its aluminium smelter plants which will include advanced data analytics to model plant assets and deliver process advisories to enhance business outcomes. This will set new benchmarks in the industry”

GE’s Digital Smelter solutions are a significant step in charting the next generation of smelting operations globally.

“Industrial IoT solutions are becoming mission-critical for industrial companies around the world,” said Bhanu Shekhar, Chief Commercial Officer at GE Digital. “By combining machine learning and predictive analytics with the deep domain expertise of our teams we are helping customers like Vedanta’s aluminium business to better operate, analyze and optimize their operations. These predictive insights and process advisories improve operational performance and reduce risks such as unplanned shutdowns,” he said. “Together with Vedanta we will work on improving asset health and production processes through the application of big data analytics, advanced failure mode analysis and process optimization modeling.”

Historical information and real-time data will be processed using data analytics to generate alerts and insights which will be shared with plant operators and maintenance teams to help them execute their duties more effectively and achieve greater business outcomes for the plant. GE’s digital solutions use machine learning algorithms to provide multiple outcomes such as pot health/leak alerts, virtual-sensor based dosing recommendations, anode-effect predictions, etc. which are entirely data analytics driven and require no additional sensing hardware or infrastructure. GE’s suite of Digital Smelter solutions is being internally developed jointly by GE Digital and GE Global Research Center to address all the elements of such a large-scale operation in the potlines, as well as for the other operational adjacencies that make up the entire smelter plant ecosystem.

Vedanta Limited – Aluminium & Power business is India’s largest producer of aluminium with an installed capacity of 2.2 MTPA and has an extensive portfolio of value-added aluminium products which are used by a wide gamut of core industries.

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