PT PLN Indonesia Power bags two wins at the Asian Technology Excellence Awards

The company was recognised for its health index monitoring solution and virtual reality power plant.

PT PLN Indonesia Power – the largest generation company in Southeast Asia, a subholding of PT PLN (Persero) that always been committed to becoming a tech-based, innovative, and future-oriented energy company brought home the Indonesia Technology Excellence Award for Analytics - Energy and Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality - Energy at the Asian Technology Excellence Awards. These are thanks to its innovative utilisation of machine learning (ML) to optimise desalination plants and its virtual reality simulator for operator training, respectively.

The ML technology for the health index solution, which gave PT PLN Indonesia Power the analytics award, indicates desalination performance. In turn, inefficiencies caused by the plant's maintenance schedule are avoided and these schedules will also be adjusted to the desalination performance.

Desalination performance is analysed using the K-Nearest Neighbour Algorithm in real-time by utilising the REOC Pi-vision infrastructure implemented in several PT PLN Indonesia Power units. Meanwhile, the regular routine maintenance on desalination Block 4 equipment includes preventive, outage, corrective, and predictive maintenance activities.

Previously, maintenance activities at the desalination plant Block 4 were carried out by only analysing three parameters of production data, such as product flow, seawater flow 1st effect, and 2nd effect. The analysis was carried out manually on each parameter, and routine cleaning desalination activities were carried out every six months, which resulted in inefficient desalination plant production.

PT PLN Indonesia Power’s innovation aligns with its development of ML technology to determine the desalination health index of its equipment. The design used six operating parameters, five health index classifications, and data sets for one cycle of desalination operating conditions.

From the design result, the k-Means classification accuracy value is 99%, and the results of the actual training data in March 2022 state that normal desalination operating conditions are stated by the green health index with potential savings.

Moving to the company’s award-winning augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) solution, PT PLN Indonesia Power adopted a 3D virtual reality simulator called VIRPOP (Virtual Reality Power Plant).

VIRPOP is designed for operator training and simulation purposes, replicating a real power plant located at PT PLN Indonesia Power. This simulator aims to enhance the training and simulation experiences for power plant operators by offering a safe and engaging virtual environment. Special effect included to brings more immersive 3D virtual experiences.

It replicates all the functions and features found in an actual power plant and is compatible with the Windows operating system and Oculus Quest virtual reality devices, specifically the Oculus Quest 2 and Oculus Quest Pro.

VIRPOP provides two simulation modes, single-player and multiplayer, enabling both individual and collaborative training exercises. To access VIRPOP, users require an internet connection to connect to a cloud server. 

VIRPOP has been exhibited at various innovation events, including Masyarakat Ketenagalistrikan Indonesia (MKI) 2022, Indonesia Metaverse Show 2023, and Hannover Messe 2023, showcasing its capabilities and innovations to stakeholders in the power industry. VIRPOP Simulator has been registered and recorded as having intellectual property rights.

The Asian Technology Excellence Awards honours the most outstanding technological projects and innovations, and recognises exceptional companies that are riding the digital disruption wave to lead the digital transformation journeys in their respective industries. 

The Asian Technology Excellence Awards is presented by Asian Business Review. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2024 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's outstanding retail initiatives, please contact Jane Patiag at [email protected].