Software solution could save power station millions
North Yorkshire’s Drax Power Station is set to save up to £1m per year on turbine maintenance costs after commissioning Leeds workflow software provider eviFile to undertake a five-year project.
Drax Group, which owns the station, has signed the deal with eviFile to help ensure its six turbines are back in operation faster when required inspections of them are undertaken.
Drax conducts inspections of each of its turbines once every four years. During the inspections, its engineers and contractors examine the condition of specific components and identify potential defects while the remaining five turbines continue to generate power.
eviFile’s software will enable Drax to record an end-to-end digital audit trail of more than 4,000 individual tests in a 12-week period.
Over the five-year period savings of up to £5m could be generated due to eviFile’s ability to continually generate efficiencies.
Drax Group’s outage co-ordinator and project sponsor, Michelle Desmond, said: “It is vitally important for us to further enhance the efficiency of our inspection processes.
“After an extensive procurement process, eviFile was deemed to be the best-fit solution due to its handling of complex processes and impressive level of configurability.
“We are confident this technology will make an immediate impact and bring a clear commercial benefit.
“Drax Power Station is the biggest decarbonisation project in Europe. We have already upgraded two thirds of the power station to run on sustainable biomass instead of coal.
“We’re looking to replace our remaining coal units with gas, which will extend the life of the plant, protect jobs and deliver cleaner, reliable energy for millions of homes and business.
“The efficiency savings through eviFile will allow us to focus as much attention as possible on our vision for a zero carbon, lower cost energy future.”
eviFile works via standard tablets and smartphones, enabling Drax’s engineers and contractors to use their device’s camera and GPS capabilities to record works completed.
Every use is securely captured with high-quality data on time, date, geographical location, user and device orientation, resulting in better workflow management.
eviFile Managing Director, Luke Allen, said: “The team at Drax Group has realised the potential of our technology to drastically improve efficiency, mitigate risk and ultimately reduce costs.
“eviFile offers utility and energy companies a powerful combination of secure digital evidence and efficient task management.
“For this project the platform is being tailored to Drax’s specific requirements and we are already working closely with the company to embed our technology into Drax Power Station’s processes.”
