General Electric announced "Digital Power Plant," a software and hardware package that the company says creates a virtual ‘’digital twin’’ of an entire industrial power plant complex. Powered by GE’s Predix platform, an industrial internet operating system, the company says the “digital twin” is a collection of physics-based methods and digital technologies that are used to model the present state of assets in a digital power plant or wind farm. This technology lets utilities monitor and manage the power generation system to enhance efficiency, security and environmental compliance.

GE says its digital power plant will enable customers to use information technologies to optimize the underlying infrastructure that generates electricity. The expected benefits include up to $230 million for a new combined-cycle gas power plant and up to $50 million for an existing combined-cycle gas-powered plant in savings. Across the power industry, GE says this could amount to as much as to $75 billion in savings.

A statement from GE says that once an entire power plant is digitized, it can deploy applications powered by the Predix platform to improve assets and operations. Predix has security and governance built in to allow developers to build, test and deploy applications.

Exelon Generation and GE Power & Water have agreed to implement a Predix-powered suite of enterprise-wide software technologies across three fuel sources—nuclear, gas and wind. GE says these installations will enable Exelon to enhance its performance, efficiencies and reliability.

GE’s other launch customer, PSEG, recently chose GE’s software to upgrade multiple gas-powered plants to improve their reliability and operational performance. In addition, PSEG has chosen a 7HA.02 gas turbine for a new combined-cycle plant to replace steam boilers in New Jersey.

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