The Ovation Users’ Group is a conference by and for the users themselves, and that hasn’t changed in the 37 years it has been running. Bob Yeager brought that group together by sharing how those users have made Ovation the leading platform for the power industry around the world—automating 20% of the entire world power generating capacity. In fact, Bob explained,
“We have a huge install base in the United States. Sitting in this room is probably about 70% of all United States generation.”
And Bob was ready to wow that large and distinguished crowd, with the announcement of the new features coming in Ovation 4.0, and one feature in particular—generative artificial intelligence (AI).
Stability in a changing world
Bob talked about the way users’ businesses have changed to help them stay relevant in transmission and distribution, and, as a result, Emerson has had to change to stay relevant as well. Many organizations are transitioning from fossil as their primary feedstock to renewable. Emerson has met that challenge with a range of acquisitions to expand its technology and expertise, including American Governor, Mita Teknik, and OSI.
That’s how Emerson continues to bring the most reliable control system in power year after year, Bob explained. It provides reliability to ensure that operations continue running. And new technologies help improve operator visibility, helping users not only control their systems better, but to also see the logic execute so they can troubleshoot operations, understanding the logic to the millisecond.
And as the cybersecurity landscape continues to change, Bob shared, Ovation will continue to be the most secure option available. Ovation is the only control system that delivers qualified antiterrorism technology, offering the highest level of legal protection against cyber attacks available on the market. Security, stability, and reliability are built into Emerson’s core values.
A boundless future
Emerson never stagnates, however. As companies introduce more and more renewables into their fleets, the data points increase exponentially, and Emerson is ready to respond. Ovation continues to improve to meet power producers’ challenges, and, today, is focused on a Boundless Automation™ vision for seamless data mobility of those data points from the intelligent field, through the edge, and into the cloud.
Bob shared some of the existing technologies that help build this boundless automation future: Ovation Green, the Ovation Digital Twin, and even the Ovation Grid Edge Controller with software-defined I/O.
However, the biggest announcement by far was Bob’s introduction of Ovation with generative AI—the tool organizations will use to develop their smartest ever group of operators and technicians. Advanced process control, model predictive control, advanced pattern recognition, and more have been available for years. But those tools need to be programmed, requiring experts with extensive background, both to design and configure those tools, and to interpret the data they create.
Ovation GenAI will change that paradigm, offering a secure foundation of knowledge-based data to augment workforce expertise and thought processes, enhancing productivity by prioritizing and automating tasks. The platform will provide predictive guidance and recommend appropriate actions to increase reliability, improve customer experiences and optimize overall operations.
“We’re building the smartest collective knowledge of your plant—more intelligence than any human could ever accumulate. We also have the ability to train real time data into the GPT. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, it’s getting smarter.”
Bob even offered concrete examples, sharing real scenarios presented to the GenAI engine, and the results it delivered.
All the technologies, both new and existing that Bob shared will be on display and demoed at the 2024 Ovation Users’ Group conference here in Pittsburgh. If you’re here already, be sure to stop by the exhibition room in the afternoon to see history in the making!
