pwr_february-2025 - 6

OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE
1. Completed in early 2025, the Leipheim
Power Plant in Bavaria, Germany, is a cuttingedge
gas turbine facility developed by Siemens
Energy and German energy giant LEAG
to bolster grid stability during renewable energy
shortfalls. The plant, capable of ramping
up remotely within 30 minutes to deliver 300
MW of power, is operated entirely from Siemens
Energy's ISO-certified Remote O&M
Support Center in Erlangen. Courtesy: Stefan
Hobmaier/Siemens Energy
treme heat and cold events, floods, and
droughts. Cybersecurity is another growing
focus, with federal directives requiring
power plants to implement stricter
digital protections and incident reporting
protocols.
" You must adapt to the market. If you
don't react, if you don't change, if you
don't adjust yourself to the new conditions,
you're going to disappear, " notes
GE Vernova's Guerrero. GE Vernova's approach
has been to prepare customers
for these transitions, including tailored
maintenance strategies. " We take into
account the specific operational stresses
caused by renewables integration,
ensuring that even older assets comply
with regulatory thresholds while optimizing
performance, " he explains.
Siemens Energy, a global provider of
power technology, solutions, and services,
shares a similar outlook. " Our
O&M service is designed to manage
and maintain various types of technology
infrastructure or equipment. This approach
is especially beneficial in diverse
and complex operational settings such as
carbon capture, where multiple types of
technology coexist, " says Andrew Robson,
Siemens Energy's technical expert
for O&M Solutions.
" In the next decade, Siemens Energy
will continue to offer expert O&M
services to manage customer reliability
risks, enhance efficiency, and centralize
skills for consistent and reliable service
supported by data-driven digital technologies, "
Robson adds. While the need
to decarbonize conventional power generation
affects all utilities and is not specific
to O&M, the company's services
" ensure that these technologies operate
6
reliably and efficiently, contributing directly
to meeting decarbonization goals, "
he explains. Additionally, he underscores
broader sustainability benefits, particularly
through the use of a global network of
remote operations and control centers.
" Especially during COVID, it became
clear that it is not always necessary to
fly specialists around the world, but that
a lot can be done remotely, " he says (see
sidebar " Best Practices for Maintenance
in the Evolving Power World " ).
Solving the Workforce Puzzle
For now, experts agree the most urgent
challenge facing the power sector is the
shortage of skilled personnel. " O&M is
all about people, " says Guerrero. " People
tend to believe that in the future, power
plants will be operated completely by
robots, but we are really far away from
that. " A key issue is that the workforce,
traditionally the backbone of power
plant operations, is aging, and with that
comes the loss of decades of invaluable
experience. " At the same time, we're
finding it increasingly difficult to attract
younger talent, who are often drawn to
tech-savvy industries like software and
artificial intelligence [AI] rather than traditional
fields like ours. It's a problem we
cannot afford to ignore because, without
skilled workers, even the most advanced
plants won't function, " he says.
To address these challenges, Guerrero
explains that GE Vernova has developed
structured knowledge-capture systems,
including detailed playbooks created
during contract mobilizations. " These
are comprehensive guides that ensure
when experienced team members retire
or move on, their expertise doesn't leave
with them, " he says.
At the same time, GE Vernova, driven
by its " lean " business philosophy, has
already begun transitioning from traditional
reliability-based maintenance approaches
to more proactive, data-driven
design-making enabled by AI and analytics.
Guerrero said the company has developed
autonomous robot technology
capable of conducting inspections and
identifying issues that human workers
may miss. Demonstrating these technologies
carries operational benefits, but
a key intent is to transform the perception
of O&M, positioning it as innovative,
future-focused, and dynamic-attributes
that could be attractive to a younger
workforce, he says.
Robson echoes Guerrero's concerns.
" Even utilities with extensive experience
in power plant operation and maintenance
are now seeking our O&M
expertise due to the skilled workforce
shortage, " he notes. Siemens Energy's
approach has been to double down on
technology. " Remote services are key
to maintaining reliable operation and efficient
maintenance, " says Robson, citing
Siemens Energy's 72-hour unmanned
operation of the 300-MW Leipheim Power
Plant in Germany (Figure 1). " Our remote
monitoring centers handle routine
monitoring and data analysis, freeing up
experts for tasks that cannot yet be fully
automated. "
According to Emily Obenauer, global
director of Product Marketing at SiteTracker-a
software-as-a-service platform
that provides end-to-end asset lifecycle
management-emerging tools are
also set to play a transformative role in
streamlining O&M operations with tangible
workforce benefits. " Tools like ours
are also shown to increase the satisfaction
and increase the effectiveness of
those workers out in the field because
we're getting so clear on what needs
to be done and validating that that work
has been done correctly the first time
around, " she said.
2. To bolster its supply chain and prepare
for increasing demand for its heavy-duty gas
turbines and upgrades globally, GE Vernova
moved in November 2025 to acquire Woodward
Inc.'s combustion parts business in
Greenville, South Carolina. This image shows
a 7HA.03 gas turbine at GE Vernova's own facility
in Greenville, where it manufactures and
tests gas turbines to provide global engineering
support and other activities. Courtesy: GE
Vernova
www.powermag.com
Shoring Up Supply Chains
While workforce challenges have long afflicted
the sector, more recent global supply
disruptions are posing new concerns,
prompting companies to reassess the
resilience of their O&M operations. Siemens
Energy's Robson notes that, while
temporary bottlenecks for parts and consumables
remain a concern, " The shortage
of people is, so to speak, the biggest
bottleneck in the supply chain, " he says.
POWER | February 2025
http://www.powermag.com
pwr_february-2025

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