Karlsruhe, May 19th 2008 - ontoprise GmbH announced today that the company has received an order from the Alstom Power Systems GmbH to develop an expert system, which will be used in the Bakun hydroelectric plant in Malaysia. Alstom Power Systems, which is responsible for the construction of the hydropower plant is part of the international Alstom group, a global leader in equipment and services for power generation and rail transport. The expert system from ontoprise called CEXS (Computer Guided Shell Expert System) shall support the operating staff of the plant to detect possible malfunctions and thereby help to avoid outages by the use of rules and expert knowledge. At the same time in the case of failure the operators will be supported efficiently with a fast and optimized problem resolution.

 

The Bakun hydroelectric power plant, which is being built on the island of Borneo, Malaysia, is expected to generate 2,400 megawatts of electricity once completed. Thus it plays an important role for the Malaysian government, which plans to cover 30 percent of the national energy needs by hydropower within the next ten years. The main part of the project is to build the tallest concrete-faced rockfill dam in the world.

 

Support of the operating staff in problem detection, diagnosis and repair

The main task of the expert system is to support the operating staff to quickly and effectively detect and mitigate unusual and difficult behaviour of the machines and to guide the users to relevant solutions of these problems.

 

To achieve this, existing telemetry data from early warning systems are monitored by the use of expert rules. Thus, inconsistencies in the hydroelectric plant can be detected early and proactively. The underlying knowledge base of CEXS helps the operating staff by using a dialogue-based advisor in the problem diagnosis to rapidly find quality-assured solutions. Additionally an integrated statistical analysis tool optimizes the use of the system by analysing the error patterns, causes and the use of the system.

 

CEXS is based on the ontoprise solution SemanticGuide, the advisor systems for knowledge-intensive customer service, which is implemented in various industries.

 

For the Bakun hydroelectric power plant the underlying knowledge base contains complex engineering knowledge as well as physical dependencies of the machines.

 

Thereby the operators in place are enabled to solve complex problems, which normally could have only been solved by experts.

 

"We decided to choose ontoprise, because the company can rely on a comprehensive solution as well as the necessary expertise and project history. That gives us the guarantee for the successful implementation of the expert system needed for Bakun", commented Frank Weigold, project manager at Alstom Power Generation AG.

 

"We are very pleased to be part of this prestigious project. In addition, the election of ontoprise shows that the quality and efficiency of our technologies and applications finds its recognition and can cope with very complex project requirements, "adds Hans-Peter Schnurr, CEO and co-founder of ontoprise GmbH.

 

The CEXS system shall be finalized in July 2008. The completion of the entire project in Bakun is expected for 2011.