It’s two o’clock in the morning. The control room is quiet. Suddenly, an alarm light comes on on the wall. A new night shift worker looks at the light, then at the screens and starts rummaging through the papers. He knows all the usual alarms. He has never seen this. Anyone who knows the answer retired retired already in the spring. The retired’s worn-out notebook lies on the table under the papers. The night shift worker opens it and flips through the pages. The answer is surely there somewhere. But where? At moments like these, maintenance expertise in the energy sector is more crucial than any new technology.
Maintenance expertise in the energy sector is often overshadowed by investments
Energy Fair gathers energy sector decision-makers and technologies in Tampere on 20–22 October with the theme “Visions. Power. Certainty.” The event covers the entire chain from investment projects to plant operation and maintenance, and the main themes are the investment wave, strengthening the electricity grid, renewable energy, hydrogen economy and digitalisation. The programme of the Energy Congress also asks a question that is easily forgotten in the investment talk: who will maintain the energy system in 2035?
The question is particularly pertinent, because the system is not renewed all at once. New equipment is built alongside the old, and maintenance must manage both. Some of the equipment will be in use for decades to come, and their maintenance has been learned from experience, not from manuals.
Tacit knowledge leaves the door with pension
Each plant often has that one person who knows why, for example, a certain pump is started in a certain order in the winter. When he retires, the information does not remain in the archive unless it is recorded in a place where the next person can find it.
In industry, 23 per cent of unplanned shutdowns are due to a lack of skills and operating errors, not equipment failures. In the energy system, a shutdown can mean the distribution of electricity to the entire area, so the risk is even greater.
Source: Siemens / 2024
Maintenance skills in the energy sector need guidance to the equipment
On the CompetenceX platform, Kuopio-based Mobie has built a way to bring expertise to the device. A QR code on the side of the device that can be read with a smart device takes the caretaker directly to the instructions required for the maintenance of the device in question. The information of an experienced expert can be recorded as content before leaving, and the digital certification tells who has completed which training.
The nightly alarm is then no longer dependent on one person’s memory.
See you at the Energy Fair in Tampere! Our Santtu and Tapio will be there on Wed 21 and Thu 22 October. Come and chat! Or book a sparring session in advance!
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