GE Renewable Energy’s Grid Solutions has partnered with Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC) to drive the digitization of Oman’s power grid, starting with the implementation of an asset performance management solution covering six key 400 kV substations under OETC. 

GE’s Grid Solutions is supplying a central condition monitoring platform at OETC’s headquarters, consolidating the off-line inspections and the online monitoring data into one single place. GE’s Asset Performance Management (APM) solution will help the OETC reliability team better orient their maintenance strategy from time-based to condition-based strategy – using automatic recommendations, asset health index, asset maintenance and risk indexes.

The critical power transformers and gas-insulated substations will be equipped with online monitoring systems that will collect the partial discharge and oil gas data, and automatically transmit them to the central platform. 

For the remaining 2,000 High-Voltage assets, which will not be equipped with online monitoring devices, GE’s Grid Solutions will perform scheduled inspections during the three-year contract, to enrich the APM analytics with the most accurate and updated electrical data.  GE’s solution has been selected for its capability to help substation operators achieve 50% failure rates reduction, 25% maintenance costs reduction and a 20 % savings in replacement costs.    

GE’s Grid Solutions Oman’s team will support OETC reaching the required levels of substations operational efficiency and productivity, with a high-level view on the critical assets’ health – anticipating asset failures before they occur and thereby proposing an efficient replacement strategy.  The ultimate objective of OETC’s project is to cover the full national transmission fleet composed of 85 High Voltage substations. 

Mohammed Mohaisen President and CEO, GE’s Grid Solutions business in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey said: “From the point of generation to the distribution, our solutions are tailored to assist our partners in achieving the highest levels of grid efficiency and reliability. We have a long-term presence in supporting Oman’s power sector and with the digitization of the OETC substations, we are introducing a central infrastructure managing the performance of the substations in real-time. This can address any potential vulnerabilities and help proactively take measures to assure seamless power transmission and distribution.”

In Oman, over 80 turbines installed by GE support the generation of over eight GW of power. GE also brings the strong heritage of providing Oman’s first gas turbine for Al Ghubra, and has over four decades of partnership with PDO, providing more than 90 percent of its gas turbines, and delivered five F-class turbines for the Salalah Independent Water & Power Project.