See how Leaf, i.Systems’ Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution for advanced industrial process control, helps Albioma significantly reduce variability, improve operation availability and increase energy exported
Operational efficiency is essential for every industry. This attribute is even more important for the Albioma. An independent producer of renewable energies, since 2014, the company has implemented its biomass model in thermoelectric plants in Brazil, a market considered strategic for its expansion plans, supplying agro-industrial partners and selling energy through the distribution network.
With almost 400 mills, the country is the largest producer of sugar and ethanol in the world, which represents a strong development potential for the production of renewable energy from sugarcane bagasse.
Currently, Albioma has an installed capacity of 242 MW generated from four biomass thermoelectric plants in Brazil: Codora, Esplanada, Rio Pardo and Vale do Paraná. In all of its plants in the country, the company uses Leaf, i.Systems’ Artificial Intelligence (AI) system for advanced multivariable control, to reduce variability and increase efficiency in energy generation processes.
Albioma has an innovative business model, which consists of the acquisition of the cogeneration plant for the sugar and alcohol plants. Thus, the company is able to locally transform bagasse into energy thanks to units located close to the farms. This model allows us to produce base renewable energy, available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
A part of this generated energy supplies the plant’s agro-industrial operation, which becomes a partner in the business, while the surplus is sold on the market by Albioma through the national distribution network.
This way of operating requires that the process be highly efficient to guarantee the company’s results, after all, the company’s performance is linked to the ability to extract the maximum efficiency from the process to ensure the maximum volume of marketable energy.
Precisely for this reason, every time the cogeneration unit of a plant takes over, one of the first steps is to update (revamp) the physical infrastructure and equipment of the operation. Such modernization, by itself, already considerably raises the plant’s operating levels.
The more efficient the process, the better the performance. With that in mind, Albioma began studying advanced control technologies. When evaluating traditional tools, he saw that he needed a modern solution with an innovative approach. It was then that conversations with i.Systems, a specialist in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) for industry, began.