Hydro 4.0 pilot project successfully closed

General

Hydro 4.0 pilot project at Kraftwerke Sarganserland successfully completed

In April 2019, the Hydro 4.0 pilot project was launched at Kraftwerke Sarganserland (KSL), realizing Switzerland's first digital hydropower plant. After about 4.5 years, the pilot project has now been successfully completed. KSL is not only the first Swiss hydropower plant on paper but also in practice, with a consistently digital operational approach.

For the employees, the pilot project was a real marathon with highs and lows in implementing the new digital way of working. The HTD team regularly conducted "Round Tables" to gather feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Despite initial concerns and the outlined ups and downs, the motivation of the employees remained consistently high and simultaneously critical and demanding. The team successfully managed the challenging conditions with the COVID-19 pandemic and even used it as a booster for digitization.

Over project time, the team not only handled the "Daily Business" but also organized information days, experience days for employees from other Axpo hydropower plants, and an expert event in September with 120 participants from over 15 countries. The team has not only completed a marathon but also successfully completed some sprints in between. The following numbers provide a glimpse of what was achieved during this time:

Infrastructure

• 25 tablets in use
• 5G indoor reception now available everywhere (recently, for better reception, employees goes from outside to inside)

Workforce

• 38,000 hours written via CareOffice
• 7,502 orders processed in CareOffice
• 13,374 documents registered in eDoc
• 110,000 km written by AutoSense

Analytics

• Over 30,000 sensors connected
• Daily 13-14 million new measurements
• Total of over 19 billion measurements
• Currently about 380 GB of storage space

Robotics

• 1 drone in use (it's already the second one)
• 3 pilots trained at KSL
• Pioneer in ideas and use cases! (once again)

A sincere appreciation goes to the dedicated and motivated team at KSL, which has not only pioneered for HP but has also set an exemplary standard for other power plants. The employees of KSL can proudly look back on their role as innovators – an achievement that will forever have a place in the history of the Hydroenergy division.

Thank you!