GE and Aluminium of Greece (AOG), a Mytilineos Group subsidiary, yesterday signed a 10- year contract in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates to create the world’s first-of-their-kind digital smelter solutions to improve AOG’s aluminium smelting process and help the company to drive additional output and efficiency while reducing raw material consumption, energy consumption, and pot leakages.
The digital solutions will be created by GE’s teams in the US and the UAE and the facility that the solutions will be implemented is located in Agios Nikolaos, Viotia, Greece.
GE’s digital solutions for aluminium smelting are powered by Predix, GE’s operating system for the Industrial Internet. The digital solutions for smelting process will set a benchmark in the aluminium industry.
Dimitris Stefanidis, CEO of Aluminium of Greece, said, “As the largest vertically integrated bauxite, alumina and aluminium production and trading unit in the European Union, we are constantly looking at innovative technologies to enhance our performance standards.”
Joseph Anis, president & CEO of GE’s Power Services business in the Middle East and Africa, explained, “By bringing together the strengths of our multi-locational teams and GE Power’s Digital Smelter Center of Excellence in Dubai, we will collaborate with AOG to create a new chapter in the history of smelting operations as well.”
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Bhanu Shekhar, chief digital officer for GE Power, stated, “This is a living digital model that will continuously generate smelter data, and will be a game changer in helping to address the challenges of power usage and the consumption of raw materials in the smelting industry.”
A one per cent increase in efficiency of aluminium smelter operations can contribute to an annual global savings of $970 million across the total cost of production, $936 million in output increase, and $464 million in operations and maintenance costs.
Presently, in the GCC region, the aluminium smelting industry represents up to ten per cent of the world’s total production.
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