Today GE announced its ‘predictive maintenance’ program driven by operational data from the company’s global fleet of more than 1,500 gas turbines helped decrease power plant downtime and saved customers an estimated $70 million in 2014.

When a gas-fired power plant goes down due to a maintenance issue, that generation capacity must be replaced with an alternative source of electricity, which can often be more expensive. Increasing the length of time between scheduled service events and spotting issues before they require a plant to shut down is beneficial to power plant operators and those relying on that electricity.

GE’s Monitoring & Diagnostic Center collects data from its global fleet of gas-fired turbines on a daily basis. “The Atlanta-based facility features a team of more than 50 engineers that analyze more than 35,000 operational alarms per year. Among the activities monitored at the center are the inlet temperature of a compressor, thermal performance of a gas turbine, temperature of combustion exhaust, dynamic tones of the combustion system, vibration levels of a rotor and the temperature of bearings. On a GE gas turbine unit there are more than 100 physical sensors/300 virtual sensors,” the company said in a statement.

The company has also made progress reducing the amount of time required to fix problems when they do arise. “…trips per thousand hours for the combined 7F and 9F monitored fleet of gas turbines are down approximately 25 percent since 2009,” said the company. GE’s turbines are manufactured with instrumentation built into various components that monitor the machines in real time and can transmit that data.

“We have operational data flowing in continuously from the fleet, and we are in constant contact with our customer sites as well as our broader engineering teams,” Justin Eggart, general manager, fleet management for GE’s Power Generation Services business said in the statement. “Oftentimes, the collaboration between our engineers and customers leads to the fastest and most complete resolution to the issue at hand, and we appreciate those interaction opportunities that our services enable.”