The major French companies are gathered this week at Vivatech for the 4 days of the Parisian innovation fair. This is particularly the case for SNCF, RATP, La Poste, but also Engie, a supplier of energy and digital services.
In terms of innovation, the energy company’s projects therefore relate both to its internal operations and to its offers for customers. For their development, Engie collaborates with various startups, such as SAMP on digital twins.
Digital twins of industrial sites and cities
Thanks to its technology, the editor wants to be an accelerator for projects of transformation, modernization or maintenance of industrial sites, and also a means of meeting objectives on sustainable development.
Presenting itself as the Google Earth of manufacturers, SAMP generates digital twins of sites through “precise and faithful” 3D plans. For their creation, the company uses Machine Learning techniques.
It exploits the ability of artificial intelligence to identify the equipment of a site in 3D scans in connection with existing technical diagrams. The AI can thus locate pumps, valves or other pipes on the images.
As an industrialist, the field of digital twins is a core business for Engie. The energy company is also present in this market through its subsidiary Siradel, which produces 3D digital city twins and collaborative 3D visualization platforms for public and private players.
The publisher relies in particular on GIS and Big Data for the design of these twins and platforms, including a service platform for Ile de France, online since 2019. Siradel indicates that it has modeled 2.5 million buildings on the region and brought together more than 10,000 datasets.
Robots and drones to inspect blades and photovoltaic park
In partnership with the start-up SupAirVision, Engie also uses drones and AI to perform diagnostics on wind turbine blades. By combining different technologies, including on-board sensors, the start-up has developed several diagnostic solutions, including Clarity, designed with Engie Green.
“Clarity focuses on the detection of in-depth faults in the blades by active thermography, i.e. by laser (…) By allowing this detailed diagnosis, Clarity avoids having maintenance teams intervene on the faults minors”, explains SupAirVision.
Drones and robots are also used by Engie for its inspection operations in photovoltaic parks. The manufacturer even has a research center dedicated to robots, the Lab Crigen. This is notably at the origin of the creation of Fred.
Initially developed for monitoring sensitive sites, the Fred robot “reinvents itself for inspections in photovoltaic parks”, says Engie. To design these robots, the company generally relies on commercial solutions customized with in-house technological bricks.
It should be noted that Engie also deploys and operates electric vehicle chargers, and supports projects in the design of solar houses and metal 3D printing, as well as research work around sustainable electronic fuels.