ECOVE Optimizes Efficiency by Intelligent Management ＆Technological Self-Reliance

As the leading company of the resource recycling industry in Taiwan, ECOVE has promoted the establishment of integrated intelligent monitoring and warning systems in three major business areas: incineration and waste management, solar photovoltaic power, and recycling. These systems will provide real-time integration of management information for immediate judgment and response on business operations in order to ensure stable operation of each project and improve operational efficiency.

Establish iO&M System to Optimize Efficiency

In order to enhance project operational efficiency, ECOVE has developed two core management systems: Maintenance Management Information System (MMIS) and Operation Results System (ORS), which became the preliminary structure of Intelligent Operation & Maintenance System (iO&M). The Company also continues to optimize the system through accumulated data in the database.

For MMIS, the system implements preset maintenance plans through computer networks and cloud database. When there is something wrong with the equipment, it can be immediately integrated into information such as work orders, acceptance for maintenance, statistical analysis on equipment failure, work records and performance evaluation, maintain human resources, spare parts, and warehousing, in order to improve the team's efficiency of equipment maintenance.

For ORS, the system will continue to record the operating information of each project and to transmit, analyze, and feedback the information to various operating groups and the management, in order to accelerate decision-making and response, and to achieve the goal of remote management long distance by advanced mobile devices.
The maintenance and operational results of each project will be reported to each operation group by the ORS through procedures such as information input, storage, analysis, and output. The ORS also combines mobile devices that keep up with the times changing world in order to optimize the performance of each equipment system, and achieve the purpose of comprehensive management.

Leading Operational Performance in the Industry

Each project has achieved outstanding operational performance through iO&M management. Taking ECOVE's waste incineration plant, according to operating results of the 24 waste incineration plants announced by the Environmental Protection Agency, ECOVE has imported introduced the intelligent management system to its waste incineration plants and showed excellent performance in the following key operating indicators. Firstly, viewing the “Operating Rate” and “Unplanned Shutdown Hours,” which are reliability indexes of maintaining stable operations for in the waste incineration plants, the average operating rate of ECOVE's plant is 6.3 % higher than that of other plants, and the number of hours on non-unplanned shutdown has also reduced by 182 hours compared to other plants. (as shown in Table 1)

Secondly, viewing on the efficiency indicators of waste incineration and energy recycling, the average “incineration loading rate” of ECOVE's plant is 8.1% higher than that of other plants, and the "power generation per unit waste" is 20% higher than that of other plants. (as shown in Table 2)

ECOVE adopts intelligent management in our plants to enhance the level of service quality, availability rate, core processing efficiency, and energy recovery rate, which are significantly better than the average level of other plants. For example, ECOVE has won first place in Taiwan with the top 10 performances in the 2018 annual inspection and assessment on 24 waste incineration plants of the Environmental Protection Administration of the Executive Yuan and its performance accounted for 50% of the top 10 performances, indicating outstanding performance that is recognized by competent authorities.

R&D on Patents for Automation Technology Complements Intelligent Management

In addition to intelligent management, ECOVE also has various core technologies in line with international standards, which further optimize operational efficiency. Taking ECOVE’s waste incineration plant, while the global waste incineration industry has been constantly trying to improve the stability of incinerator operations with automatic combustion control systems in recent years, ECOVE has already started investing resources for its waste incineration plant to complete the R&D of “Automatic Combustion Control System (ACC) for High Stability Incinerators” which obtained national patents 5 years ago.

To improve the efficiency of resource recycling, ECOVE has continuously developed automation technologies and has accumulated dozens of patents by the end of 2018. The Company has combined the applications of automation technologies with intelligent management systems, which has complement each other to achieve high efficiency in each project.

Looking forward, ECOVE will accelerate on intelligence upgrade, and continue to expand the application of the latest technologies such as big data analysis, artificial intelligence (AI) and robots. It will also continue on combining and enhancing automation technologies to further improve its operational performance, effectively improve the efficiency of resource recycling, and facilitate the development of renewable resources and the circular economy industry in Taiwan.