Skövde Plant Approaching Carbon Elimination (SPACE) | AI feasibility study

This project explores the use of AI to transform Volvo Group's Skövde plant, focusing on smart energy utilization and production planning to address the challenges of limited grid capacity and the transition to sustainable energy.

Volvo Group’s engine plant in Skövde, Sweden.

The Volvo Group is committed to transitioning from fossil fuels to sustainable energy sources, with a key focus on electrifying its energy-intensive processes. The Skövde foundry, a significant contributor to the Volvo Group's emissions, is a central point of this transformation. This transition, however, is challenged by limited grid capacity, necessitating innovative solutions for efficient energy utilization and production planning.

The Skövde Plant Approaching Carbon Elimination (SPACE AI) project proposes transforming the plant's conventional digital system into an advanced industrial AI system to enable smart energy utilization and production planning.

The study includes collecting process and external information, developing a simulation-based optimization model, and integrating data and models into an AI cloud platform for live predictions and visualizations of both the production in the factory and the electrical grid around the factory.

Challenges

The project addresses several key challenges:

Limited grid capacity hindering electrification efforts.
The need to optimize energy utilization and production planning in the face of increasing demand for electricity.
Transforming conventional digital systems to leverage advanced AI for energy management.
Forecasting of the status of the electrical grid around the factory, both in a long and short time perspective.

Project purpose

The SPACE AI project aims to conduct a feasibility study for transforming the Skövde plant's digital system into an advanced industrial AI to enable smart energy utilization production planning.

The project will focus on a specific foundry and involve collecting data, creating a simulation model, and developing an AI cloud platform for both the factory and the electrical grid around the factory. The project's modular approach ensures scalability to other Volvo Group sites.

Expected outcomes

Quantification of the SPACE AI technology's potential to reduce overall energy consumption.
Demonstration of the system's capability to adapt to electrical grid availability.
Development of a scalable and replicable model for industrial energy management.
Contribution to Agenda 2030 goals, particularly sustainable production and consumption, climate action, and industry innovation.