Norilsk Nickel spoke at the Clean Air conference about AI forecasting of industrial emissions

In Krasnoyarsk, at the conference of the federal project “Clean Air”, which was held on May 29, Norilsk Nickel presented its best practices in introducing artificial intelligence in the field of environmental safety.

At the plenary session, Vice President and Director of the Krasnoyarsk representative office of the company, Sergei Tkachenko, reported on a significant reduction in emissions in Norilsk thanks to the Sulfur Program. The company's atmospheric air monitoring system, which includes 16 stations, helps track changes in real time.

The company has also developed the Axioma platform, an innovative predictive emissions monitoring system based on artificial intelligence and digital twins of industrial machines. It allows you to predict the movement of industrial gases a day in advance. The development has already entered the top 5 most significant digital projects for the Russian industry.

Galina Veluzhinets, Director of the Environmental Safety Department of the Polar Branch of Norilsk Nickel, explained that the creation of the platform was a response to new legislative requirements. They oblige industrial enterprises of the first category to take into account, calculate and transfer emissions automatically. But the company's developers went beyond simply recording indicators and learned to predict the impact of emissions on a residential area. This is why digital twin technology is used – it virtually recreates the entire process in the furnace and calculates the volume of gases in real time. The system also analyzes weather conditions and terrain, which makes it possible to predict the impact of a gas plume and adjust technological processes in advance, thereby reducing operating costs at the enterprise.

Now the algorithm is being tested at three enterprises in the Arctic – a metallurgical plant and two thermal power plants. The head of the development department for automation of energy, industrial safety, ecology and transport logistics at Norilsk Nickel, Alla Malevitskaya, said that the domestic system replaces the currently unavailable developments of Western partners.

“We have often been asked questions about whether we are afraid to trust artificial intelligence. In fact, the system works like a smart advisor. She does not manage the plant instead of a person, but helps technologists make the right decision. The algorithm tells specialists in advance what exactly needs to be applied in production in order to achieve a safe environmental regime,” explained Alla Malevitskaya.

The company's technologies have received high praise from the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. Deputy Minister Maxim Korolkov noted that standard instrumental measurements have limitations, and such digital solutions based on artificial intelligence give the state the opportunity for more complete control.

“We are looking closely at digital twin technologies. They are especially needed during periods of adverse weather conditions, when special requirements for reducing emissions are introduced. Taking into account the platform that Norilsk Nickel has, we are waiting for proposals from our colleagues to develop plans using forecasting capabilities. The end result that we should all get is an improvement in air quality,” the deputy minister concluded.

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Vice President – Director of the Krasnoyarsk Representative Office of Norilsk Nickel