T Plus has placed a bet on Vladimir Ivanovich

CASE-IN is an international competition system for solving engineering cases for schoolchildren, students and young specialists of fuel and energy and mineral resource complexes. The championship was launched using funds from the Presidential Grants Fund as part of the global project "Russia — the Land of Opportunities" to promote the working and engineering professions. 

In 2019, the championship entered the TOP 15 Olympiads in the world according to the rating agency RAEX.

Our power engineers participated in this competition for the first time last year. And they immediately became the bronze medalists of the engineering Olympiad. We hope that this year the expert jury will also highly appreciate the project presented by the staff of the Vladimir branch of T Plus.

The participants of the engineering Olympiad receive the topic 10 days before the case is submitted. During this time, you need to select a real object and create a project.   The deadlines are tight and the requirements are high.  Last year, the task concerned the digitalization of the energy sector. We have been developing a project to automate the management of Vladimir's heat supply system - a mathematical model of the operation of the entire equipment complex," said Tamara Belova, Deputy Director of the Vladimir branch of T Plus for Commerce and Development. -All control processes of the heat supply system will take place automatically with minimal human involvement. This project with a total cost of 17 billion rubles is designed to be implemented in several stages. And now it is already being implemented in stages at CHPP 2. 

And the idea of teaching employees how to work with modern equipment using virtual and augmented reality from last year's case of the Vladimir team is already being implemented in the corporate center of PJSC T Plus. The theme of the current championship is technological modernization. After receiving the assignment, we immediately thought about Ivanovo. Our management here has a very problematic energy sector of the city, the modernization of which is long overdue. 

At the CASE IN qualifying round, Ivanovo was represented not only by the national team of the Vladimir branch of T Plus, but also by the team of the Ivanovo State Power Engineering University, Schrodinger's Cat. Cats presented a project of a biogas plant for generating thermal energy. The name of our team also sounded unusual – "Vladimir Ivanovich". The authorship belongs to the director of the branch Oleg Groshev. 

- After the unification of the thermal power industry of Vladimir and Ivanovo under a single management, this phrase somehow came to mind by itself. And immediately there was such an image of an ideal employee named Vladimir Ivanovich. There is even an idea to make a corporate prize, like a kind of Oscar, to be awarded at the end of the year to the best employee of the branch," Groshev said.

While the Vladimir Ivanovich team was preparing to defend the project, other developers presented their presentations. Six teams competed to reach the finals in this category. This year, due to the outbreak of coronavirus infection, the protection of projects was carried out in an online conference. The presentation of the projects took only six minutes, followed by questions from experts.

Some of the designers were excellent at answering any technical questions, but they hesitated when asked about the cost-effectiveness of the project.

- There can be no engineering and technical solution without an economic justification, - says Tamara Belova. - You can come up with a unique and technically super-efficient solution, but if it involves investments that will never pay off, it's not a workable project. It will not be implemented. It is necessary to find a balance between technical efficiency and return on investment. 

Therefore, Vladimir's team included both engineers and economists. In total, six people worked in the project group: Daniil Kiselyov, head of the operational dispatch service, Nikita Dobrov, head of the Thermal engineering service of the Generation Operation Department, Sergey Erokhin, an engineer for calculations and modes of the heat network workshop of JSC VKS, and Artyom Borzov, head of the Information and technical support department at Ivanovo CHPP-2. As well as Anastasia Dobrova, Chief Specialist of the Department of Commerce and Development of the thermal market, and Tamara Belova, captain of the team.

Such championships are a great opportunity to test breakthrough ideas.  The same idea of switching to the "alternative boiler room" method did not immediately appear either. We studied various options, discussed them, put the project up for an all-Russian competition, received feedback, confirmed the correctness of our decisions, and took into account the opinions of experts. And they offered the city a ready-made idea, a ready-made project. The situation in Ivanovo is similar now. We are working on a project to improve the city's heat supply system, take into account suggestions and comments, and learn how to protect and promote our solutions. After all, it's not enough to create a high-quality product, you also need to be able to sell it. With a well-developed presentation, you can already go to the Ivanovo City Duma. In general, participation in the championship helps to capture creative excitement, support the team gorenje, passion, desire to do something unusual and defend their decisions., - Oleg Groshev is convinced. 

A source: Vladimirsike Vedomosti