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Abstract One of the most crucial challenges to governments of the 21st century is supplying a sufficient electric energy to allow everyone on the planet to live a decent life, while confronting the current challenges manifested in the increasing population, the escalating threats of climate changes, and the declining fossil fuel resources. According to the International Energy Agency, the international energy investment was just over $1.7 trillion in 2016, accounting only for 2.6% of the global GDP (Gross domestic product). One thousand terawatt hours (1000 TW/h) was the Middle East electricity production from nonrenewable and renewable resources. Egypt generates 180 TW/h and aspires to increase such a rate through the new gas discoveries and the renewable energy projects to set up a strategic energy center. On the other hand, current maintenance management strategies, as well as the increasing rates of fuel consumption, reduce the profitability and feasibility of the investments on the construction of power plants in Egypt. Such investments are amounted to LE129 billion during the period from 2011 to 2016, and such investments were directed to recover the disastrous energy situation that started in Egypt in summer 2009. Through the fourth industrial revolution (4.0) tools Egypt can be use it to make leapfrog technological, in line with the developmental leap witnessed in Egypt during 2014 till now. Professionals of power production industry and the Egyptian universities should let their knowledge be available, by establishing the center of excellence in maintenance to develop the national industries and enrich the educational experience. A corrective action such as changing maintenance strategy from run to failure to predictive maintenance contributes in reducing unplanned shutdown times and increasing the availability of plants. Applying this approach on each facility would be efficient. However, on a large scale and for more than one power plant, a synergetic interaction between maintenance philosophy, asset management, and information technology is recommended. This thesis provides a potential comprehensive economic solution using information technology, since the remote monitoring of power generation centers is more economical, easier to control, and more powerful than the decentralized maintenance. The research covers the current conditions of the power plants in Egypt and supplies integrated framework to send a real-time condition of the equipment, detect the mechanical faults, trace the vibration range of each piece of equipment, and coordinate and manage asset among all power plants in Egypt using center of excellence. Hardware and software have been specially designed and constructed to achieve such a purpose. They supply more economical tools to replace the existing elaborate and expensive measuring system in the field of condition monitoring. The operator can display, save, analyze, and control the measurements remotely and provide the distant concerned parties with the measured data simultaneously. To improve the efficiency of the proposed system, cloud computing is exploited for data storage, analysis software, and decision making. A prototype for the introduced center of excellence is developed and tested on a set of eight pieces of equipment that are found at Sidi Krir power plant, producing 750 MW at west delta of Egypt. |