Hydro Karmøy — SCADA & Automation for Europe's Most Advanced Aluminium Plant

Delivering real-time control, operational visibility, and digital infrastructure across one of Europe's largest primary aluminium facilities.

Hydro Karmøy

Hydro's Karmøy facility is one of the largest and most technologically advanced primary aluminium plants in Europe, producing 270,000 tonnes of primary aluminium and 220,000 tonnes of casthouse products annually. Operating at this scale demands control systems and digital infrastructure that are equally capable, reliable, and flexible, and that can connect hundreds of data sources into a single operational picture.

Goodtech delivered the full SCADA architecture and automation scope across Karmøy, from the gas treatment plant to the electrolysis hall, and continues to provide top-level systems consultancy across the site.

The Challenge

Primary aluminium production at Karmøy operates across an enormous number of interconnected process units, control systems, and data sources. The electrolysis hall alone runs more than 288 PLCs. The Gas Treatment Plant represents a large, complex process in its own right. Across the site, more than 150 client systems and 20+ database connectors required integration into a coherent digital architecture.

The challenge was not simply to deliver SCADA for individual plant areas, it was to design and implement an integrated architecture that could connect everything, scale as the facility evolved, and give operators and managers the information they need to make faster, better decisions.

What Goodtech Delivered

Gas Treatment Plant - Turnkey SCADA

Goodtech delivered a complete turnkey SCADA solution for the Gas Treatment Plant, including real-time control, process trending, and alarm management. The scope covered the full complexity of a large-scale industrial gas treatment installation - with the reliability requirements that continuous aluminium production demands.

Electrolysis Hall - Turnkey SCADA

The electrolysis hall presented one of the most complex SCADA integration challenges on the site: 288+ PLCs, complex process overview screens, trending across hundreds of data points, and alarm management across a facility running around the clock. Goodtech delivered the full turnkey solution.

Top-Level SCADA Architecture

Goodtech led the conceptualisation, design, and ongoing consultancy for the site-wide SCADA architecture — connecting more than 150 client systems, 20+ database connectors, and 350+ PLC connections through a single integrated platform built on Ignition (Inductive Automation).

The architecture was designed to support modern industrial connectivity standards — OPC UA and MQTT — and to integrate with ERP systems, OSIsoft PI, Oracle, and MSSQL, giving both operational and business systems access to live process data.

Electro & Automation

In addition to the SCADA scope, Goodtech delivered electro and automation engineering services across the facility — ensuring that the digital systems sat on a solid electrical and control engineering foundation.

The Results

The integrated SCADA architecture Goodtech delivered at Karmøy created measurable operational and commercial value across the facility:

Lower cost of connection for new systems.

With a standardised architecture and broad connectivity options in place, onboarding new clients and data sources is significantly faster and cheaper than before. This has directly benefited all 150+ client systems connected to the platform.

Reduced downtime and increased efficiency.

Real-time monitoring and alarm management across the Gas Treatment Plant and electrolysis hall give operators earlier warning of developing issues, enabling faster intervention and reducing unplanned production stops.

Better operator decision-making.

The SCADA interface was designed with operator usability as a primary requirement - giving the people running the process a clearer, faster picture of what is happening and what needs attention.

Hardware standardization.

Goodtech's architecture introduced standardised hardware across the site, reducing the complexity and cost of maintenance, spares management, and future upgrades.

Process flexibility and optimization.

The integrated data platform gives engineering and operations teams the real-time and historical data they need to identify optimisation opportunities and respond to changing process conditions with greater agility.

Scale of the Installation

288+ PLCs connected in the electrolysis hall alone
350+ total PLC connections across the SCADA architecture
150+ client systems connected to the platform
20+ database connectors integrated
270,000 t primary aluminium produced annually
220,000 t casthouse products produced annually

Why This Project Matters

Karmøy is not just a reference project - it is a demonstration of what is possible when SCADA architecture is designed with scale, flexibility, and long-term operability in mind from the outset.

The Ignition-based architecture Goodtech delivered at Karmøy is one of the most complex and highly connected industrial SCADA installations in Norway. It demonstrates Goodtech's capability as a Premier Integrator for Ignition - not just in terms of technical delivery, but in terms of the architectural thinking required to make a system of this scale work reliably, day after day, in one of Europe's most demanding production environments.