The goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 requires tremendous investment and rapid innovation. From solutions that optimize grid management and carbon capture and storage to more sustainable, resilient mines, AI technologies can help address the biggest challenges in the complex, multidimensional global energy transition.  

Microsoft for Energy and Resources

Achieve more in the energy and resources industry with trusted solutions from Microsoft.

Discover more

Accelerate the clean energy roadmap with new AI innovation 

We’re proud to share some highlights from the past year, starting with the announcement that Cognite is Microsoft Partner of the Year 2024. Cognite and finalists Scheider Electric, Accenture-Avanade, and Kongsberg exemplify the new wave of innovation currently transforming the energy sector.  

Cognite is integrating new AI advances shared at last year’s Ignite event, including Microsoft Fabric and expanded Microsoft Copilot experiences. In January 2024, Microsoft and Cognite announced a collaboration that integrates flagship product Cognite Data Fusion with Microsoft Fabric and Azure OpenAI Service. Cognite AI is a prebuilt, comprehensive AI architecture specifically designed for energy and resource companies to deliver a faster path to implementing AI. Cognite Data Fusion incorporates AI across the data stack from generative AI-powered contextualization to an intuitive natural language Copilot interface embedded in day-to-day tools. Most recently, Cognite announced a new solution, Cognite Atlas AI which brings context augmentation generation to Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, pushing the boundaries of what language models can do for industrial organizations

Schneider Electric continues making an impact with solutions that accelerate digital transformation and sustainability. Built on Azure, the Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Grid solution portfolio shows the company’s commitment to a more digital and electric world, and together with its Grid Operations Platform as a Service, supports the growth of distributed energy resources, microgrids, energy communities, and other flexible resources across digitally planned, designed and operated lifecycles. AVEVA, part of Schneider Electric, also uses Microsoft technology to help accelerate the energy transition and support long-term decarbonization with a cloud-native industrial data and application platform to give energy companies a digital backbone to unlock, contextualize, and share data for better decision making and more profitable and efficient operations. 

Driving more sustainable, efficient operations in asset-heavy industries, Kongsberg leverages the Microsoft Cloud and AI for its Industrial Work Surface, an industrial metaverse that includes mixed reality and digital twins. The solution is designed to help energy companies improve decision-making, maximize business performance, and drive value across the organization—in support of the world’s growing demand for more secure, equitable, and sustainable energy.

Microsoft partners SLB, Halliburton, and Accenture are also innovating with Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Energy, a secure, reliable, hyperscale and fully managed cloud-based data platform service. Customers can speed toward goals by taking advantage of easy interoperability across an extensible application ecosystem. They can integrate virtually any dataset, application, or cloud service while leveraging the applications they already use from SLB, Halliburton, Accenture, and many others. The platform is expanding to new regions and offers a new developer tier pricing to increase accessibility for more partners and customers. 

We are also pleased to announce EY as the Sustainability Changemaker for the second year in a row. Creating customer tools built on Microsoft technology has positioned EY as a leader in sustainability consulting within the energy sector. With EY’s tailored solutions, decision-makers in the energy industry can now oversee transformations across their enterprises, leveraging technology and data to modernize governance structures, tackle industry-specific risks, meet environmental, social, and governance (ESG) obligations, and deliver value for both their organizations and their stakeholders. These solutions provide a comprehensive view into energy demand, verifiable and assured value chain data, and sustainability performance management, enabling energy companies to achieve their sustainability goals and enhance operational efficiency.

Sharing thought leadership at industry events 

You can learn more about Microsoft and partner innovations at Microsoft Ignite either online or in person in Chicago on November 18 to 22, 2024. This is the first Ignite event to include both customers and partners, and we hope you’ll join us to celebrate our partners and learn more about how the latest advances in AI are delivering business value to our energy customers. 

The Microsoft Energy and Resources Industry team is also excited to connect with customers and partners at upcoming events including the ONS conference in Stavanger on August 26 to 29, 2024 and the SLB Digital Forum 2024 in Monaco on September 16 to 19, 2024. These events will feature how new developments in AI and other digital technologies are transforming energy systems for a more secure, equitable, and sustainable energy future. You can always anticipate exciting news at the SLB Digital forum, where two years ago SLB announced the availability of the SLB Enterprise Data Solution, a comprehensive data management toolkit built on Azure Data Manager for Energy. The innovation is a result of the expanded strategic partnership between SLB and Microsoft, includes enhancements to Azure Data Manager for Energy, and a carbon capture and storage (CCS) initiative with Northern Lights joint venture to support global climate goals by accelerating development of scalable, cost-effective solutions for the CCS value-chain. 

Energizing the energy transition with new startups 

The climate crisis affects people globally, and an inclusive startup ecosystem is critical for helping ensure that solutions have far-reaching benefits. We are proud to support underrepresented startup founders at events like CERAWeek and through programs such as Advancing Climatetech and Clean Energy Leaders Program (ACCEL) from Greentown Labs, Browning the Green Space, and the Energy Transition Studio for Startups which we launched this year in cooperation with high-growth climate tech companies FlexDAO, Line Vision, and Utilidata. The program is designed to empower energy transition startups worldwide, and we are pleased to welcome six more companies to the first cohort, including Carbon Guardian, GridBeyond, Hygenox, IEMS, Noda Intelligent Systems, and Norwegian Hydrogen.

Investing in sustainable AI 

In addition to supporting startups, we are also engaging in strategic regional partnerships to help ensure a sustainable future and equitable access to energy and digital technologies for everyone. Microsoft is investing $1.5 billion in G42, a leading AI company based in Abu Dhabi, to co-innovate and deliver advanced AI solutions with Azure across the Middle East, central Asia, and Africa. Microsoft and G42 are partnering to invest $1 billion in a data center and Kenya, which will be powered by geothermal energy and give east Africa access to Microsoft Azure. Other global investments include a $2.2 billion investment in Malaysia’s cloud and AI transformation, and a significant commitment to enable a cloud and AI-powered future for Thailand. 

Unlocking the transformative potential of AI for sustainability also requires best practices for investment, digital and data infrastructure, resource usage—such as Microsoft’s deal with Brookfield Asset Management to invest more than $10 billion on renewable energy capacity to power data centers—policy and governance, and workforce development. To learn more about AI enablement, read the Microsoft AI and Sustainability Playbook. We are also investing in the sustainability of AI itself, with projects to optimize datacenter energy and water efficiency. 

Partnerships to advance our energy future 

This blog reflects the power of partnership and the growing importance and potential for AI in the energy industry and beyond. This has been a year of exciting change, with groundbreaking advances like the launch of Copilot+ PCs—from both Microsoft and our OEM ecosystem—partnership with OpenAI, and a rethinking of our cloud infrastructure to optimize performance and energy efficiency. 

Microsoft Copilot continues to evolve, with innovations that include the world’s first Copilot in both CRM and ERP with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot. Chevron is already using Copilot in Dynamics 365 Guides to transform frontline operations and optimize its operations, empower workers, and infuse informed decisions throughout its value chain. 

Success stories like these remind us once again that people working together are at the heart of every broad-sweeping, foundational transformation. The world’s complex energy challenges demand global collaboration as we advance toward a more secure, equitable, and sustainable future in an ever-evolving ecosystem of innovation.  

Learn more about Microsoft Energy and Resources solutions 

• Energy and resources – Microsoft Industry Blogs 
• Microsoft energy partner webinar series 
• Microsoft AI solutions  
• Microsoft Azure AI services  
• Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform   

The post Microsoft partners celebrate AI innovation appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

From startups to global enterprises, Microsoft is helping organizations of all sizes unlock the power of data and AI to accelerate the energy transition and create a data driven digital foundation for a sustainable future. Microsoft, our partners, and customers, are deploying innovative solutions that enable energy transformation in ways that weren’t possible before—to empower employees, increase operational efficiency, achieve net-zero commitments, and grow sustainable businesses.

Microsoft for Energy and Resources

Transform the energy and resources industry

Explore solutions

CERAWeek always brings new ideas and people together, and we are thrilled once again to participate in this important exchange of ideas, insights, and innovation. We need a diversity of voices to tackle the multidimensional energy transition, and we’re committed to working with customers and partners to accelerate digital transformation and our journey to a sustainable future.

At CERAWeek 2024 from March 18 to 22, 2024 in Houston, Texas, Microsoft will address the complexities of the multidimensional energy transition—markets, climate, technology, and geopolitics. We hope to see you at this annual gathering of energy executives, policymakers, and thought leaders from around the world. This year, attendees will explore strategies for a multidimensional, multispeed, and multifuel energy transition. Look for us throughout the week on the main stage, in leadership circles, Innovation Agora sessions, and at the Microsoft Agora House, where we’ll showcase new technologies, solutions, and perspectives together with our customers and partners.

Accelerate the energy transition with AI 

Themes at CERAWeek 2024 include energy markets, climate and sustainability, new supply chains for net-zero, technology and innovation, and power markets in transition. Microsoft’s leaders from energy, sustainability, cloud and AI, and security will be addressing these topics and speaking about the impact of AI and other technologies at the following sessions:  

• Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President, Cloud + AI: “The Multidimensional Energy Transition: A world of choices.”
• Matt Kerner, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Cloud for Industry: “AI: How will it impact the energy business?“
• Kelly Bissell, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security: “AI Enhancing Cybersecurity across the Energy Sector.”
• Bobby Hollis, Vice President Energy: “Future Forward: Harnessing the power of Gen-AI in climate solutions.”
• Christoph Schittko, Principal Software Engineer and Kadri Umay, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft: “Empowering the Energy Industry to Achieve Net-Zero Carbon Emissions with Data and A.”
• Conor Kelly, Principal Program Manager and Dag Boye, Industry Advisor, Microsoft: “Accelerating Business Transformation and the Energy Transition with Real-World AI.”
• Hanna Grene, Global Leader Go-to-Market and Operations, Energy and Resources Industry: “Effectively Decarbonizing the Electricity Grid.”
• Hany Soliman, Americas Business Leader Energy and Resources Industry: “Hydrogen and Power: Keeping the lights on in a zero carbon system.”
• Hema Prapoo, Worldwide Oil and Gas Leader: “Unveiling the latest breakthroughs in climate change mitigation.”
• Sverre Brandsberg-Dahl, Partner Chief Technology Officer, Energy Industry: “Accelerating CO2 transportation and storage solutions.”

I am pleased to participate alongside my Microsoft colleagues as a speaker on the topic, “Will AI accelerate the energy transition” and in an interactive “Next Gen” session featuring rapid-fire insights by leading minds on energy innovation along with CERAWeek 2024 future energy leaders.  

Showcasing innovation with customers and partners

At the Microsoft Agora House, we’ll join our customers and partners in showcasing some of the latest innovations driving safety, productivity, efficiency, and sustainability. Visitors to our Agora House can learn about:

• Microsoft Copilot for Dynamic 365 Guides: Transform frontline operations with AI and mixed reality
  AI, automation, and mixed reality solutions are poised to reshape industries everywhere. While industrial organizations worldwide overhaul their operations, frontline workers are still awaiting their digital renaissance. Within the energy industry, a focus on safety and the desire to accelerate skilling has Chevron looking to better equip its workers for the future. Copilot in Dynamics 365 Guides offers Chevron the opportunity to optimize its operations, empower workers, and infuse informed decisions throughout its value chain. Together, AI and mixed reality enable Chevron to define energy in human terms.​
• Microsoft Copilot for Security: Protect critical infrastructure at the speed and scale of AI
  Discover how Copilot for Security helps a broader set of security and IT professionals protect both their IT systems and industrial assets at the speed and scale of AI. Witness the power of Copilot synthesizing data from new sources, adding context and enrichment, and delivering new levels of effectiveness and efficiency, all in natural language, powered by generative AI.
• Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Energy: Accelerate your journey to energy data modernization
  Azure Data Manager for Energy helps energy companies gain actionable insights, improve operational efficiency, and accelerate time to market on the enterprise-grade, cloud-based OSDU® Data Platform service. The Microsoft partner ecosystem plays a crucial role in Azure Data Manager for Energy. For example, SLB’s Enterprise Data Solution seamlessly integrates with Azure Data Manager for Energy and simplifies data handling and discovery for domain-specific applications. Customers like Equinor are targeting data efficiency and a low-carbon future with Azure Data Manager for Energy and Aker BP is leveraging the platform to transform its data and operations.
• Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability​: Unlock the power of AI to meet your sustainability goals​
  Discover how AI in Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability helps unlock data insights to accelerate sustainability progress, business growth, and climate innovation. Now in preview, Sustainability data solutions in Microsoft Fabric allows organizations to accelerate their time to insights and sustainability progress by providing out-of-the-box environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data model, connectors, and reporting. By connecting your ESG data with Fabric you can turn volumes of sustainability data into meaningful insights and progress.

Partnerships for energy industry transformation  

Complex climate challenges require deep collaboration and innovation across industries and geographies. Microsoft values its partnerships and the industry-specific solutions partners provide, and we’re honored to highlight many of these change-makers at CERAWeek 2024. Microsoft partners in our Agora House are at the forefront of accelerating data modernization and leveraging generative AI so companies can achieve their safety, efficiency, productivity, and decarbonization goals. Featured partners and their solutions include: 

• Accenture is reinventing business and workforce productivity with generative AI. 
• Cognite is partnering with Microsoft to unlock real-time industrial insights with AI and to bring enterprise data operations to the generative AI era.  
• Schneider Electric is advancing decarbonization by integrating more distributed energy resources into the power grid. Microsoft and Schneider Electric are collaborating to leverage copilots and generative AI to transform outage management and control center operations.¹  
• SLB is accelerating the energy transition with speed and scale through data, AI, innovation, and partnerships with digital solutions enabling carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS).  

Other partners we are highlighting and presenting at the Microsoft Agora House include:

Customers leading the way with AI and Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365

Microsoft customers are at the forefront of digital transformation with AI. For example, Petronas, Cegal, and Microsoft have teamed up to drive innovation with an innovative platform based on Microsoft Azure high-performance computing (HPC) and AI technologies.² This initiative, which involves moving HPC workloads to the cloud, is anticipated to benefit energy operations for Petronas. 

More energy companies have announced commitments to implementing copilot to empower their workforce and advance their digital transformation journeys. Pacific Gas & Electric is leveraging Microsoft Power Platform, including AI and copilot features to address up to 40% of help desk demands to save more than $1 million annually. Global energy firm TotalEnergies is using Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Power Platform to improve operational efficiency, and this year all 100,000 employees will be trained to use these AI tools.³ Bp will also roll out Copilot for Microsoft 365 to its global workforce and empower them to improve workflows and enhance productivity.⁴

Startups speeding the energy transition 

The climate crisis impacts everyone, and diversity in the startup ecosystem helps to ensure that solutions also apply to everyone. People of color are disproportionately affected by climate change, yet Black and Latino founders receive less than 1.5% of total United States venture capital funding, women-founded organizations received 1.9% of those funds, and Black and Latino women founders less than 0.1%.⁵ 

Transformation starts with people, not technology, and Microsoft is proud to support underrepresented climate tech startups. At CERAWeek 2024, we are honored to feature nine startup pitch sessions with underrepresented founders and chief executive officers who are driving the future of clean energy and climate tech innovation at our Experience Zone. The Microsoft Agora House presents a unique opportunity to meet these startup leaders and learn about their innovations. The lineup includes: 

Other startup presenting in our Experience Zone include FlexDAO, Line Vision, and Utilidata from the Microsoft Energy Transition Studio for Startups, a new program designed to empower energy transition startups worldwide. By providing technical expertise, commercial support, and access to capital, the Microsoft Energy Transition Studio for Startups aims to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy, carbon capture, carbon management, and geothermal, to help the world get closer to and achieve net-zero. If your organization is developing energy transition or climate tech solutions, or to nominate a company, apply to the first cohort of Microsoft Energy Transition Studio for Startups.

See you in Houston

We hope you’ll join us in person at the conference and in the Microsoft Agora House, where we can connect and share more on transformational technologies like generative AI and their impact on the energy ecosystem. See you in Houston, Texas from March 18 to 22, 2024.

Learn more about Energy and Resources solutions with Microsoft

• CERAWeek 2024 
• Transformative AI solutions powering the energy and resources industry 
• Microsoft for Energy and Resources 

¹Schneider Electric drives Generative AI productivity and sustainability solutions by integrating Microsoft Azure OpenAI, PR Newswire.

²Petronas, Microsoft, Cegal join forces for upstream digital innovation, Gas Pathways.

³TotalEnergies unlocks the potential of generative artificial intelligence for its employees, TotalEnergies.

⁴bp looks to leverage power of generative AI with Copilot for Microsoft 365, bp.

⁵McKinsey and Company, Underrepresented start-up founders: The untapped opportunity, June 2023.

The post Microsoft at CERAWeek 2024: Enable energy transformation with data and AI appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Deployment of clean energy sources like solar, wind, and biofuels, carbon capture solutions, energy storage, and electric vehicles (EVs) help us get closer to a net-zero future. However, transformation requires investment, and modernizing infrastructure for operational efficiency and innovation can be cost-prohibitive. Last year, I highlighted energy organizations that are turning to Microsoft technology and the industrial metaverse for a sustainable, clean energy future.

Microsoft for Energy & Resources

Powering a sustainable future

Discover solutions

Metaverse in action: Transforming the energy sector

The industrial metaverse integrates technologies like IoT, AI, digital twin, and mixed reality technologies, using the Microsoft Cloud to provide persistent, interactive experiences based on an organization’s information technology (IT), operational technology (OT), and engineering technology (ET) data and applications.

AI is already playing a major role in improving productivity, operational efficiency, and workplace safety. In a recent Microsoft commissioned study by Forrester, we learned that energy firms view the industrial metaverse as a critical component to their organization’s evolution. While implementation costs and skilling questions remain, the industry acknowledges this technology convergence is helping target improved operating margins and increase productivity and profitability. 

AI is accelerating industrial metaverse interactions, helping organizations address their innovation barriers. For example, Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Guides, currently in private preview, combines the power of generative AI with mixed reality to help frontline workers complete complex tasks and resolve service issues faster with less operational disruption. Together these technologies provide frontline workers with real-time, contextual guidance and 3D instruction through point-and-ask guidance, spatial content generation, and step-by-step assistance.

In Turkey, Enerjisa Üretim teamed with Senkron.Energy Digital Services to transition to a cloud-native ecosystem based on Microsoft Azure. By leveraging the new environment, the company was able to implement a new remote operation center for 20 hydropower, wind, and solar plants within four years. Now, Enerjisa Üretim uses advanced AI analytics to monitor real-time performance, forecast production levels, and predict maintenance requirements. The firm has strengthened its security operations as well. Overall, the solution has increased operational efficiency with well-timed preventive maintenance and advanced the company toward safer and more secure and sustainable energy management.

Industrial metaverse solutions can also include IoT technologies like Microsoft Azure IoT Operations and Azure IoT for energy, designed to help organizations optimize energy distribution while lowering operational costs.

As an integrated energy conglomerate, Ecopetrol operates across the entire hydrocarbon chain as well as linear infrastructure, such as energy transmission and road concessions according to John James, Enterprise Digital Architect at Ecopetrol. By harnessing the power of Azure IoT Operations, Ecopetrol is poised to continue expanding and enhancing its industrial IoT platform. This strategic move is designed to not only streamline and standardize intelligent edge solutions, but also to significantly improve operational efficiencies, minimize the carbon footprint, and enable rapid adoption of big data and AI technologies at the core of their business. This commitment is a testament to Ecopetrol’s dedication to leading the energy sector into a more sustainable and technologically-advanced future.

Highlighting a metaverse of customer innovation

Dutch-state owned utility provider Enexis wants to drive the energy transition at a national level. To meet its ambitious goal, Enexis needed to transform its workforce and infrastructure. With a solution based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides and Microsoft HoloLens 2, Enexis is enabling employees to master materials 40% faster than traditional methods. Next, the company plans to expand the solution to field work, with possibilities that include remote inspection and safety drills.

Global energy firm Chevron is adopting industrial metaverse technologies to realize their vision for their facilities and operations of the future—helping to improve safety with generative AI and automation while also lowering operating expenses. Assets connect to the Microsoft Cloud and edge technologies to enable intelligent monitoring and enhanced decision making. Chevron is also one of the first organizations using Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Guides in private preview, bringing the power of generative AI and mixed reality to frontline workers. 

Digital twins and AI can be adapted for a variety of sustainability scenarios. For example, Anglican Water, the largest water company in England, uses digital twins to protect river health efficiently, affordably, and with a smaller carbon footprint. Data integration, 3D modeling, and predictive capabilities help provide a better real-time understanding of river ecosystems and the impact of future change. The insights help protect river health and ensure safe, clean drinking water to 7 million customers.

Private 5G and Microsoft partners enabling energy innovation

Microsoft partners are actively developing solutions running on Azure private multi-access edge compute (MEC), a cloud-managed edge infrastructure and services combined with edge networking. These innovative solutions have been designed to help our mutual customers meet their transformation goals and adopt AI technologies:

• Cognizant: Private 5G Vision AI for Worker Health and Safety enhances workforce safety by identifying when workers enter a hazardous work-zone and taking proactive actions to protect them from injury.
• Tampnet: Offshore Private Mobile Network (4G/5G) provides high-speed, secure mobile connectivity to enable digitization of mission critical energy operations.
• weavix: Frontline Communication Platform advances frontline worker communication with wearable technologies, improves safety measures, and expands collaboration.

From improving workplace safety and operational efficiency to transforming infrastructure and delivering new services, energy organizations worldwide are using the industrial metaverse and AI to accelerate their energy transition journeys. Progress demands a global effort and Microsoft is committed to working with customers and partners to provide innovative solutions that enable a net-zero carbon economy. The industrial metaverse isn’t a distant vision, it’s part of today’s reality. Energy companies that embrace AI-powered tools and digital innovation now can meet their business goals and tackle new challenges while advancing a more sustainable future for the planet.  

Discover solutions for your energy transition

• Microsoft’s perspective on the industrial metaverse
• Microsoft for Energy and Resources
• Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides
• Microsoft Azure IoT for Energy
• Microsoft Copilot

The post Microsoft and the industrial metaverse are enabling and accelerating the energy transition appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Today’s headlines are dominated by news about AI, from the latest discussions about Microsoft Copilot to ways that AI paves the way for a sustainable energy future. The use of AI is increasing the availability and efficiency of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydroelectric, and biomass which now account for approximately 30 percent of electricity generated worldwide¹

The World Economic Forum underscores the role AI plays in the energy transition and estimates that every 1 percent additional efficiency in demand creates USD1.3 trillion in value between 2020 and 2050 due to reduced investment needs.²

Microsoft partners with organizations across the energy and resources sector on solutions to drive workforce transformation, improve operational efficiencies, accelerate net-zero, and increase energy innovation and growth opportunities. We work with customers and partners on:

• Enhancing safety and security by using facial recognition, anomaly detection, and robotics to prevent accidents, protect workers, and secure facilities.
• Increasing operational and energy efficiency by using data analytics, machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to optimize supply chains, monitor and control assets, forecast demand, and balance power grids.
• Curbing greenhouse gas emissions by leveraging computer vision, natural language processing, and deep learning to detect leaks, monitor flaring, and track carbon footprints.
• Improving customer service and engagement through chatbots, recommender systems, and sentiment analysis to provide personalized experiences, offers, and feedback.

Leveraging AI to accelerate the energy transition

Our customers in power and utilities, oil and gas, and mining are transforming their workforce and operations to achieve more with less. These innovators are using digital technologies, data analytics, and automation to improve efficiency, safety, and sustainability. Investments include upskilling their employees, fostering innovation, and collaborating with Microsoft to create value for their customers and stakeholders.

Several industry leaders are at the forefront of leveraging data and AI to accelerate the energy transition, including:

• Ontario Power Generation (OPG) teamed with Microsoft to develop an AI-powered chatbot for employees called ChatOPG. The chatbot is designed to provide information, answer questions, and act as a personal assistant at work. Adopting AI technology has helped OPG drive operational efficiencies by improving productivity, safety, and performance among employees.
• Global mining company BHP is accelerating time to value with Microsoft AI and machine learning, using real-time plant data from the copper concentrators and Microsoft Azure Machine Learning to make hourly predictions. These predictions are then used to create machine learning–assisted recommendations for its Escondida operations team. As grade declines at existing mines and fewer new copper deposit discoveries are made, next-generation technologies like AI, machine learning, and data analytics will be used to unlock more production and value from our existing mines to help meet the increasing demand for copper and other minerals to support batteries and new energy generation.
• Boliden is taking advantage of Azure to bring scalability and flexibility to its mining operations, combine cloud computing power, and work locally with mobile devices. Teams get real-time updates using the Boliden camera network without losing valuable time manually watching video streams. Site managers, inspectors, and analysts now get a deeper view of site performance and can focus on business development activities. 
• To replace some of their manual processes, E.ON introduced virtual inspections of power lines with drone images and AI. Together with their three distribution system operators, they developed their own virtual inspection solution using Microsoft Azure data and AI services. Drones are used to take pictures, and AI analyzes the images, sorts them, and evaluates them to make the maintenance process safer and more efficient.
• Using an AI and machine learning solution built on Azure paired with IoT technology, Shell automatically identifies safety hazards and alerts service champions to quickly respond to and eliminate potential problems. In addition to protecting lives, having fewer accidents reduces operating costs and environmental impact. 
• Snam is using Microsoft AI and IoT technology to support data collection and strengthen security across its European pipeline network. In addition, the organization is using Azure Machine Learning for a deeper understanding of key equipment to improve proactive maintenance activities and boost energy efficiency.

Partnering on AI innovation

Our extensive, global partner ecosystem is fundamental to accelerating innovation across the energy sector. While technology is an enabler, collaboration is the true foundation for addressing the world’s complex energy challenges. Microsoft is actively working with partners SLB, Cognite, Bentley, and many others to accelerate ideation and the development and deployment of AI-driven, sustainable energy solutions. You can find out more about our partnerships in my June blog. 

• SLB was named Energy and Resources Partner of the Year for revolutionizing its DELFI platform built on Azure Data Manager for Energy and leveraging high-performance computing and AI to optimize simulation workflows for energy exploration, development, and carbon storage. Through our strong partnership and collaboration, SLB and Microsoft enable customers to spend less time on operations and more time focusing on addressing the growing energy demand crisis the world is facing.
• Cognite, a finalist for the Energy and Resources Partner of the Year award, builds on the power of the Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI capabilities to simplify access to complex, industrial data and enable actionable insights. Cognite Data Fusion built on Microsoft Azure uses AI to automate the ingestion, consolidation, contextualization, and access to operational, engineering, and IT data from multiple sources to create data models and build new analytics dashboards, digital solutions, and digital twins.
• Through digital twins and the power of data, AI, and advanced analytics, Bentley Systems helps energy companies better understand and optimize their operations. With AI, energy organizations can build mission-critical solutions to analyze images, identify patterns, do predictive analytics, and isolate anomalies to solve complex problems crucial to sustaining the environment and growing economies. Azure provides the platform for Bentley to unify data into a digital twin and apply AI, helping energy companies generate better insights, reduce costs, and increase efficiency.

The promise of generative AI for energy and resources industry transformation

Last week we announced Microsoft’s vision to deliver Copilot, your everyday AI companion—to help people and businesses be smarter, more creative, more productive, and more connected to the world around them. We believe that together with our customers and partners, Microsoft can help power your teams, businesses, and processes, to empower every person and every organization to do their very best work and to achieve more.

In the energy and resources industry, generative AI has the potential to create new solutions and optimize existing processes by enhancing predictive maintenance models which evaluate the current status of equipment and machinery, whether it’s a power line, trucks at a mining site, or offshore wind turbines. The AI models can proactively make predictions based on usage trends and consequently inform maintenance teams of potential equipment failures in advance which help energy companies optimize maintenance schedules, minimize equipment downtime, reduce costs, and ensure a safe and reliable energy supply.

AI and machine learning can be used to improve the security of energy grids by preventing cyberattacks before they happen by using data analytics to identify patterns in energy data that may be indicative of a breach. AI can also empower and enable field workers to identify high-risk tasks and help prevent serious injuries by analyzing large data sets on work sites, schedules, and historical incidents. AI models can be used to predict future supply chain information such as forecasting demand for specific products and optimizing inventory levels, and there are countless more examples around service desk scenarios, customer care and support, and internal knowledge assistants.

As AI technology continues to rapidly evolve, Microsoft is committed to the advancement of AI driven by ethical principles and making sure AI systems are developed responsibly and in ways that maintain trust. Our AI solutions and technology development align with Microsoft’s AI Principles—fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability—along with Microsoft’s Responsible AI Standard in partnership with responsible AI experts across the company.

I hope you’re as excited as I am by the latest AI innovations across the energy and resources sector.

Resources

• Meet the Microsoft Energy and Resources Team at ADIPEC 2023, October 2 to 5, 2023 to learn more about exciting innovations in data, AI, and sustainability.
• Microsoft AI solutions
• Microsoft Azure for Energy
• Microsoft Azure AI services
• Learn more about themes and actions critical for energy transition.
• Enable your data to do more in the cloud with our Azure Data Manager for Energy.
• Microsoft brings mixed reality and new immersive collaboration tools to industrial metaverse customers.

Microsoft AI

Explore how Microsoft is empowering the world to achieve more with AI.

Learn more

¹AI paves the way for a sustainable energy future, Journal of Petroleum Energy Future, February 2023.

²Artificial intelligence is critical enabler of the energy transition, Word Economic Forum in collaboration with BloombergNEF and Deutsche Energie-Agentur, September 2021.

The post The era of AI: Transformative AI solutions powering the energy and resources industry appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

With energy demand expected to increase by nearly 50 percent over the next 30 years, companies are accelerating innovation to meet the need for safe, reliable, and sustainable energy.¹ Until more alternative, cost-effective solutions are available for energy operations, manufacturing and other industrial processes, companies will continue to look for ways to offset carbon emissions with initiatives such as carbon capture and storage (CSS).

While tackling these complex issues, energy firms must also meet business goals. That means enabling growth and modernizing infrastructure by leveraging data to gain insights and create efficiencies. To balance priorities, energy organizations worldwide are using Microsoft’s cloud, data, and AI technologies to create a digital foundation for a more sustainable future.

Powering digital transformation with Azure Data Manager for Energy

Built to meet the needs of our global energy customers, Azure Data Manager for Energy is available in multiple Azure regions and expanding quickly to full, global availability.

We’re also excited to offer two tiers—a standard tier to run high-scale, performance-driven production workloads, and a developer tier designed for partners and end users looking for more flexibility and speed in building new applications. Partners and customers can start with the developer tier to evaluate and plan implementation, accelerate application development, and test OSDU Data Platform applications. When ready to transform their operational environment, energy operators can use the standard tier to take advantage of enterprise grade, service level agreement (SLA)-backed performance for optimizing seismic, wellbore, and reservoir workflows. Learn more in the announcement of the Azure Data Manager for Energy developer tier.

Eliminating data silos with easy interoperability across an extensive global partner ecosystem

Our global partner ecosystem is fundamental to accelerating innovation across the energy sector. With Azure Data Manager for Energy, customers can speed toward goals by taking advantage of easy interoperability across an extensible application ecosystem. They can integrate virtually any dataset, application, or cloud service while leveraging the subsurface tools they already work with from SLB, Halliburton, and many others. To deploy OSDU Data Platform applications faster with fewer resources, energy companies can also work with their choice of systems integrators to help prepare and ingest data into Azure Data Manager for Energy. 

We are pleased to be working with many leading energy partners on Azure Data Manager for Energy and continue adding others to our extensive partner ecosystem, including: 

Enabling carbon capture and storage

Collaboration will also enable and accelerate the transition to a net-zero economy. Built in partnership with SLB, a global technology company driving energy innovation, Azure Data Manager for Energy combines extensive domain expertise from SLB with Microsoft innovations in cloud technologies and AI.

Out-of-the-box compatibility with industry-leading SLB technologies for subsurface reservoir and CO2 storage assessment will accelerate time-to-market. With the same tools that energy companies use for subsurface interpretation and modeling, customers can run workflows for CO2 storage site assessment and monitoring.

SLB CO2 subsurface workflows work with Azure Data Manager for Energy to enable CO2 storage capacity assessment and long-term storage integrity evaluation. Capabilities include:

• Rapid site selection: Quickly and confidently analyze geological and environmental data to identify and screen suitable storage sites and assess storage capacity.
• Model and simulate CO2 storage scenarios: Improve decision-making and risk mitigation strategies by simulating multiple CO2 injection and migration scenarios. Assess storage integrity, containment risk and injection performance for long term, safe CO2 storage.
• Reduce capital and operational costs: Identify potential inefficiencies in the design phase to optimize operational safety and enable continuous operations. Build a cost-effective monitoring plan based on detailed technical assessments of storage site performance.

With these capabilities, developers, data managers, and technical specialists, including geoscientists, can quickly innovate to drive the energy transition. 

Scaling efficiencies and operational insights with an enterprise-grade cloud platform

Azure Data Manager for Energy offers customers new tools to help speed implementation, integration, and innovation with organizations already using the platform for transformative solutions.

For example, the easy integration helped Norwegian energy company Aker BP speed time-to-market by integrating Azure Data Manager for Energy with SLB and Halliburton applications to eliminate data siloes and time-consuming manual processes. Aker BP is empowered across the organization with strategic insights to make better decisions at the operational, engineering, and executive levels, with better predictability that helps save money and increase productivity. Operating with more precision enables Aker BP to not only lower operational costs, but also increase plant up-time while reducing CO2 emissions.

TotalEnergies is another early adopter of Azure Data Manager for Energy. The company reports ease-of-deployment that completes in two hours with just a single click. And because Azure Data Manager for Energy is a fully managed cloud service, TotalEnergies can innovate with confidence backed by the solution’s scalability, seamless upgrades, and disaster recovery capabilities.

Balancing global demand with sustainable operations

By modernizing their data estate, energy companies can balance growing energy demand with the need to work toward sustainable operations. Norway’s Equinor is an industry leader at the forefront of the transition to a low-carbon future, with a commitment to achieve net zero by 2050. The company needed an efficient way to implement the industry’s data platform standards to help organize, manage, and analyze vast quantities of information. To eliminate data silos and equip employees with information to make effective decisions, Equinor decided to target data efficiency and a low-carbon future with Azure Data Manager for Energy.

Equinor believed that the issues faced by the industry were too important to wait. By becoming an early adopter of Azure Data Manager for Energy, the firm was able to integrate previously siloed data and get actionable insights such as locating ideal locations for carbon capture and storage. Now, a nearly limitless volume of information can be stored in the cloud, where it’s secure, quality-controlled, and easily accessible. With an integrated solution based on Azure Data Manager for Energy, Equinor expects to reduce emissions and improve the efficiency of its hydrocarbon extraction, while optimizing the success of new sustainable energy ventures.

“The scalability, elasticity, and flexibility of Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Energy provides us with an ideal foundation for implementing the OSDU Data Platform in a way we wouldn’t have been able to do on-premises.”

–Øivind Berggraf, Advisor Emerging Information Technology–Subsurface

Join us in Houston for the Azure Data Manager for Energy launch event

Azure Data Manager for Energy is available today to help the energy companies of tomorrow modernize data and digitally transform to provide secure, reliable, and sustainable energy for generations to come. We also invite you to join the Microsoft Energy and Resources Team, our partners, and customers, for a launch event where you can learn firsthand how our latest offering can enable your data to do more in the cloud and accelerate your journey to energy data modernization and digital transformation. Space is limited, so secure your spot by registering here. We hope to see you at the Houston Ion on August 30, 2023.

Azure Data Manager for Energy

Accelerate your journey to energy data modernization and digital transformation.

Get started

Microsoft for Energy and Resources

• Learn more about themes and actions critical for energy transition.
• Read more about how Microsoft partners with energy companies to accelerate digital transformation.
• Find out how Azure OpenAI helps improve productivity at Ontario Power Generation
• Discover ways that data and analytics are shaping the energy transition.
• Microsoft brings mixed reality and new immersive collaboration tools to industrial metaverse customers.
• Learn more about how Microsoft works to enable the sustainable growth of renewables in the mining industry.
• To learn how to attract, train, and retain employees for your next-generation workforce, visit our transform your workforce employee retention website.
• To learn more about Microsoft for Energy and Resources, visit our future of energy industry solutions website.

¹EIA projects nearly 50% increase in world energy usage by 2050, led by growth in Asia, U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The post Announcing general availability of Azure Data Manager for Energy   appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

The energy sector is at the forefront of innovation to help solve these challenges and develop new solutions to accelerate decarbonization and the movement toward clean, renewable sources of energy. Momentum is also building for decentralized models of production and distribution, with distributed energy generation such as local microgrids. To speed innovation, energy organizations are migrating to the cloud and integrating Microsoft technologies to liberate, unify, and contextualize data and developing solutions that leverage AI, predictive analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and digital twins.

But technology is only part of the solution. Collaboration with industry leaders and our global partner ecosystem is critical for solving complex global energy challenges.

Microsoft for Energy and Resources

Transform the energy and resources industry to deliver safe, reliable, and clean energy for a sustainable future.

Explore solutions

Making your data work for you at Reuters Global Energy Transitions 2023

We recently participated in the Reuters Global Energy Transitions 2023 on June 7 and 8 in New York City, which convened energy executives from around the world to talk about challenges and opportunities in the energy transition. From the Microsoft Energy and Resources team, Hanna Grene, Worldwide Power and Utilities Industry Leader and Ravi Mundhe, Director Energy and Resources, were joined by digital leaders from our partners Cognite and Schneider Electric to lead a discussion on how energy companies can improve their digital strategy through innovative data and analytics.

During our workshop, energy executives representing energy production, generation, transmission, and distribution companies, shared data priorities and best practices on advancing analytics and automation to achieve net-zero objectives. The workshop also examined how organizations can reinvigorate their digital strategy with data optimization techniques and assess digital capabilities and risks with AI.

To learn more about energy trends and partner innovations, read Hanna Grene’s Innovation in power and utilities blog, and watch two new video series on how data and analytics are shaping the energy transition: Top Trends in Energy and the latest episode of The Short Circuit, where I sit down with Jason Wight, Chief Information Officer of OPG, who talks about the benefits of a strong partnership built on shared values driving digital innovation, including large language models, and business results at pace and scale.

Celebrating our partners at Microsoft Inspire 2023

Each year at Microsoft Inspire we celebrate our partners and their latest innovations to help our customers achieve more. Once again, we’re looking forward to connecting with the energy sector on July 18 and 19, 2023 and you’re invited to join us at Microsoft Inspire 2023. At our largest partner event of the year, learn how Microsoft and its global partner ecosystem are accelerating the ideation, development, and deployment of technology solutions in the collective journey towards a secure, equitable, and sustainable energy future.

This year, we are pleased to announce SLB as the Energy and Resources Partner of the Year for revolutionizing their DELFI platform built on Azure Data Manager for Energy and leveraging high-performance computing (HPC) and AI to optimize simulation workflows for energy exploration, development, and carbon storage. SLB has been a leader in digital transformation with top energy operators and Microsoft technology at the center of this journey. Through our strong partnership and collaboration, SLB and Microsoft enable customers to spend less time on operations and more time focusing on the greater industry mission of addressing the growing energy demand crisis the world is facing.

We are also pleased to share our finalists Cognite, Neudesic, and Schneider Electric for their transformative solutions to maximize efficiency, resiliency, and sustainability across the energy value chain. Partnering with Microsoft, Cognite helps solve the industrial data problem and accelerate the full-scale digital transformation that improves the dependability and sustainability of operations. Neudesic and Microsoft are innovating solutions that help power and utilities maximize grid resiliency, outage restoration, and the transition to clean energy. Together with Microsoft, Schneider Electric is electrifying and digitizing energy, helping customers achieve both energy and sustainability goals from strategy to execution to unlock the grid of the future.

Be sure to tune in to Microsoft Inspire 2023 on July 18, where we sit down with Cognite and Schneider Electric to hear about their partner experiences and learnings.

During Microsoft Inspire 2023 you’ll discover how the Microsoft Cloud can power the energy industry’s AI transformation. Recognizing the importance of the cloud in driving digital transformation, sustainability, and business growth, we commissioned Forrester Consulting to survey energy executives on the benefits and impact of moving to an open, cloud-based platform. According to the 2023 survey, expected benefits of cloud migration include better data management and insights, lower costs, and higher operational efficiency and security. To learn more about cloud migration in the energy industry, download this Forrester infographic.

The power of partnerships and co-innovation

As energy companies continue to evolve, we work closely with our partners to help customers in several key areas including:

• Intelligent grid solutions that improve reliability and efficiency throughout the grid lifecycle with decentralized energy generation, renewables integration, and customer-centric services.
• Innovating in an interactive digital space of the industrial metaverse by combining digital twins, IoT, AI, and augmented reality.
• Microsoft Fabric to connect every data source and analytics service together on a single, AI-powered platform.
• Advancing energy transition solutions with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability to record, report, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accelerable low-and no-carbon energy sources.

Together with our partners, we also recently launched the Energy Transition Center of Excellence at the Houston Microsoft Technology Center (MTC). The Center of Excellence showcases leading energy transition solutions to provide customers an opportunity to learn first-hand the solutions offered by Microsoft and our global partner ecosystem to accelerate decarbonization and net-zero objectives. The center’s partner technologies include hydrogen production, offshore wind optimization, emissions management, carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS), home energy management, and repowering coal plants. Watch the Energy Transition Center of Excellence video to learn more.

Working together for a sustainable future

From individual consumers to global corporations, we must all work together for solutions that advance us toward a cleaner, sustainable future for all. We’re excited to continue to co-innovate with our partners and customers to meet the needs of the ever-evolving energy industry and the world we live in.

Resources

• Learn more about themes and actions critical for energy transition.
• Read more about how Microsoft partners with energy companies to accelerate digital transformation.
• Discover ways that data and analytics are shaping the energy transition.
• Microsoft brings mixed reality and new immersive collaboration tools to industrial metaverse customers.
• Learn more about how Microsoft works to enable the sustainable growth of renewables in the mining industry.
• Enable your data to do more in the cloud with our Azure Data Manager for Energy.
• To learn how to attract, train, and retain employees for your next-generation workforce, visit our transform your workforce employee retention website.
• To learn more about Microsoft for Energy and Resources, visit our future of energy industry solutions website.

¹Rising global energy use complicates path to net zero, John Kemp, Reuters, 2021.

²Carbon Majors Report, Climate Accountability Institute, 2020.

The post Partnerships for a sustainable future at Microsoft Inspire and Reuters Global Energy Transition 2023 appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

To move toward a secure and sustainable future, the world needs holistic solutions that optimize operational efficiency and accelerate the transition to cleaner energy. Energy leaders are turning to Microsoft for technologies that power transformation including the Microsoft Cloud, AI, machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), and mixed reality.

Around the world, leading organizations are leveraging digital technologies to transform their workforce, operate for the future, and create new business models with intelligent, data-driven, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) first solutions that improve performance and sustainability. I wrote about some of these innovations in my recent blog on the energy sector and the industrial metaverse, and look forward to sharing more.

Microsoft for Energy u0026amp; Resources

Achieve net zero with technology innovation to deliver safe, reliable, and clean energy.

Get started today

Innovative solutions to accelerate decarbonization

To meet their net-zero goals, companies need support across their energy transition journeys to reduce CO2 emissions, capture and store carbon, generate green hydrogen, repower coal, and optimize wind turbines. To support customers across their decarbonization journeys, we’re excited to announce the grand opening of the Energy Transition Center of Excellence at the Houston Microsoft Technology Center (MTC). The new Microsoft Center of Excellence will showcase leading energy transition solutions and give customers an opportunity to learn first-hand the solutions offered by Microsoft and our global partner ecosystem.

Customers can experience a new energy future through immersive, interactive exhibits on leading energy solutions built by our partners and powered by Microsoft. These solutions are innovative, transformational, and pivotal to companies achieving their sustainability goals and are also grounded in the urgent priority of providing secure and reliable energy access and equity for all. Microsoft Energy Transition Center partners and technologies include:

• AspenTech and Emerson: Digital technology pathway for scaling up the hydrogen economy. AspenTech and Emerson solutions are designed to help address the challenges of capital expenditure (CAPEX) and lifecycle operating cost of production, supply chain, and storage infrastructure to expedite speed to market.
• Bentley: Going digital in offshore wind. Bentley provides digital solutions to help stakeholders work together more effectively, design, implement and operate offshore structures, and deliver a clear line of sight across the whole operation.
• Cognite: Cognite data fusion for sustainability. Cognite Data Fusion® automates the ingestion, consolidation, contextualization, and access to operational, engineering, and IT data from multiple sources to enable operators to take action to help reduce emissions and waste in real-time.
• EY: Hydrogen Pathways to further decarbonization. EY’s Hydrogen Pathways is a molecular accounting platform, combining asset planning with operational insights to create a holistic view for hydrogen production.
• Honeywell: End-to-end enterprise emissions management. Honeywell Emissions Management Suite is an end-to-end solution that provides greenhouse gas emissions measurement, monitoring, reporting, reduction, and more to drive insights that support the company’s decarbonization goals.
• Schneider Electric: Prosumers and the new energy landscape. Utilities are at the heart of the new energy landscape, a paradigm shift to bidirectional energy driven by prosumers. Discover how Schneider Electric and its portfolio of prosumer companies are accelerating the new energy landscape.
• SLB: For a balanced planet. SLB solutions include using AI, automation, and comprehensive data management to create new levels of efficiency and performance across the Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) value chain.
• Switch Energy Alliance: Energy equity and energy access. Switch Energy Alliance’s global video and web-based approach engages students and general viewers in a positive conversation to work collaboratively on energy challenges.
• TerraPraxis: TeraPraxis REPOWER. TerraPraxis REPOWER is a standardized system designed to repurpose existing coal plants to produce clean energy.

Learning and connecting with global energy leaders at CERAWeek 2023

The Microsoft team is participating in CERAWeek 2023, the preeminent annual gathering of energy, finance, and technology leaders, on March 6 to 10, 2023 in Houston, Texas. The event is focused on navigating a turbulent world through the lens of energy, climate, and security. Microsoft energy leaders will share perspectives on topics that include unlocking data with cloud-based technologies, decarbonization solutions, alternative energy sources, and digitalization of the grid.

At CERAWeek 2023, I am looking forward to joining a panel with leaders from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Repsol, and Schneider Electric to discuss Company Strategies to Lower Emissions. Critical issues we’ll address are new energy technologies needed for the energy transition, how effectively they are supporting sustainability goals, and the role of digital technology in enabling and accelerating these new energy scenarios.

The Microsoft team will also participate in sessions that include:

• Hydrogen in Backup Power Applications with Joanna Mainguy, Industry Director EMEA, Energy and Resources Industry.
• Powering the Future: Digital Solutions for a Resilient, Secure, and Low-Carbon Grid with Per Christian Honningsvaag, Business Leader EMEA, Energy and Resources Industry.
• Scaling Innovation for Energy Transition Solutions with Dave Wisenteiner, General Manager, Worldwide Energy and Resources Industry.
• Successful CCUS Scale-ups: Dependent on Integrated Hubs and Markets? with Sverre Brandsberg, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Cloud for Industry.
• Unleashing the Power of Subsurface Data with OSDU in the Cloud with Stacey Lusk and Neeraj Joshi, Principal Program Managers, Worldwide Energy and Resources Industry.

Enabling carbon capture on an industrial scale

Microsoft technologies help to reshape the energy value chain at every stage, from planning and development to production, distribution, and consumption. As more governments and businesses commit to climate action plans for a greener future, we anticipate that digital solutions for energy challenges will become increasingly important. For example, in 2020 Norway updated its commitment to the Paris Agreement with an aggressive plan to cut overall emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.¹ As part of that initiative, the country is focusing on CCUS.

The Norwegian government teamed with Aker Carbon Capture, a consortium of three oil and gas companies called Northern Lights, and Microsoft to build a large-scale carbon capture plant at a Norcem cement factory in the town of Brevik. The energy and cement industries have a mutual interest in CCUS solutions. Because the cement industry is one of the largest producers of greenhouse gas, the solution developed at the Norcem factory is an important step in reshaping the industry. The project will become part of a nationwide system to capture emissions from multiple sources across Norway, including the energy industry.

Norway had been storing carbon dioxide in subsea reservoirs since 1996 but required carbon capture on an industrial scale to meet its goal of a nationwide system. To help solve the challenge, Microsoft engineers are building an integrated digital platform to track carbon dioxide from the point of emission to storage. The platform will track every step of the value chain, including the physical movement of carbon dioxide, its complex handling processes, and financial transactions. The new platform brings together Microsoft cloud technologies such as AI and high-performance computing to gather, monitor, and analyze data. While the first step is to capture 400,000 tons of CO2 annually at Brevik, the ultimate goal is to turn the data platform into an industry standard with the potential to accelerate movement toward Europe’s climate goals.

This project is another great example of how digital technology can be used to move the world closer to net-zero goals and speed the transition to cleaner energy. We look forward to connecting with you at CERAWeek 2023. We also hope you can experience our new Microsoft Energy Transition Center of Excellence and the latest innovations we are building with our partners to power a sustainable energy future.

Discover more

• 3 key takeaways from CERAWeek 2022 and a cleaner future for the energy transition. 
• Learn more about themes and actions critical for energy transition. 
• Read more about how Microsoft partners with energy companies to accelerate digital transformation.
• Microsoft brings mixed reality and new immersive collaboration tools to industrial metaverse customers.
• Learn more about how Microsoft works to enable the sustainable growth of renewables in the mining industry.
• Enable your data to do more in the cloud with our energy data manager.
• To learn how to attract, train, and retain employees for your next-generation workforce, visit our transform your workforce employee retention website.
• To learn more about Microsoft for Energy and Resources, visit our future of energy industry solutions website. 

¹Norway’s long term low emission strategy for 2050.

The post CERAWeek 2023: Microsoft launches the Energy Transition Center of Excellence appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

To innovate new solutions for a sustainable future, industry leaders are leveraging the Microsoft Cloud and technologies. AI, predictive analytics, the internet of things (IoT), and augmented reality are helping to modernize power grids, distributed energy resources, and new advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), to accelerate decarbonization initiatives.

The Microsoft Energy team is excited to share ground-breaking solutions and emerging technologies in San Diego, California on February 7 to 9, 2023 at DISTRIBUTECH International, the leading annual energy transmission and distribution event for North America.

Powering a sustainable future with Microsoft for Energy and Resources

Achieve net-zero with technology innovation to deliver safe, reliable, clean energy for a sustainable future.

Get started today

You can find our team and partners on stage and at the Microsoft booth, where we’ll share success stories and advances in data analytics, grid management, the transition to clean energy, and more. Sessions featuring the Microsoft Energy team include:

Bilal Khursheed, Industry Director, Power & Utilities, Americas, will be speaking on two panels:

• One at the Grid Edge Technologies Knowledge Hub on Converting Data to Insights: Exploring a Utility’s Journey to Unlock Intelligence with Don Reeves, SVP Outcomes at Itron and Ainara Fernandez Olivera, Principal Engineer at Avangrid to talk about AMI, also known as smart metering. Find out how leading utilities are taking advantage of AMI data to deliver business insights for maximum impact. The panel will explore the data-to-insights journey across key areas including data strategy, AMI delivery and outcomes, distributed intelligence, the future of low-voltage networks, and what success entails. Learn how to thrive in a rapidly changing market and strategically leverage data to optimize operations and empower customers as active participants in the energy evolution.

• Bilal will also be speaking at the Utility of the Future Knowledge Hub with utility grid modernization leaders Larry Bekkedahl, Senior Vice President, Advanced Energy Delivery of Portland General Electric, Kim Getgen, CEO, and Ivan Aguilar, Chief Technology Officer of InnovationForce to discuss learnings from Disney and Pfizer to reframe the innovation dilemma and approach innovation as a science. Panelists will share how regulated utilities can unlock the speed needed to reach decarbonization goals, manage wildfire risks, and deploy valuable capital projects faster.

Jon Guidroz, Chief Strategy Officer, Worldwide Energy and Resources Industry, will present on Distributed Energy Resource Management Systems (DERMS) for grid management with Scott Koehler, VP Strategy, Innovation and Marketing—Digital Grid at Schneider Electric and Quinn Nakayama, Senior Director, Grid Research Innovation and Development at Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). With an increasing number of distributed energy resources entering distribution networks, energy companies need greater grid flexibility and new management strategies. This session will review architectural considerations, data management methodologies, analytics requirements, and stepwise deployment options necessary to implement a DERMS program that addresses near-term goals and scales for a long-term vision. Hear how the PG&E, Schneider, and Microsoft partnership is enabling PG&E to deliver a DERMS solution in record time.

Pat Lo, National Power & Utilities Lead, Canada, will co-present at the Utility of the Future Knowledge Hub session with Katie Speirs, Industry Principal Director, Accenture, on unlocking the full potential of the energy transition with the power of digital technologies and data. The session will delve into the cutting-edge possibilities of AI and advanced technology, and how these solutions can revolutionize the way we decarbonize the grid and overcome utility challenges. Don’t miss this opportunity to stay ahead of the curve and lead the charge towards a sustainable future.

Partnerships for energy industry transformation

Microsoft partners and customers worldwide are transforming the energy sector with industry-leading innovation, collaboration, and technology. We’re proud to join these industry change-makers onstage or at our booth. Featured Microsoft partners include: Accenture, Avangrid, Awesense, Bentley, Cognite, enexchange, eSmart Systems, InnovationForce, Itineris, Itron, Neudesic, NODES, PXiSE, Schneider Electric, Sonata, TerraPraxis, Thread (Airtonomy), and Uptake.

A recent collaboration we are especially proud of is with Schneider Electric and Footprint Project, a small nonprofit that is helping communities around the world impacted by natural disasters, COVID-19, and the war in Ukraine. Using the power of the Microsoft Cloud and Schneider’s energy management data platform, Footprint can remotely operate microgrids which combine solar and battery power to bring cleaner energy to disaster response and to those who would have otherwise had no access to electricity.

Microsoft technologies for a secure and sustainable energy transition

As the world moves toward a net-zero future, Microsoft technologies play an increasingly pivotal role in the transition to cleaner energy. Through comprehensive, integrated offerings that include data analytics, intelligent edge computing, and AI, Microsoft and our partners enable energy companies to drive digital transformation, decarbonize, and support sustainable growth. These innovative solutions empower energy companies to do more with less by expanding the potential of their existing expertise and assets. With cloud enabled solutions, energy companies can manage their connected devices, diverse generation and transmission operations, and distributed energy resources more efficiently, securely, and sustainably.

Microsoft Azure IoT for Energy brings the intelligent edge and the intelligent cloud together to deliver energy data in an interoperable format, delivering insights enriched by advanced analytics, AI, and new models of interactivity enabled by mixed reality. The Microsoft IoT energy solutions help improve grid performance, manage resources, and implement proactive and predictive maintenance. 

Optimize grid assets with technology that can help visualize your grid’s topology, gather data from grid assets, and define rules to trigger alerts and enable predictive maintenance. Gain more safety oversight, prevent failures, and avoid critical downtime by monitoring the performance and condition of your equipment. Avoid costly infrastructure upgrades and gain flexibility by using distributed energy resources to drive energy optimization.

Cloud-based solutions provide the innovation, flexibility, and reliability that energy companies need to support a remote workforce. Newly hired technicians who previously traveled to onsite training centers can log in to Microsoft Dynamics 365 to complete training and get field-ready. Mixed reality apps like Microsoft HoloLens can help streamline operations, improve productivity, and support the transition to net zero. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist enables technicians to stay engaged and receive support without having to put tools down to read a diagram or bring other teammates onsite. Customers are also using AI-supported inspection tools to safely and efficiently maintain power lines with a virtual inspection tool and drone images that help prevent power outages with accurate, predictive maintenance. 

Microsoft Defender for IoT in Power and Utilities helps mitigate the growing threat landscape for power and utilities companies. As an organization’s operational footprint continues to transform and grow, so does its attack surface, which can include power plants, transmission and distribution networks, and connected customer devices like solar equipment, batteries, and electric vehicles. Defender for IoT helps eliminate security blind spots and provide holistic protection across operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) infrastructure through proactive monitoring of connected devices, continuous visibility across all connected assets, and helping secure networks against cyber and physical attack.

Customers can also accelerate their energy transition with solutions that help build a sustainable infrastructure and digitally connect supply chains to improve collaboration, accountability, and transparency. For example, with Microsoft Sustainability Manager, our newest Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability offering, companies can unify data intelligence to help measure, monitor, and reduce the environmental impact of operations.

Visit us at DISTRIBUTECH in San Diego

There is more work ahead of us to achieve our collective vision for a cleaner, more sustainable world. Through digital innovation and strong partnerships, we see a brighter future ahead. We encourage you to visit us at DISTRIBUTECH booth 3835 to meet the Microsoft Energy team, our partners, and customers, and talk about the steps we can take together on our shared net-zero journey.

Learn more

• Learn more about themes and actions critical for energy transition.
• Read more about how Microsoft partners with energy companies to accelerate digital transformation.
• Read more about how Microsoft brings mixed reality and new immersive collaboration tools to industrial metaverse customers.
• Learn more about how Microsoft works to enable the sustainable growth of renewables in the mining industry.
• Enable your data to do more in the cloud with our energy data service.
• To learn how to attract, train, and retain employees for your next-generation workforce, visit our transform your workforce employee retention website.
• Microsoft is decarbonizing and digitizing Canada’s energy sector.
• To learn more about Microsoft for Energy and Resources, visit our future of energy industry solutions website.

The post Microsoft at DISTRIBUTECH 2023: Transform and thrive in a net-zero future appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Transform your workforce

Attract, train, and retain employees by equipping them with the skills and technologies to drive your transformation into a sustainable energy operator and service provider.

Learn more

Organizations doing more with less are using digital innovation to transform business outcomes. Transformative innovation isn’t about replacing people with technology or asking them to do more. In a new era, innovators use technology to turn what you already have and do into a superpower.

“Doing more with less doesn’t mean working harder or longer. It means applying technology to amplify what you can do and ultimately what an organization can achieve amid today’s constraints.”—Satya Nadella, Microsoft Chairman and CEO.

Innovative energy organizations are leveraging the Microsoft Cloud and the transformative technologies that come with it. The metaverse merges technologies like IoT, AI, and digital twins with augmented and virtual realities to provide immersive, 3D experiences of modeled data. These digital representations are used not only for entertainment but to transform real-world business scenarios in multiple industries. Though the metaverse is in its early stages, there are many examples of foundational building blocks, like the ones I describe below.

Advancing operational excellence

The ability to manipulate 3D digital replicas of the physical world enables virtual product design and improves production and supply chain processes. Engineers and designers can collaborate in a digital space to test new concepts and processes or identify new efficiencies. Equinor, a leader in the energy transition and floating offshore wind business, designs, operates, and maintains wind farms remotely before they’re even built. Wind farm developers face significant challenges including remote, harsh environments, the integration of diverse complex systems, and not least of all transmitting energy from offshore locations. By creating a virtual wind farm, Equinor simplifies and accelerates the design-build process by bringing data sets together and testing wind farm concepts based on digital simulations.

Hear from Equinor’s Executive Vice President and Head of Technology, Digital, and Innovation, Hege Skryseth, about how Equinor is using the industrial metaverse (story starts at 8:28).

Improving workplace safety and productivity

The metaverse isn’t just for engineers and business strategists. Interactive simulations and mixed reality tools can also be used to transform your workforce with improved training, support, and safety for field workers and frontline employees. Approximately 80 percent of employees worldwide do not sit behind a desk to do their jobs, especially in sectors like energy, manufacturing, healthcare, and agriculture.¹ This workforce is also historically under-equipped with digital technology, while job roles and skill requirements rapidly evolve as companies struggle to fill even their current positions. Innovative companies are empowering their workforce and ensuring that frontline employees are digitally equipped to acquire new skills, serve customers, and solve problems.

The energy industry has a long history of innovating with Microsoft technologies to improve insights and operations. Energy businesses are already using advanced analytics, connected devices, and AI to make better decisions, monitor diverse operations, and optimize performance. Today, energy leaders are turning to the industrial metaverse to not only increase efficiency and reduce risk but also to accelerate the transition to cleaner energy.

In the power and utilities sector, companies are integrating collaboration software with mixed reality tools to help operational and maintenance workers. For example, German energy firm E.ON is using AI-supported inspection tools to maintain power lines more safely and efficiently. Powered by Microsoft Azure, the virtual inspection tool with drone images helps speed up fault detection and prevent power outages with accurate, predictive maintenance. As more data is collected, the intelligent system continues to improve for a feedback loop that E.ON calls “collaborative AI.” Not only does the technology improve the quality of the inspections, it also increases safety by reducing the need for maintenance workers to physically climb poles to perform visual inspections.

In Japan, Hokkaido Electric Power Company (HEPCO) is transforming the inspection of its thermal power stations with a mixed reality application that leverages the Microsoft Cloud and Microsoft HoloLens 2. HEPCO uses the application to enable real-time collaboration and remote support for patrol inspection operations. In addition to improving the efficiency of inspection over large, remote areas, the solution provides alerts that help workers avoid injury. HEPCO employees equipped with a HoloLens 2 device receive a virtual view of the inspection route. When the worker reaches a site, the mixed reality experience also shows the employee inspection areas along with prior issues for intuitive, easy navigation. The solution will be deployed at multiple thermal power stations to improve inspection processes and help provide a reliable supply of energy across the region. Benefits can include improved operational stability, faster training, and the ability to equip its entire workforce with a more advanced skillset.  

Innovating for a more sustainable future

The energy industry is using Microsoft technologies to do more with less in new ways. Today, the industrial metaverse is creating more opportunities for companies and workers alike and increasing the adoption of greener practices and renewable energy. By enabling energy companies to more efficiently and affordably design new solutions like offshore wind farms, the metaverse helps accelerate the energy transition and our collective path to net zero. With the help of the Microsoft Data Platform and digital twin technology, bp is identifying areas to reduce carbon emissions and model complex new energy solutions. Immersive digital technologies can also help people stay safe and make a bigger impact at work—whether it’s an engineer testing a new design, or a frontline maintenance worker detecting and repairing power lines.

From the earliest days of industrial automation to the modern era of connected devices and edge computing, technology has helped increase operations efficiency and improve productivity, collaboration, and economic growth. Today, technology is more important than ever as we reimagine the world and our roles in more sustainable ways. With the metaverse, energy companies can more efficiently scale data and real-time insights through simulation models and digital twins they have been using for many years. Microsoft, alongside our customers and partners, are innovating together to accelerate the creation and adoption of new, virtual solutions for a cleaner energy future.

Learn more

• Learn more about themes and actions critical for energy transition.
• Read more about how Microsoft partners with energy companies to accelerate digital transformation.
• Read more about how Microsoft brings mixed reality and new immersive collaboration tools to industrial metaverse customers.
• Enable your data to do more in the cloud with our energy data service.
• To learn how to attract, train, and retain employees for your next-generation workforce, visit our transform your workforce employee retention website.
• To learn more about Microsoft for Energy and Resources, visit our future of energy industry solutions website.

The post Discover how Microsoft is innovating in the metaverse for a sustainable, clean energy future appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Starting today, customers can sign up for Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Energy to enable their data to do more on the cloud.

Driven by population and economic growth, global energy demand is expected to increase nearly 50 percent over the next 30 years.¹ This growth will need to be balanced with building a global net zero carbon economy while providing safe, secure, reliable, affordable, and cleaner energy for all organizations and individuals. In the face of global change, energy companies are embarking on a journey of rapid transformation driven by cloud, data, and AI, to establish a digital foundation that powers a more sustainable, lower-carbon future.

To support decision-making, energy companies use simulation models based on large volumes of complex data gathered from diverse sources. Yet disparate technology platforms can hinder productivity, and professionals are losing valuable time to disconnected systems and data. Energy professionals spend large amounts of time searching for data and verifying provenance and geoscientists spend time waiting for and managing information. In addition, data has also been bound to proprietary applications, making it difficult to integrate solutions and data for analysis and collaboration.

Azure Data Manager for Energy is an enterprise-grade data platform that breaks down these data silos. The solution brings together the power, security, and scalability of an integrated and open cloud built in alignment with the OSDU Technical Standard in a fully-managed solution that simplifies implementation and speeds time-to-market.

Azure Data Manager for Energy, together with our partners who innovate on top of it, will help customers migrate their largest data workloads to the cloud and:

1. Drive actionable insights.
2. Gain global scalability.
3. Increase operational efficiency.

Drive actionable insights

The sheer amount of time spent managing data is a challenge for the industry. Exploration licenses often have strict time limits and data bottlenecks can be a problem when set against those deadlines. Customers who use Azure Data Manager for Energy spend less time collecting and validating data and more time on strategic analysis and decision-making. With Azure Data Manager for Energy, data ingestion and management are more automated, and geoscientists can support strategic decision-making with cleaner, more accessible data on a prebuilt platform to build high-quality technology solutions.

Gain global scalability

Digital transformation demands that forward-looking organizations move to a secure, enterprise-grade cloud to stay competitive. With Azure Data Manager for Energy, customers can manage compute-intensive workloads at a global scale in an enterprise-ready environment, including streaming large datasets used by mission-critical domain applications. Best of all, this new solution is open and flexible, giving developers the ability to build on and customize. Longer term, energy customers can expand capabilities through an expansive ecosystem of additional industry applications and innovations from our partners.

With Azure Data Manager for Energy, customers also benefit from the long-term investments Microsoft has made in cybersecurity. As energy companies rapidly digitize and implement new technology, they need sophisticated tools to stay ahead of and safeguard against current and emerging threats. Protecting a large, geographically distributed environment with potentially thousands of endpoints can be challenging. To improve resilience and reduce cyber risk, organizations need to optimize visibility and respond quickly and effectively to threats across all their internet of things (IoT) and operational technology (OT) networks. At Microsoft, we understand the risks and complexity energy companies face around threat detection and management, and are committed to providing organizations with insight and control they need to secure all their endpoints.

Increase operational efficiency

Energy companies’ profit margins can vary significantly with large fluctuations in energy prices. The high costs of exploration, production, and data acquisition can be mitigated with effective data management. Organizations are also seeking faster, more accurate data insights to increase operational efficiency while meeting compliance requirements. 

Azure Data Manager for Energy is a vendor-agnostic, open data platform that can integrate with virtually any data set, application, or cloud service. With this solution, energy companies can deploy standard industry-compatible data schemas quickly, offering up insights to decision-makers and providing employees more time for value-added activities. This agility, combined with the scale, security, and performance of the Microsoft Cloud means that customers can easily implement solutions that improve agility and optimize workflows.

One customer using Azure Data Manager for Energy to increase operational efficiency is Equinor, Norway’s state-owned energy provider. Equinor is transforming their company toward a net zero future and needs to remain competitive while diversifying its energy mix to include more renewables, hydrogen, and carbon capture. Cleaner, connected data makes it easier for business units to collaborate, reduce costs, and save time on projects. Equinor’s adoption of an open, enterprise-grade data platform service on the Microsoft Cloud will be an important part of their energy transition because it enables faster access to actionable data, efficient workflows, and innovations in renewables and lower carbon solutions.

Data management for energy companies is unwieldy and can be expensive. Despite the massive data sets these organizations have acquired over decades, only a fraction of that data might be practically usable at any given time. Untapped and siloed assets make data management more costly and increase the likelihood of expensive repurchases. Azure Data Manager for Energy helps customers accelerate time-to-market and reduce implementation costs with easy integration and built-in tools that simplify development.

Microsoft and SLB partner to accelerate energy technologies

Azure Data Manager for Energy is an exciting new aspect of the partnership between Microsoft and SLB and our commitment to building open and extensible cloud-native data solutions for the energy industry. In 2021, the two companies announced an expanded strategic partnership with the goal of accelerating new technologies for the energy industry and have been co-innovating to enable faster and secure digital transformation.

At their 2022 Digital Forum in Luzern, SLB announced the availability of the SLB Enterprise Data Solution, a fully comprehensive data management toolkit exclusively available on Azure Data Manager for Energy.

“Our industry has invested heavily into acquiring data, however, extracting its full value has been hindered by the challenge of data silos. This means decisions have not always been based on the most up-to-date or highest quality data. With the rapid evolution of AI, the need for a fully connected data landscape has become an even greater imperative; the potential for deep insights is an opportunity to take business performance to the next level. Quite simply, we need a transformation in the way we handle data. This led to the creation of the OSDU Forum, where a group of like-minded companies came together to create a single, open-source standard for energy data—the OSDU Data Platform. To help build this new standard, SLB has contributed over 200 person-years of engineering development to the OSDU.”—Trygve Randen, director of Data and Digital Subsurface Solutions, SLB.

Operationalizing open-source technology, at scale, with huge volumes of data, is no small feat. It benefits from world-class IT and domain expertise to maximize the potential of this new digital standard. That’s why Microsoft and SLB have connected forces to make the promise of the OSDU Data Platform become real. We are very excited that we have passed a major milestone today, as we bring our complementary solutions to the market and modernize workflows across the energy value chain—including carbon capture and sequestration workflows—to enable digitalization at pace and at scale.

We have also made tremendous progress on our work together around edge technology and IoT with digitally connected oilfields—bringing workers together to improve safety, reliability, and efficiency—all powered by the Microsoft Cloud. In the area of carbon emission management, we are focusing on technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and enabling end-to-end orchestration of data and services to support the CCS value chain on top of Microsoft Cloud.

An open, extensible partner ecosystem

To break data silos and accelerate digital transformation, energy companies will require a strong data management foundation and access to an expansive, global partner ecosystem to accelerate innovation. Azure Data Manager for Energy is an open, developer-ready platform that connects once disparate energy data sets to applications built by Microsoft and our partners. A robust set of software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable integration, innovation, and accelerated time-to-market help developers from around the world build solutions on top of our extensible platform, powered by a scalable, secure cloud. Microsoft is proud to be working with trusted advisors like Accenture, Cegal, EPAM, Infosys, and Wipro to form the foundation of a fully managed OSDU Data Platform to help energy companies migrate to the cloud and drive better decision-making and optimize workflows.

Microsoft is also partnering with industry leaders like AspenTech, Bluware, Halliburton, INT, Katalyst, RoQC, and SLB to build solutions that provide better data management capabilities and higher productivity. By centralizing their data workloads to an open, cloud-based platform fully managed by Microsoft, energy companies have access to more innovation and support. With Azure Data Manager for Energy, customers can seamlessly integrate domain applications from partners into an enterprise-ready cloud-based solution with built-in capabilities for security, scale, monitoring, and operational readiness.

Start transforming your business today

We believe that technology has an important role to play in helping the industry decarbonize, and this work must balance the world’s energy needs and industry practices of today with inventing and deploying solutions for a sustainable future. As the industry works together toward a net zero future, our work with energy evolves, and we continue to be guided by our energy principles and a desire to help drive impact through new technology, innovation, and collaboration.

Azure Data Manager for Energy enables energy companies to gain actionable insights, improve operational efficiency, and accelerate time-to-market on an enterprise-grade, cloud-based OSDU Data Platform. For energy companies and the partner ecosystem that supports them, Azure Data Manager for Energy provides a fully managed and integrated cloud-based data platform that reduces the time, risk, and total costs of ownership associated with energy exploration and production.

Get started with Azure Data Manager for Energy and enable your data to do more on the cloud.

Learn more

• Read about how Equinor targets data efficiency and a low-carbon future with Azure Data Manager for Energy.
• Learn more about themes and actions critical for energy transition.
• Read about how Microsoft and AspenTech are transforming energy customers with the new Azure Data Manager for Energy.
• Read more about how Microsoft partners with energy companies to accelerate digital transformation.
• To learn more about Microsoft for Energy and Resources, visit our future of energy industry solutions website.

¹International Energy Outlook 2021, US Energy Information Administration.

The post Announcing Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Energy: Enable your data to do more in the cloud appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.