Here’s how technology plays a vital role in sustainability

Aveva has been talking about sustainability and making pledges to fight climate change, could you tell us more?

Sustainability is a major aspect of Aveva’s operations, whether internally within our engineering or in the solutions we provide to our customers. We believe that industries are responsible for mitigating the climate crisis, and we recognise our role in monitoring our impact on the environment and regulating our carbon footprint.

Our commitments to fighting climate change include achieving net-zero emissions across our operations (Scopes 1 and 2) by 2030, joining the race to zero and committing to 1.5°c aligned Green House Gas (GHG) emission reduction targets across all scopes in line with SBTi criteria. We have also joined 2030 Vision, a World Economic Forum initiative that seeks to fast-track technology to advance the global goals and accelerate sustainability-related R&D efforts.

Moreover, through our software, we aim to help customers save up to 30 per cent in energy costs and lower their emissions by up to 15 per cent. Another pivotal facet in our approach is fueling economies with clean energy and replacing coal, gas and oil-fired power stations with renewable energy sources such as wind or solar farms.

Additionally, collaboration with our partners such as Schneider Electric and Microsoft enables us to advance our sustainability outcomes.

What is technology’s role in sustainability? How are you working with customers to make them more sustainable?

Digital technologies are already slashing carbon emissions by up to fifteen per cent across multiple sectors: energy, manufacturing, agriculture, buildings, services, transportation and traffic management. In addition, IT organisations and multinationals host a responsibility towards sustainable digitalisation, such as developing and manufacturing technologies that enable organisations to adjust their current operations – using less energy, water, chemicals – increasing energy efficiency, boosting circularity, and consequently reducing waste.

At Aveva, we ensure our technological advances and offerings are responsible and sustainable. For example, our software can save 15-30 per cent in energy costs and reduce CO2 emissions by 9-15 per cent, effectively cutting downtime by 25 per cent.

We work with customers by making cities smarter – Nava Raipur, Namchi and Kohima in India, for instance, where our data is powering a new community and helping these cities thrive.

At Gwinnett County Water (8000+ mile network), a single data source helps optimise water purification (100s of water collection points), monitors and prevents outages before they happen, further maximising efficiency and improving sustainability.

We also support global biofuels company Neste – they have implemented the Aveva unified supply chain in the cloud, where the team manages model-building, and production planning in one digital space, allowing them to make quick decisions from anywhere in the world. Production is optimised, and Neste is simultaneously achieving its target to become carbon neutral by 2035, as emissions are reduced from the conventional refining and production of renewable diesel with this solution.

Do your solutions include Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Could you tell us more on how Aveva uses AI for customers?

Yes. Artificial Intelligence is disrupting industrial markets and forcing enterprises, including ourselves, to re-evaluate how traditional work from workforce training, process engineering and design, maintenance and repair, to operations forecasting and scheduling are performed today. Aveva’s cloud-based AI technologies mitigate business and operational risk, improve workforce safety and efficiency, and form a more reliable and sustainable enterprise.

Predictive analytics is one of the most common advanced technologies used by industry, utilising big data and machine learning to spot anomalies in processes and assets. This can highlight current inefficiencies, enabling workers to optimise operations and warn of future equipment failure days, weeks, or even months in advance. With this information, businesses become more proactive and can schedule maintenance repairs, limiting operational risk and reducing costs by avoiding unplanned downtime.

Some examples of customers using our AI include Ontario Power Generation (OPG), who use our PI System + Aveva predictive analytics to optimise the performance of their HEP and nuclear power network, saving $4m in the first year of implementation in an early warning catch. In addition, they established over 100 predictive and prescriptive operating maintenance models by harnessing data from thousands of sensors throughout its plants. Predictive and prescriptive analytics also enabled OPG to reduce annual maintenance hours by 3,000, freeing staff to perform higher-value corrective tasks.

Duke Energy, for example, was able to avoid costs of over $34m by detecting a complex turbine problem that would have resulted in a catastrophic failure, potential injury to workers and extensive downtime had it occurred.

Another example is the Schneider Electric Lexington Smart Factory. After recently transforming this brownfield site into a smart factory by digitising plant-wide operations, Schneider Electric has seen many benefits from its advanced AI and analytics: the optimisation of processes, faster, smarter decision making, improvements in labour productivity, a 6 per cent reduction in unplanned downtime, 26 per cent energy reduction, 78 per cent CO2 reduction and a 20 per cent water use reduction.

What are Aveva’s key priorities for the Middle East region? Which industries and countries do you focus on?

Aveva works across a diverse range of industries, which include energy, power and utilities, infrastructure, manufacturing, CPG, chemicals, water/wastewater and mining, to name some. Within the region, we work closely with energy companies, food and beverage and power and utility companies, as well as on infrastructure projects especially building smart cities across the MEA region. Some of our regional customers include ADNOC, Aramco, Almarai, to name a few.

Could you tell us about your recent announcements for the region especially in UAE and Saudi Arabia? What are your growth strategies for the region?

In terms of regional announcements, we recently signed an MoU with The Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology in the UAE to form the ‘Industry 4.0 Champions Network’ with 11 other entities, which includes our strategic partner, Schneider Electric. As part of this new network, Aveva will offer full support for the Ministry’s efforts to create 100 ‘lighthouses’ companies by 2031, which the World Economic Forum categorises as the fourth industrial revolution organisation. In addition, this initiative will help accelerate digitisation that needs to take place across the UAE’s various industry verticals, especially manufacturing.

In Saudi Arabia, along with Aramco, we recently announced our intention to form a strategic alliance, which will be focused on driving sustainability in the region through digital transformation. This partnership will represent a significant investment for us and create up to 300 new high skill jobs in the kingdom by 2030.

We are further planning to establish the largest digital hub in the Middle East, with an R&D capability. One of our key focus areas would be utilising digital technologies to support the development and implementation of blue hydrogen and decarbonisation facilities in Saudi Arabia.

Another area in which we intend to work together is implementing predictive analytics technology across Aramco’s operating facilities. This would be one of the largest deployments of such technology in the region, and the main goal is to improve further the reliability, performance, and safety of Aramco’s operation.

A key offering for customers in the region through this new hub is intended to be our digital twin technology which combines asset design and predictive analytics to create a fully integrated, real-time data visualisation centre that reveals functional insights, unlocks efficiencies, and identifies new pathways to optimise performance.