bp uses digital twins in its transition to Net Zero

bp’s purpose is to reimagine energy for people and our planet. At the same time, it is fully committed to sustainability goals including making the transition to net zero carbon by 2050 or sooner. Patricia Rangal, VP Intelligent Operations at bp, says, “Artificial intelligence will provide key insights into our operations to help us become a safer and more efficient business. This will be a key enabler in our transition from an international oil company to an integrated energy company.”

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The best technology

bp understood that technology innovation holds the key to making the transition to net zero. A key step would be to create digital twins of bp’s complex global assets to identify opportunities for optimisation and carbon reduction.

“Until we started working on connected bp 2.0 with Microsoft and their digital twin technology, we still hadn’t landed on what the best technology was,” explains Rob Kelly, VP Digital Productions and Projects at bp. “But we wanted the first use case to be aligned with our joint sustainability goals.”

Microsoft Azure & Digital Twin

The Clair Ridge oil and gas facility west of Shetland in the Atlantic margin was selected to be the first use case. “The digital twin of the Clair Ridge facility was built to calculate real-time carbon intensity and the energy efficiency of the facility’s processes,” explains Rob Kelly. “The ultimate intent is to create carbon aware operations in bp’s production facilities globally.”

The security and scalability of Microsoft Azure is perfect for a digital twin project of such complexity. The IoT Hub receives over 250 billion data signals a month from bp’s operating assets globally. With the long-term goal of scaling this digital twin up across all bp’s global facilities, this security and scalability will be key.

The transition to carbon aware operations

“By using this digital twin to look at both past data and predict future data, it’s invaluable,” says David Boyd, Facilities Process Engineer at bp. “If this was rolled out across bp assets, we have the opportunity to reduce emissions by around 500,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent every year.”

The success of the project is great news for the team, the company – and the planet. “It feels so energising to know that we are working on something that means so much,” says Rob Kelly. “The working relationship and the culture between the two teams has really, really made this a big, big success.”

“Artificial intelligence will provide key insights into our operations to help us become an even safer and more efficient business. This will be a key enabler in our transition from an international oil company to an integrated energy company.”

Patricia Rangal, VP Intelligent Operations, bp