The world faces two important and related challenges. Delivering affordable and reliable energy for growing population and protecting the environment by removing the greenhouse gas emissions. To overcome this dual challenge we face, we will require tremendous effort and collaboration between the public and private sector, across industries, and between companies large and small.  For the industry to achieve its decarbonization commitments and zero-carbon energy 24/7, it is critical we expand the energy ecosystem and embrace new ideas, players, and partners.  

In 2020 Microsoft announced a bold commitment and detailed plan to be carbon negative by 2030. We built on that pledge with a series of industry-leading commitments to be a water positive, zero waste company, and develop a new Planetary Computer to better monitor, model, and manage the world’s ecosystems and protect more land than we use. Microsoft is committed to empower the Energy Industry by providing cloud capabilities to deliver the affordable and clean energy the world needs and work with the pioneers of new technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).    

For these initiatives to be successful, we need to ensure that the world is working from a common taxonomy and common units and methods of measurement. We are working hard to build and provide this through a secure, scalable and extensible cloud platform built on open data standards to support the many innovative companies and individuals that are key to developing the solutions needed to address this problem. Microsoft collaborates with customers and partners to co-innovate and co-develop new solutions provides the digital backbone by standardizing digitized sustainability data for the net zero transition initiatives.  

For example, 
•    The Northern Lights project is a joint effort between the Norwegian government, Equinor, Shell, and Total which will be the first commercial CO2 storage as a service company that will go into production by 2024, sequestering 1.5MT of CO2 from a cement plant and a waste incineration facility and transported to a central location for storage in a well 100KM offshore in the Northern Sea. The Northern Lights project aims to standardize and scale carbon capture and storage across Europe and additional phases are in progress adding new customers. Microsoft is building a digital backbone based on open standards to integrate and harmonize the data from the assets across the value chain, by doing this we are providing digital twins to be used for planning and optimization of operations.  
•    Through an expanded partnership, Microsoft and Schlumberger offer a data and AI solution to the energy industry to standardize the access to data and provide integrated suite of applications. With a global cloud-based data solution that’s scalable and secure, energy companies are poised to improve productivity and performance across the enterprise. By harnessing AI technologies, companies can simplify their data to gain valuable insights and streamline workflows. Technical details of the platform will be presented together with the findings from the early engagements.