What matters to SSE Renewables is innovating for a sustainable future

Energy

Energy and Utilities

Microsoft Azure

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Cloud and Applications

Modern Workplace

United Kingdom (UK)

SSE Renewables is the UK’s premier green company, with sustainability at the heart of its business. Together, we’ve created multiple solutions to protect the health and safety of the people and wildlife around SSE Renewables’ wind farms and hydroelectric installations. By embracing new technologies to help fight climate change, employees are expediting innovation to make renewable energy sources more widely available while ensuring the surrounding ecology continues to thrive. The company has transformed the way it delivers renewables as it works toward its net-zero goals.

“

We’ve got big ambitions to increase our output and reach net zero in a truly sustainable way. What we’ve done with Avanade is to build a digital environment that enables us to test different options, then go and implement the best solutions in the real world. That’s better for us as a company, it’s better for society, and it’s better for the natural
environment, too.

Kate Wallace Lockhart, Head of Sustainability, SSE Renewables

Business Situation

The need to accelerate our shift toward renewable energy sources is more important than ever, and the increasingly crowded energy market means that leaders at SSE Renewables need to constantly rethink the way they operate to solve problems and stay ahead. They want to ensure the organisation’s assets are safe for the people working on or around them and the wildlife habitats nearby. This includes both the puffin colonies on Scotland’s Isle of May and the salmon population at Pitlochry Dam in Perthshire.

Solution

We worked with the team at SSE Renewables to help connect them with Microsoft technologies that are outside their traditional ways of operating. Together, we created a “flying squad” to quickly bring solutions to life across multiple areas of the business. These include:

A species monitoring solution that uses Microsoft Vision AI to protect local wildlife, including counting puffin populations and assessing the migration patterns of salmon to ensure they’re headed in the right direction
An ecological digital twin concept, powered by Microsoft Azure, to collect data and visualise the ecosystem around SSE installations
The GeoSafe field service application to protect worker health and safety at wind farms
A fleet decarbonisation proof of concept to help recycle and reuse wind turbine components

For the team at SSE Renewables, sustainability isn’t just on the agenda – it is the agenda. They believe that there’s no bigger privilege or obligation than to make a difference for future generations around the world.

Find out how we can help you start your journey towards smarter sustainability.