Across our business lines, Enbridge is embracing Artificial Intelligence powered by Microsoft Azure software
The morning in late-spring 2023 was bright and crisp as the pilot maneuvered the single-engine aircraft to about 400 m and began flying directly above a pipeline right-of-way (ROW). Through the aircraft’s window: An emerald highway with deeper-green boreal forest on either side. Higher on the horizon, the sky was brilliant blue.
The pilot, tasked with a flyover as part of a pipeline aerial surveillance program, had eyes fixed on the controls. They flicked a switch to activate a digital camera that began identifying and cataloguing a venerable mountain of optical data from the ground. Minutes and kilometres started clicking away.
At some point during that flight, a cursor on a computer screen in the cockpit turned yellow, the pilot touched a blinking triangle on the screen and a message, including detailed description, was instantly sent to a field service representative on the ground. This is how Enbridge operates its artificial intelligence-driven ROW Threat Identification System.
And the result of the events described above? The owners of a pickup truck and backhoe mistakenly planning excavation work in the ROW—and parked beyond what a human could clearly see—were prevented by the service rep from digging where they shouldn’t. Problem averted.
In this airborne application co-developed with Flyscan Systems, Enbridge is using Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered by the Microsoft Azure platform to deliver a number of powerful business solutions that optimize productivity, improve returns on invested capital and—as noted above in the description of an actual event—enhance safety and environmental performance.
“Our ability to explore and exploit AI have been, and will continue to be, pivotal to our goal of meeting energy demand while transitioning to a lower-carbon economy,” says Bhushan Ivaturi, Enbridge’s Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer.
“It aligns naturally with our company’s track record of innovation, with various types of AI and levels of automation used for several years now to optimize asset utilization and performance, improve asset health and monitoring and improve productivity.”
Enbridge issued a news release on Monday highlighting its work with Microsoft over the past several years.
The AI ROW Threat Identification System enhances Enbridge’s already advanced pipeline control and leak detection program. In fact, third-party studies note it provides a 30 per cent improvement in overall ROW threat detection. Across the pipeline industry, more than 250 commercial missions—including a preliminary pilot phase at Enbridge—have now been carried out. They collected more than 13-million digital images and 1,500 potential threats were detected, with real-time notification.
Here are some other examples of AI in action at Enbridge:
- Energy Optimizer: Provides real-time operational insights, enabling Control Center operators to make decisions about how to most efficiently move the energy we transport. It helps ensure safe and reliable operations while achieving cost savings and emissions reductions.
- Integrity Engine: Through workflow automation, data controls, advanced analysis, and machine learning models, the company gains new insights for rapid and effective asset maintenance, enhancing safety and efficiency while reducing process complexity and maintaining asset health.
- Robotic Automated Processes (RAPs): Automation of repetitive tasks, freeing up our people to do meaningful work; more than 250 bots deployed across Enbridge, generating significant savings and over 300,000 hours of productivity.
Early this year, Enbridge rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot to nearly a third of all employees, while the entire workforce has access to Bing Enterprise and ChatENB, an internal chat bot using Azure OpenAI ChatGPT Service.
“The Enbridge leadership team drove a cloud-first strategy, a big bet that opened the door to broader opportunity that positions Enbridge today to take full advantage of AI,” Tom Kubik, Enterprise Commercial Multi-Industry Lead at Microsoft Canada, said in Monday’s news release. “We are proud of the work we’ve done together and are working towards our common goals of supporting a more connected and collaborative workforce and increasing data and analytics capabilities.”
Enbridge also recently partnered with GZERO Media to present the Energized: The Future of Energy podcast. In the third episode of this podcast, host JJ Ramberg speaks with Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel and Uli Homann, a Distinguished Architect in Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise division. The discussion delves into how generative AI strains the energy systems by increasing demand but also how AI can unlock opportunities to make to make energy systems more efficient.
(TOP PHOTO: An airplane pilot uses digital aids to detect potential threats along a pipeline right-of-way. Photo courtesy Flyscan Systems.)
