For many, cloud computing started as a hazy, nebulous idea: an array of computers scattered across multiple sites all communicating with one another in some ethereal realm. But increasingly, the cloud has become an essential way for the energy industry to tackle the energy transition, improve sustainability, track field-level data and more.

During the “Breaking the Barriers: Unleashing the Power of Cloud Technology in the Energy Industry” at the 2023 IMAGE Conference, industry experts discussed how cloud technology will pave the way for the energy transition.

“Cloud technology, it's not going to go away. It is going to be the cornerstone of what we need to make the changes within the energy sector. Energy transition and sustainability across all industries is going to be powered by tech,” Yvette Schmitter, partner at PwC Cloud and Digital, told the audience on Aug. 29.

For years, the industry worried about server infrastructure and whether it had the capacity to run various systems and store data from the field. Cloud technologies have mitigated those issues and created a space for new technology that can assist in the energy transition.

“Seeing where we were 20 years ago and where we are now, I certainly think [the] cloud is a key driver, especially in the upstream business. And as I mentioned before, leveraging some of the technology like NVIDIA uses allows a lot of these workloads to run at scale and [allows] companies and partners to do simulation at a pace that maybe they've never been able to do before,” said Nadia Bollinger, global partner solutions architecture leader at AWS Energy and Utilities, said during the panel.

Fellow panelist Nefeli Moridis, head of subsurface global energy team at NVIDIA, agreed.

“Because you're able to run your software, your simulations, your workflows significantly faster…these technologies will continue to do nothing but improve,” Moridis said.

Despite the benefits of the cloud, there are some significant challenges that come with implementing it throughout the energy industry. The industry is changing every day, with new regulations concerning sustainability looming, Schmitter said. The overall lack of consistency poses a challenge.

“We have some clients where we have to tell them and help them understand what net zero is, like, what is the science-based target, to the extreme where we have clients that are leveraging the data that they have around sustainability to create top line value of growth, right,” Schmitter said. “Navigating that maturity curve is not easy stuff. This is hard stuff to talk about—to describe, to explain, to make it applicable to our clients and what they're trying to do from a business strategy perspective.”

Carbon capture and other methods of the energy transition are also loss leaders and not profitable at this point in time, causing many in the industry to treat it as a “checkmark exercise,” according to Schmitter.  The energy industry is still working to make transition profitable and prompt companies  to use alternative fuel sources.

Bollinger also said company-wide alignment on energy transition goals is a major issue that permeates organizations down to the contributor level. The challenges in executive alignment are leading to further confusion throughout the workforce, with executives wondering how to ensure their workforce has the necessary skills to advance the company’s transition goals.

To effectively combat this, Moridis feels that AI and cloud technology are solutions.

“A lot of the computing power that's going to be a need, understanding of AI and understanding of the different models by the people working on it will be a need,” she said.

While these aren’t easy solutions, the energy industry has the tools to make these changes, with cloud being a key driver.

As Moridis put it, the, “energy transition can be an uncomfortable topic to talk about, especially within the oil and gas industry because people may worry about their career or degree and everything they've done to get to this point. But I do think that also, this is the industry that's going to make this energy transition happen. It's the only industry with the skill set.”

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