Duke Energy powers platform for methane reduction

Duke Energy brought in Accenture, Avanade—a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft—and Microsoft to co-innovate a pioneering solution that would help meet its ambitions and potentially advance industry and regulatory standards. 

The result is a first-of-its- kind, end-to-end Azure-based cloud platform that monitors baseline methane emissions from natural gas distribution assets (e.g., pipelines, gas meters) using satellite monitoring, analytics and artificial intelligence.

The solution quantifies and prioritizes findings in graphic dashboards, making data easily consumable at multiple levels of the organization. A pilot for fugitive emission detection will enable Accenture to refine and scale the technology to other Duke Energy jurisdictions. 

Near real-time leak remediation will help Duke Energy to reduce methane emissions while making operational systems more resilient. 

The platform is already delivering results with more accurate, holistic insights for leadership decision-making. 

With pinpoint-accurate geolocation data, workers are finding leaks in minutes compared to physical inspection of pipelines and other assets—and repairing them more quickly. The solution also has the potential to identify system vulnerabilities and prevent future leaks.

Once scaled across all asset types, emission categories and jurisdictions, the platform will help Duke Energy’s natural gas business reduce methane emissions and achieve its net-zero methane goals for 2030. Importantly, this solution has the potential to accelerate the journey to net zero for the industry.