Avangrid Committed to ‘Leading in Digital’ During Fourth Annual Digital Summit, Showcasing Technologies Advancing the Energy Sector

October 31, 2024 at 13:39 PM EDT

13 leading technology providers gathered at Avangrid’s Connecticut headquarters to demonstrate disruptive strategies to drive digitization and innovation in the energy industry

Watch a video recap of the Digital Summit here.

Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), a leading sustainable energy company and member of the Iberdrola Group, recently welcomed 13 leading technology providers to its headquarters for its fourth annual Digital Summit to showcase the latest disruptive strategies that are driving innovation in customer service, smartgrids, operations, and renewable energy. This year’s theme was ‘Leading in Digital’ and highlighted a shared commitment to accelerating the clean energy transition, digitizing the electric grid, pioneering new technologies, and advancing the energy transition.

“At Avangrid, we are leading the way toward a cleaner, brighter energy future to improve the lives of the people we serve. This transformation requires a focus on innovation,” said Pedro Azagra, Avangrid CEO. “I am happy to see many of Avangrid’s many technology partners at our annual Digital Summit, which has become an exceptional forum for learning, networking, and exchanging ideas that will move our industry and company forward.”

The two-day event included professionals from organizations like Accenture, Amazon Web Services, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, ESRI, IBM, Microsoft, NTT Data, Salesforce, SAP, Schneider Electric, and Wipro. Partners hosted innovation workshops, known as TechShows, to demonstrate their latest digital products and services. These solutions, incorporating cutting-edge technologies such as advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics, were analyzed for a variety of use cases to solve challenges in customer service, smart grids, operations, and renewable energy.

“This is a tremendous annual event at Avangrid that demonstrates our commitment to driving innovation and being a digital leader in the utility sector,” said Nelly Jefferson, Avangrid Chief Information Officer. “I am thrilled to participate for the first time this year to see how the next great technologies will contribute to Avangrid accelerating the energy transition.”

Avangrid is a recognized clean energy innovator and invests heavily in energy innovation projects. These investments have produced results across Avangrid’s business. For example:

Avangrid subsidiaries New York State Electricity and Gas (NYSEG) and Rochester Gas and Electric (RG&E) delivered their best reliability results in the past five years. Meanwhile, NYSEG and RG&E also launched a new AI tool to enhance customer experience and satisfaction.
Thanks to investments in modern grid technologies, Avangrid subsidiary Central Maine Power, demonstrated it can quickly restore power after outages due to unforeseen circumstances.
Avangrid’s pilot mobile robot dog, Sparky, recently won the prestigious Association of Edison Illuminating Companies 2024 Achievement Award for its contributions to operational excellence in the electric utility industry.

"Digital technologies are the linchpins in modernizing utility infrastructure to meet demands in an evolving decarbonized energy system," said Lauren Bell, Global Client Service Partner, Ernst & Young LLP. "Our collaboration with Avangrid underscores our commitment to harnessing innovative digital solutions that drive efficiency and resilience while also supporting a sustainable and secure energy future."

"For utilities, AI is enhancing the efficiency of processes like workforce management and scheduling, which can, in turn, accelerate regulatory processes and improve customer service," said Caroline Roche, Vice President and Senior Partner, Energy Industry Leader for IBM Consulting. "Through generative AI advancements, enterprises can now unlock more value from their data— from driving productivity to enhancing energy delivery to customers. IBM is dedicated to supporting utilities’ digital transformation by building trust in AI systems, minimizing risks, and maximizing the value of data."

“One more year Avangrid creates a space for innovation and sharing the solutions that can address, through technology, today’s and tomorrow’s challenges in the utility industry,” said Antoni Massó, Managing Partner, Energy & Utilities, NTT DATA. “In this edition, NTT DATA brought advanced engineering solutions like BIM (Building Information Modeling) for the end-to-end management of assets, Generative Design that brings AI to engineering tasks, a GenAI approach to creating rate cases, and our Virtual Assistant solution, eVA, that digitalizes customer service.”

“As an IT Leader, new technology is always exciting for me,” said Mansur Ali Mohammed, Director of IT Architecture, Digital & Innovation at Avangrid. “Seeing use cases demonstrating real life application of these technologies, solving business problems, and driving business value really helps bring these technologies to life. Our digital transformation is a journey, not a destination. We must continue to challenge ourselves and our processes to work smarter and continually evolve to become the utility of the future.”

About Avangrid: Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR) aspires to be the leading sustainable energy company in the United States. Headquartered in Orange, CT with approximately $47 billion in assets and operations in 24 U.S. states, Avangrid has two primary lines of business: networks and renewables. Through its networks business, Avangrid owns and operates eight electric and natural gas utilities, serving more than 3.3 million customers in New York and New England. Through its renewables business, Avangrid owns and operates a portfolio of renewable energy generation facilities across the United States. Avangrid employs approximately 8,000 people and has been recognized by JUST Capital as one of the JUST 100 companies – a ranking of America’s best corporate citizens – in 2024 for the fourth consecutive year. In 2024, Avangrid ranked first among utilities and 12 overall. The company supports the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals and was named among the World’s Most Ethical Companies in 2024 for the sixth consecutive year by the Ethisphere Institute. Avangrid is a member of the group of companies controlled by Iberdrola, S.A. For more information, visit www.avangrid.com.