Schneider’s New Innovation Center Is Open for Business

Schneider Electric’s flagship Energy Innovation Center, which opened in Houston last week, is a training facility. And a showcase. And a control room.

The center is also a key part of Schneider’s plans to integrate AI into the energy business, said Hany Fouda, senior vice president of process automation for the global energy management and automation company.

“The energy sector boasts an abundance of efficiency, resilience and decarbonization tools and technologies, and is at its most advanced tech readiness stage ever,” Fouda said.

Even so, it’s still at a one or two on the five-level autonomous operations maturity scale, meaning humans are still doing a big part of the work.

“It should comfortably be on Level 3 and is missing a major opportunity when it comes to fully integrating advanced technologies,” Fouda said. “At Schneider, we believe in infused AI where AI is prevalent in all aspects of design and build, and where open-source automation is central to operations to integrate power and processes and enhance efficiencies.”

Last week was the official opening; the company began hosting customers in the first two months of the year.

Schneider needed to let customers test how the technology comes together, Andre Marino, Schneider senior vice president for industrial automation in North America, said in an interview with Hart Energy. The new center bridges the gap between showing and telling.

"We were missing space that the customer can come in and say, ‘What if I implement this solution?’” Marino said at CERAWeek by S&P Global in March. The interactive control room will demonstrate Schneider’s solutions in real-world plant simulations across scenarios including a refinery and a combined cycle power plant.

Customers are starting to embrace innovation, Marino said, so Schneider’s demo room will allow tests of hardware from multiple vendors. “We believe a lot in open automation,” Marino said. “The automation is moving from hardware-centric to software-centric.”

Nothing stays state-of-the-art for long, so Schneider plans continuous upgrades with contributions from all its energy-connected business units, as well as an addition of AI applications to highlight the future of industrial automation.

The facility will also deliver training to Schneider’s 21,000 U.S. employees, said Aamir Paul, Schneider’s president of North America Operations.

 "We are excited to continue supporting the nation’s ambitions around competitive, efficient and cost-effective manufacturing," he said.