Aberdeen-based industrial data analytics specialist secured nearly £150k funding

An Aberdeen-based industrial data analytics specialist has secured funding of nearly £150k for a project aimed at enhancing hydrogen production through the use of AI.

Intelligent Plant's project, titled "Feasibility of Explainable AI to support decision making as applied to hydrogen generation", was one of the 32 hydrogen-related projects announced by Scotland's First Minister, Humza Yousaf during the All-Energy event in Glasgow last month to receive funding. These projects are part of Scotland's efforts to achieve a target of 5GW of installed hydrogen production by 2030.

In collaboration with computer scientists from the University of Aberdeen and hydrogen experts from the European Marine Energy of Aberdeen, explained in a recent interview with Hydrogen Industry Leaders: “The way in which XAI is being used in the project is to help people better allocate hydrogen, and that is both how they’re producing it and how they’re transporting it.”

Centre (EMEC), the project aims to create a Decision Support System (DSS) which can be used to make recommendations around hydrogen logistics, and whose recommendations can be queried and corrected as circumstances change. This approach enables operators to engage in discussions with the system, similar to the popular ChatGPT, which has gained significant popularity in recent months. An example discussion between operator and AI could be: Operator: "Why are you generating hydrogen?"

System: "Because there are high winds forecast tomorrow, and this will exceed the capacity of our batteries."

The trial of this system will take place at EMEC's facilities in Orkney, with operators utilising Intelligent Plant's Industrial App Store, which EMEC has previously integrated with through past projects. The Industrial App Store will provide operators in the field with an accessible