Aggreko, the global specialist provider of mobile modular power, temperature control and energy services, is now using Azure Synapse Analytics to support its efforts to drive data efficiency across the business. This tool will help transform Aggreko’s existing data strategy through, for example, the integration of just-in-time inventory and increased operational efficiency.

Data helps Aggreko to drive value for its customers across the world, which range from powering the Rugby World Cup in Japan, to remote mines in Australia to providing power to the entire Caribbean island of St Croix.

Data has an increasingly important role to play for Aggreko as it continues to integrate digital solutions into its operations and respond to the global energy transition. As the adoption of renewables and volume of local generation increases, so too will the complexity of keeping supply and demand in balance. Sophisticated systems and controls are needed to integrate an ever-wider set of energy sources and interact with traded energy markets, all while ensuring stability, reliability and maximizing efficiency.

For Aggreko, the Azure Data Lake Storage provides a central platform which can be accessed by data analysts and scientists from across the business. And Azure Synapse has enabled the business to improve collaboration and has provided a platform to allow data to be explored and queried without having to be moved outside of our central data lake. Using this platform has helped identify inventory shortages, reducing time to insight from eight hours to five minutes, helping to streamline the data insights process and improve cost efficiency for the business.

 “Data has an absolutely critical role to play in energy efficiency and as the global energy transition continues, this will become even more important,” said Elizabeth Hollinger, director of data insights at Aggreko. “Previously, we were in a position where we didn’t have the ability to fully utilize our data history to avoid exceeding our storage limits. By utilizing Azure Synapse’s limitless analytics platform to our data lake, we now have a single environment in place to explore and query data without needing to remove it. This means that we can achieve exponentially faster insights which ultimately means we are able to provide a better service for our customers.”  

“Azure Synapse is Microsoft's limitless analytics platform that really brings together enterprise data warehousing and also big data processing into a single service environment,” said Jeremey Chapman, director of product marketing at Microsoft.”