"We are enabling integrated and collaborative design workflows for complex offshore energy projects. Our customers can de-risk and optimize their concepts faster by reducing manual data tasks by up to 50% while bringing the full context of their engineering, economic and geospatial data into decision making"

The latest blog in our meet the team series sees us meet NZTC Innovation Project Lead, Isabelle Pouncey, who tells us about the innovative work FutureOn is conducting with the Net Zero Technology Centre, how digital technology plays a vital role in achieving net zero targets and her passion for painting...

Tell us about the work you are doing at FutureOn, how is this project driving innovation within FutureOn and beyond?

FutureOn was selected by the UK's Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC) to support a £1 million research and development (R&D) effort to deliver digital solutions to unlock the UK's net zero potential. The NZTC is a not-for-profit organisation working across industry, government and academia offering funding, support and expertise. 

FutureOn was awarded grant funding to build the leading integrated 3D digital platform providing digital tools across the full life cycle of renewable and decarbonisation projects. 

The project is focused on enhancing FutureOn's FieldTwin platform to take projects through concept screening and design phases, right through to installation and operations. FieldTwin allows users to integrate their own preferred digital solutions through API technology, avoiding having to use silo'd tools and accelerating workflows. Adding this new functionality will introduce even more opportunities for the user to build their own tailored digital platform. 

Key industry pain points are being targeted, including offshore electrical systems design, ground conditions evaluation, emissions management across wind and oil and gas and project scenario analysis. The end result will empower users to make better decisions faster, via automated workflows, integrated cross-discipline tools, enhanced industry partner collaboration and robust scenario analysis. 

How has your background in geology led you to FutureOn? 

After studying geology at The University of Manchester and completing a Petroleum Geoscience Masters degree at The University of Aberdeen, I started my career in Canadian Natural Resources International's graduate scheme as a Geoscientist. This was an amazing experience that led me to becoming a geologist and working across the North Sea and West Africa. 

I soon realised I loved collaborating with people and working on multi-stakeholder projects. Once I had completed a one-year secondment where I led a decommissioning project for the Ninian North platform, I began expanding my horizons into the wider energy sector and specifically the energy transition. 

Innovation and ideation are passions of mine, which led me to join X Academy, a career accelerator programme, which has a great segue for me to enter the renewables side of the energy industry. I was fortunate to gain understanding and skills for a range of renewable energies, like offshore wind, CCUS, hydrogen and the decarbonisation of oil and gas. 

My time in the programme provided varied opportunities including a secondment into a major offshore wind developer, and leading the development of a new net zero STEM programme. 

All the while, I was increasing my knowledge and passion for data visualisation. From my days studying geology, 3D digital models were critical to understand the subsurface and drive decisions for energy projects. 

Excited by the work of the NZTC and inspired by FutureOn’s mission and vision, the opportunity to join FutureOn was an excellent fit. I couldn’t quite believe that a role where I could combine all my career goals existed! The mix of working with 3D digital technology, using creativity to develop new innovative solutions, whilst having a positive impact on the energy transition is what drew me to the role. I believe 3D visualization and integrated data tools are critical to optimizing energy project designs and driving robust decision making. The FieldTwin platform accelerates project design timeframes, which ultimately has the potential to accelerate the UK’s effort towards net zero. It’s been great to have already had a tangible impact at FutureOn, with new functionality coming to life off the back of the project.

What have you enjoyed about working at FutureOn since joining the company last year? 

FutureOn is a very forward thinking, progressive company.

I work part time and live with Long COVID. FutureOn has been so supportive and flexible to make sure I get the right balance for me to protect my health. In my opinion, there’s space for a part time working revolution, to tap into a rich talent pool of people living with chronic illnesses and disabilities who need extra support to find sustainable work.

And from a continual professional development perspective, I’m undergoing an online training course in product management which FutureOn is supporting. I appreciate the company’s approach to personal development, as I am always keen to learn and expand my knowledge and skills.

You are based in Aberdeen and part of a worldwide team at FutureOn, with experience working internationally and on major global projects. How do you think global operations benefits businesses and industry? 

The fact that we're a global company adds strength to our operations, bringing diverse insights and skillsets to everything we do. You get the benefit from different global sectors and industry market perspectives which help us service our portfolio of international customers.

What role do you see digital technology playing in achieving net zero targets and what is required of energy operators and EPCs to achieve and deliver offshore wind ambitions?

The market is changing rapidly, and I think that’s exactly where our strength is. For the UK to meet its offshore wind ambitions, we need to build wind farms faster than ever before within really tight timeframes.

But to design a project fast, you need the right tools. And you need the entire project team to be able to come together and collaborate. FieldTwin accelerates project workflows by interfacing multi-disciplinary teams and workflows around a dynamic 3D geospatial ‘twin’ of the project. This innovation enables teams to model uncertainty and change at a systems level and quickly review the impact of new data throughout the lifecycle of a project, from concept and design phases through to execution and operations.

Offshore wind is a fairly immature market compared to oil and gas. There is a huge amount of optionality as the industry continues to optimize wind farm layouts. To handle all these scenarios, digital tools are needed to provide quick look project layouts at the concept stage. The ability to rapidly compare these scenarios to identify the most value adding project case is critical to maximizing economic viability and speeding up investment decisions, and ultimately first energy.

Describe yourself in three words.

Curious, collaborative and determined. 

It’s my curiosity that led to my career change from oil and gas geology to net zero software product design. I love to learn new skills and explore different parts of the energy industry. Collaborating with others is what drives innovation, there’s nothing like a team win! To move into new sectors and roles brings a multitude of challenges and steep learning curves. Being determined is crucial to making process and achieving goals.

Tell us more about the R&D project you are leading in collaboration with NZTC. What are the highlights and challenges you are experiencing in making this project a reality?

Our project with NZTC has highlighted some key gaps and challenges for the market. Working with a steering group of industry partners who are supporting with their in-kind time and insights, enables this project to address the most pressing needs of the industry, maximizing the value of the initiative. This industry backing ensures new digital solutions are validated and tested by industry.

One of the areas we’ve targeted is inter array cabling design optimization – a process that is often slow and manual, mainly done in 2D tools where the length impact of bathymetry is not fully taken into account. Cabling is a huge part of offshore wind projects in terms of CAPEX and installation costs and is also a huge risk factor. One of the key causes for outages of wind farms is cable failure, so getting your cable layout right from the start is key. We have already developed tangible results, giving the user the option to choose between different layout solutions including internal FutureOn and the Dutch Technology University algorithms, as well as the functionality for the user to interface with their own preferred solutions via API.

We’re currently looking at ground conditions, particularly with the relevance to designing wind turbines and cabling layouts. By helping project teams to visualize and evaluate ground conditions risk in the same workflow as their project design, they can optimize everything from wind turbine and foundation types, turbine layouts and cable routing in a single platform. We enable all the data to be together in one place, providing the basis for data driven, collaborative design decisions.

The focus is now shifting to tackling the emissions and scenario analysis aspects of the project. Forecasting and monitoring emissions is critical across oil and gas and renewable projects to ensure compliance and consider environmental impacts when choosing between project scenarios.

What's one thing about yourself that would surprise people to find out?

I always have lots of hobbies on the go. As well as learning to code and build data visualizations, I'm learning French, love painting, pilates, cycling and open water swimming. 

During lockdown a few years ago, I started abstract painting. I love being expressive and splashing paint on canvases, which got larger and larger as i got more into it. I often take part in North East Open Studios (NEOS), Scotland's largest open studio event where artists and makers across the North East open their doors and showcase their creative spaces and artworks. Come and see me at this September's exhibition!