BKW & Microsoft Unite for AI-Driven Weather Forecasting Platform

Swiss energy group BKW has joined forces with Microsoft to build an AI-powered weather forecasting platform. This collaboration aims to deliver reliable energy services across Europe by leveraging advanced technology and data analytics.

The new platform combines Aurora, a large-scale AI model developed by Microsoft Research and Microsoft AI Weather, with the Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro geospatial intelligence platform. Aurora uses decades of atmospheric data to generate accurate ensemble weather forecasts, which are then stored in Planetary Computer Pro for precise regional weather and solar generation forecasting.

BKW's data scientists, domain experts, and technology teams now have easy access to geospatial and atmospheric data from a shared, governed environment. This integration enables multidisciplinary teams to test and iterate ideas more quickly and make better-informed decisions across BKW's energy and infrastructure portfolio.

BKW plans to evolve the platform and embed it into its operational workflows to empower its team with insights needed to forecast weather and solar generation at scale. This will enable the company to deliver reliable energy services and move closer to achieving its long-term renewable energy and net-zero goals.