Case Study: TransAlta achieves real-time data insights and cost savings with Microsoft Azure Stream Analytics

Canadian power generator shines light on numbers

TransAlta, a Canadian power generator and wholesale marketer of electricity, needed a better way to get more value from the large volumes of SCADA data it was already collecting. Its existing data collection solution was off mainstream support, and an upgrade would have required about $200,000 in licensing plus implementation costs, so the company looked for a more flexible, lower-cost alternative using Microsoft Azure Stream Analytics and related Azure services.

Microsoft Azure helped TransAlta build a hybrid cloud solution using Azure Event Hubs, Azure Stream Analytics, Service Bus, and Power BI to ingest, filter, aggregate, and visualize telemetry in near real time. The project went from proof of concept to production in four months and processed more than 56 million telemetry readings within the first four weeks after go-live, while also reducing costs, minimizing maintenance, avoiding downtime for patching, and improving operational insight and scalability.

TransAlta

Nipa Chakravarti

Vice President of IT