Microsoft and Schneider Electric’s Bid to Cut Hydrogen Costs

Schneider Electric is working with Microsoft to help make it easier for industrial companies to modernise their operations, break free from proprietary legacy systems and deploy AI-powered automation at scale. 

Most factories and energy plants run on hardware-locked control systems that are expensive to update, slow to adapt and difficult to extend with industrial AI. 

Energy tech meets cloud infrastructure

The partnership between Schneider Electric and Microsoft is focused on making it easier for industrial companies – like factories and energy plants – to upgrade their systems without having to tear out all their existing machinery.

Schneider Electric provides expertise as an energy technology leader and offers its control system, called EcoStruxure Automation Expert. This is the first system that separates the software used for automation from the physical hardware. 

This means companies can use and reuse their control applications across different types of equipment, regardless of the vendor or age of the machine.

Microsoft provides the cloud, AI and edge infrastructure for Schneider Electric’s system by connecting everything, from small sensors on a machine to company dashboards.

Together, the companies are delivering the Industrial Copilot, an AI tool that automatically handles the most tedious and time-consuming tasks involved in modernisation, such as writing control code, setting up systems and sifting through technical documents. 

Engineering teams using this AI have reported cutting their work time down by 50%, allowing changes that used to take weeks to be finished in a matter of hours.

Gwenaelle Huet, EVP of Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric, says: "Every CIO and plant leader asks the same question: can software‑defined automation truly perform under real‑world industrial conditions?

"Industrial leaders don’t need another vision; they need a migration path. Our collaboration with Microsoft and the Industrial Copilot delivers exactly that, proving even the most complex energy systems can run as intelligent, autonomous assets."

How h2e POWER used Industrial Copilot

A sustainable energy supply firm in India, h2e POWER, faced a challenge where its hydrogen production system was costing too much to run due to old, inflexible control systems.

To fix this, h2e POWER worked with Schneider Electric and Microsoft to install a new, AI-powered control solution, which includes the functions of the Industrial Copilot, onto its hydrogen production unit.

The new tool constantly watches and fine-tunes the hydrogen system in real time, remotely managing everything.

By deploying this, h2e POWER was able to significantly improve energy efficiency and reduce wear on its machinery. The system has logged more than 6,000 hours of stable operation, demonstrating strong reliability under various working conditions. 

Plus, the system led to a drop of up to 10% in the overall cost of producing hydrogen, a saving that amounts to roughly €500,000 (US$584,000) annually for a larger plant.

Siddharth Mayur, Founder and Managing Director of h2e POWER, says: "Solid oxide electrolyzer cells have always offered unmatched efficiency, but true commercial scale depends on sustainable operations, optimised energy consumption, durability, predictive maintenance and remote, autonomous control.

“With Schneider Electric’s open, software‑defined automation and Microsoft’s AI capabilities powered by Azure, our systems are becoming smarter, more responsive, safer and dramatically more scalable. 

“This open architecture also means we can redeploy intelligence across our entire installed base across multiple locations, without the lock‑in that has constrained industrial innovation for decades.”

Dayan Rodriguez, Microsoft’s CVP of Manufacturing and Mobility, adds: “What we’re seeing at h2e POWER shows the future of industrial automation.

"The system is powerful and built to scale. Enterprise dashboards unify data across every site, machine learning improves with every hour of operation, and open standards make the control logic fully portable."