Commercial, Industrial, Regulation  -  October 6, 2016

Microsoft partners up on energy policy tracking tool

Microsoft Corp. and the business association Advanced Energy Economy  on Oct. 6 announced a new predictive policy tool to support legislative advocacy in energy. Powered by Microsoft Azure integrated cloud-computing services and machine learning, AEE's PowerSuite online bill-tracking platform will now enable AEE member companies and state partner organizations to leverage data and analytics in new ways.

The new features build on AEE PowerSuite's exclusive database of bills pending in Congress and all 50 states, and assess the probability of a bill's enactment based on the hundreds of data points either known about the bill when it is introduced, or collected as it moves through the legislative process. With this new tool, users can adjust their strategies to improve the odds of advancing policies that expand markets and remove barriers to competition for advanced energy technologies, products and services.

"We believe technology can play an important role in accelerating access to renewable energy," Rob Bernard, chief environmental strategist at Microsoft, said in a news release announcing the tool. "Tools like PowerSuite provide valuable information and insights that are necessary to advance public policy that expands access to, and the affordability of, advanced energy."

By identifying and analyzing predictive variables about state legislative activity, including bill topics, sponsors, legislative history and partisan characteristics, PowerSuite can forecast the outcome of state and federal bills with an accuracy of 87% based on information available at the time of bill filing, and up to 99.5% as legislative action changes the probability of passage over the course of a session, Microsoft and AEE said. 

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