PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
August 29th, 2024
Energy Chamber to utilize AI in groundbreaking project
The Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago is pleased to announce the launch of a groundbreaking project to use artificial intelligence (AI) to significantly enhance the efficiency of the Safe to Work (STOW) certification process. The objective of the project is to reduce the time between the close-out of the audit to a decision on STOW certification. The existing review process involves three separate quality control checks by staff of the Energy Chamber, independent quality control reviews and volunteer staff of major operator companies who sit on the STOW Board. This quality control and assurance procedure is necessary to ensure the integrity of the STOW assessment process, but it is time-consuming and leads to delays between the completion of an audit and the issuance of certificates.
The Energy Chamber anticipates that integrating AI into the audit review process will ensure that audit reports are handled with greater speed and accuracy. Since inception, the STOW programme has created 2,480 individual assessment reports with at least 334,000 different pieces of evidence being required to assess if companies are meeting the stringent STOW requirements. Reviewing this information has involved thousands of hours of both paid and volunteer time, to ensure that companies are meeting requirements and are able to operate safely within the energy, petrochemical and heavy industrial sectors. By leveraging advanced AI technologies, the Energy Chamber and the STOW Board will be able to reduce certification times, minimize errors, and enhance the overall experience for our members and other companies applying to be STOW certified.
This innovative initiative is partially funded by the European Union and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Lab and executed by the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) through their Shaping the Future of Innovation programme. The Shaping the Future of Innovation programme is a partnership with the Government of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago through the Ministry of Planning and Development, the European Union (EU), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB Labs) and CARIRI as the executing agency.