Why an AI lab?
At SINTEF Energy Research, we develop models and simulation tools that describe the interplay between hydropower, new renewable energy, storage, hydrogen, the grid and flexibility. The models are used to analyse investments, water storage capacity, and operation of critical energy supply, and are built on program code that is maintained over time.
We use AI where it makes our coding work more efficient, but we retain full control over data, methods and results. Sensitive data and decision-critical analyses require that the models are run locally by us. The lab is called Intelligence Lab, not AI lab. AI is a good tool, but the thinking and decisions are still done by people.
Areas of use and ways of working
iLab will be used for further development of the power models SHOP, ProdRisk, EMPS and Trident, and for work on AI support in code development, testing, documentation and refactoring. The platform gives research scientists a controlled environment for experimenting with language models on internal datasets, as well as for analyses of resource use, performance and methodology for AI in energy research. iLab is a shared space for building expertise and developing methods. It is used both in operational modelling tasks and in the development of new work processes that can be adopted across disciplines.
In iLab you can chat in the browser, get AI support in the editor and in coding agents, and use the models in your own scripts. There are no usage fees or quotas, but the capacity is shared with your colleagues. iLab is connected to vLab, xLab and uLab.
A closed space for SINTEF employees
Behind the login you get access to documentation, user guides, model environments and technical resources related to iLab. Here you will find information about how the infrastructure is set up, how the AI tools are used in practice, and which procedures apply to operation, security and resource use. The page also collects practical descriptions, examples and support functions for work with the power models and the AI methods in the lab.