Understanding the problem space before building solutions

More than 100 participants gathered for the Insight Session under the Nordic Energy Matchbox - a new arena connecting industry challenges with startups, scaleups, and research environments.

The session was opened by host Pia Warland (Innovation Dock), who framed the ambition of the day: to create a space for dialogue around real industry needs - not pitching, but understanding.

The challenge portfolio

Representatives from Equinor and Aker BP presented five concrete challenge areas they are seeking solutions on:

1. Maintenance optimization

Kristi Beate Øvestad Giljarhus (Equinor) and Saurabh Kumar (Aker BP) introduced the first challenge, highlighting the complexity of maintenance planning across assets and value chains. Data quality, structured failure reporting, and optimized scheduling remain key barriers.  

‍2. Monitoring emissions

Nicholas Dalhaug and Anders Chirico Indrebø from Equinor presented a challenge related to diffuse gas leaks. These leaks pose significant environmental, safety, and regulatory risks. Today, detection methods remain limited in both precision and coverage, highlighting the need for new monitoring solutions.

3. Circularity

Mona Låte from Equinor emphasized that as renewable infrastructure expands and oil & gas assets are decommissioned, material recovery and circular value chains are becoming increasingly critical.

Key challenges include recycling rare earth elements in permanent magnets, handling fluorinated organic compounds, upcycling construction materials, and developing viable solutions for composite and fiber fractions.

She underlined that circularity is not only a technological challenge. It requires system-level enablers, reliable and quality-assured material streams, efficient logistics, and the development of markets for secondary materials to ensure commercial viability.

4. Robotics

Jone Sæbbø from Aker BP, together with Nicholas Dalhaug and Anders Chirico Indrebø from Equinor, brought the audience into the context of robotics in offshore energy - one of the most demanding operational environments globally.  

5. Well Life

Martin Rødseth from Aker BP and Arne Lyngholm from Equinor presented the final challenge: lifetime assessment of well constructions. This involves managing limited historical data, ensuring well integrity, and mitigating long-term risks. Improved predictive capability and stronger decision support are essential to balance safety, cost efficiency, and operational longevity.

Read more about challenges

Breakout sessions

A key part of the programme took place toward the end of the day, when participants joined breakout sessions with the respective challenge owners. These smaller discussions enabled deeper exploration of context, constraints, and ambitions, creating space to identify potential connection points between real industry needs and emerging solutions.

Expectations from industry

The Nordic Energy Matchbox was made possible through close collaboration with Equinor and Aker BP. Kjell Morten (Equinor) and Odd Egil Haug (Aker BP) made it clear that these challenges cannot be solved by operators alone. Achieving meaningful progress requires the entire ecosystem - including academia, startups, scaleups, and technology providers - to think differently and collaborate in new ways.

They emphasized the importance of opening up for dialogue and strengthening the “good forces” outside the large organizations. The Nordic Energy Matchbox is a starting point for further development of collaborative platforms and new formats for industry–innovation interaction.

Way Forward – Apply to the Pitch Sessions (April 22)

The next step in the Nordic Energy Matchbox journey is the Pitch Sessions on April 22. The Pitch Sessions are where selected startups and scaleups are given the opportunity to present their solutions directly to industry challenge owners and domain experts from Equinor and Aker BP, based on the defined challenge areas presented during the Insight Session.

All companies who believe they can contribute are welcome to apply, regardless of technology readiness level. Applications will be evaluated based on relevance to the challenge areas, potential impact, and team capability.

Read more about the pitch sessions and apply here: https://www.nordicenergymatchbox.no/apply

The Nordic Energy Matchbox initiative is driven and operated by Innovation Dock, Validé and Energy Transition Norway, and developed in close collaboration with Equinor and Aker BP.