Case Study
Energy & Renewables
Maintenance technicians reach competency 65% faster in a multiplayer VR training world.
Client
Avangrid
Industry
Energy & Renewables
Location
Portland, OR
Timeline
2019–2024
Headsets deployed
Hundreds of Oculus Quest
Key results
65%
Faster to competency than traditional training
100s
Oculus Quest headsets deployed across the US
24
States in Avangrid's operating footprint
Client scale
The challenge
Onboard maintenance crews faster, and give every crew the same safe, standardized way to learn.
Avangrid is a sustainable energy company and a member of the Iberdrola group. It is headquartered in Orange, Connecticut, with a footprint in 24 states and $41 billion in assets.
Avangrid Renewables wanted to streamline and modernize its maintenance crew training to improve onboarding and time to value. Crews needed a safe, controlled environment to practice procedures, and a way to standardize how they learn across sites.
Many of those procedures, from SF6 switchgear work to confined space rescue, are hard and risky to practice on live equipment.
The solution
VR Vision built a persistent multiplayer simulation where trainers and trainees meet and learn together from any state. Courses cover substations, wind turbines, switching, gas leaks, confined space rescue and more.
01
A full virtual substation that trainees can walk through and learn at their own pace.
02
Maintenance and part replacement procedures inside a wind turbine.
03
Step-by-step SF6 gas handling on switchgear, practiced without live equipment.
Deployment & integration
VR Vision supplied hundreds of Oculus Quest headsets for Avangrid's training dojo and sites across the US. Modules run through Oculus for Business (now Meta for Work) with a user login, and results flow back to Avangrid's LMS.
01
Hundreds of Oculus Quest headsets set up at the training dojo and distributed across the US.
02
Modules loaded into Oculus for Business with a user login for every trainee.
03
Results tracked per user and pushed to Avangrid's internal LMS.
04
Hardware support, maintenance and updates across all facilities.
Inside the simulation
Confined space rescue
Electrical testing during a turbine repair
Contactor replacement
Reclosure switching procedure
SF6 gas switching at a substation
Inside a wind turbine nacelle
Results & impact
Technicians reached competency 65% faster than with traditional training. The modules standardize onboarding for procedures like lockout/tagout across Avangrid's operations, and the program keeps growing as new modules are added.
Before
Onboarding maintenance crews took longer
Training varied from site to site
Risky procedures were hard to practice safely
After VR Vision
Technicians reach competency 65% faster
One standardized training world across every state
Procedures practiced in a safe, controlled virtual setting
Watch
Client perspective
Virtual reality is a huge step forward for our already best-in-class training program. If anybody is going to make immersive learning the next big thing in clean energy, it's Meta & VR Vision.
Samuel Akey
Manager, Renewables Training & Training Innovation, Avangrid
Next step
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