Vidar Hepsø

Vidar Hepsø is Professor II at the Department of Computer Science at NTNU. Over the past 30 years, he has worked on new ways of working enabled by new information technology, particularly integrated operations, digital operations, remote operations, control rooms, standardization, and Human Factors.

Hepsø has focused on how digital capabilities are built up over time and has written extensively on the digitalization of the oil industry in Norway. For many years, Hepsø played a central role in the push for integrated operations and remote collaboration. He worked on how real-time data, digital work processes, and distributed decision-making could be used between offshore installations and onshore organizations.

Hepsø is still a project manager at a major Norwegian energy company. In recent years, he has played a key role there in scaling control room solutions and remote operations for the company’s offshore wind business across several continents. The purpose has been to establish effective regional control centers that can monitor and control offshore wind farms across geographic areas.

As Human Factors Integration Lead, he works on:

• Design of operator interfaces (HMI) and control systems
• Control room design
• Shared digital work processes
• Competence development and training of control room operators
• Interaction between digital systems and people in operational environments
• Establishing shared operating models and standardized control room concepts

Reuse of solutions across different countries and offshore wind farms In summary, Hepsø works at the intersection of digitalization and the energy transition. His contribution is to build the organizational and digital capabilities that make it possible to operate large energy facilities efficiently and safely. At NTNU, he is responsible for his own Master’s continuing education course in Remote Operations.