Bentley Systems Inc., Logo White
Search Icon White
Home / Sustainability

How a Portuguese Water Utility Uses Software for To Manage Its Network During Persistent Heat Waves

As summer temperatures in northern Portugal increasingly push past 38°C (100°F), water providers can’t afford to treat heat waves and demand spikes as outliers. When water tanks run low, pumping costs surge and pressure drops threaten service to major cities and remote rural towns alike.  The stakes are especially high for Águas do Norte, a public water and wastewater utility serving nearly 2 million residents across 63 diverse Portuguese municipalities. It needs a system that can show what’s happening across thousands of kilometers of its water pipe network and help decide what to do next. That’s why the utility has increasingly turned to Bentley Systems software. In fact, Bentley’s OpenFlows Water solution has become central to how Águas do Norte plans, anticipates stress on its system, and makes smarter investment decisions. It’s also part of a broader collaboration with H2OPT—a Portuguese engineering firm specializing in real-time hydraulic modeling—to modernize northern Portugal’s water infrastructure and boost resilience in the face of climate and population change.   “We needed a model of the entire system, something we could use for smarter, faster and more reliable decision-making,” says Luís Nicolau, director of the utility’s Asset and Investment Management.   A Utility with a broad mission- and a complex network Águas do Norte has a complex and challenging mandate. “We handle everything: drinking water, treatment, transmission to our municipal clients; and in eight communities, the

Read More >

Why an Open Standard for Gaussian Splats Could Transform Infrastructure

In early February, the Khronos Group, the open standards consortium which counts Google, Nvidia and Apple among its members, released a candidate for a new extension that could reshape how the world captures and shares three-dimensional reality. The extension, called KHR_gaussian_splatting, would for the first time enable storing 3D Gaussian splats inside glTF 2.0—the most widely used format for delivering 3D content across the internet. If that sounds technical, here’s what it means in plain language: there is now a path toward a universal, open format for a breakthrough 3D imaging technology that is poised to change how we experience the real world online. This format has the potential to dramatically improve everything from how engineers design, build and inspect bridges, factories and telecom networks, to how we experience sports, entertainment and everyday reality. The extension standardizes Gaussian splatting, a technique that turns ordinary photographs into stunningly realistic 3D scenes. Traditional models turn 2D images into 3D models by wrapping a hollow polygonal “skin” around objects. “KHR_Gaussian_splatting marks a major milestone for glTF, extending the format to support an entirely new class of geometric representation,” said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group. The acronym glTF stands for graphics language

Read More >

This Software Can Predict Exactly Where the Power Grid Will Fail—So Operators Can Prevent It

You could argue that reliable electricity has never mattered more. Data centers powering AI are multiplying. Electric vehicles are spreading. Yet the grid carrying all this load was largely built decades ago, and it keeps failing under weather that old standards say it should survive.  In late January, ice storms across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee left hundreds of thousands of people and businesses without power. In Mississippi alone, the storm downed some 1.5 million feet of  wires—that’s more than 280 miles—damaged nearly 1,400 poles, 320 transformers and 800 transmission tower cross arms, according to Entergy. The pattern of destruction and recovery is familiar: ice accumulates, wind blows, poles and wires snap, crews replace them—often with the same size poles and components that just failed.  But the technology to break this cycle already exists. Advanced software can model every pole, crossarm, and wire on the grid, simulate any windstorm and ice cover, and show exactly which structures will fail. Add AI and connected data to the mix, including massive amounts of information captured by drones, and the bottleneck—modeling what’s already out there—is finally starting to crack.  Entrepreneur Otto Lynch is the expert on this topic. He has spent two decades on

Read More >

The Events that Defined Bentley in 2025

At Bentley Systems, we’re all about infrastructure. But we’re also about people—from the individual following a groundbreaking hunch to teams strengthening how they work together. Throughout 2025, Bentley held events that gathered infrastructure professionals to collaborate, accelerate innovation, and inspire the next generation of engineers. Here are stories about three of those events. 1. Inside the First Cesium Developer Conference The inaugural Cesium Developer Conference landed in Philadelphia this summer, bringing together a global crowd of developers, climate scientists, engineers, game designers, and space technologists. Over three days, these professionals explored how open 3D geospatial technology is transforming the way we understand and interact with the world—from city streets to outer space, and even inside the infamous Alcatraz prison. Hosted by Cesium, which became part of Bentley in 2024, the conference featured nearly 90 sessions, with speakers from NASA, Google, NVIDIA, Epic Games, and the Open Geospatial Consortium.  Watch the highlights, see Cesium in action, and read about the innovations. https://youtu.be/8bYbYr5B3JY?si=DBM1onPVKzsvcUUD 2. Berlin Hosts Bentley Systems’ Biggest Tech Summit Yet Bentley’s Andy Rahden called it “one of the most collaborative moments of our year.” The Bentley Tech Summit 2025 gathered over 500 infrastructure professionals in the German capital of Berlin

Read More >

Breaking Walls, Building Value: How Bentley Teams and Users Work Side by Side in Berlin to Solve Real Infrastructure Challenges

More than 500 engineers, service technicians, product managers, and industry experts came together for a hands-on, fast-moving, problem-solving event built around one idea: One Bentley. This video captures the energy inside the summit’s workshops, where Bentley teams and users wrote down ideas, reshaped workflows, and solved real infrastructure problems side by side. Hear from participants like Marina Savenkova, Aritra Lodh, Volaree Rendon, and Ross Brown as they describe a hive-mind environment where collaboration becomes second nature. The curriculum focused on delivering clear value to users—understanding their pain points and creating the workflows and tools that solve them.  This is how One Bentley takes shape: in the rooms where silos fall and solutions rise. Want to read more from our coverage in Berlin? Check out our Q+A with CTO Julien Moutte. Or try our latest visualization of Berlin, using Cesium’s story technology.

Read More >

Bentley Tech Summit 2025: Berlin Hosts Bentley Systems’ Biggest Tech Summit Yet

This December, the crowds at Berlin’s Christmas markets will be admiring more than the festive stalls and delicious Glühwein. With over 500 infrastructure professionals in town for the Bentley Tech Summit 2025 (BTS25), the city’s bridges, stations, tunnels, and trams are about to get a fresh wave of appreciation. Over three days, Bentley Systems is hosting BTS25 as a hands-on, technical learning summit, where Bentley colleagues will gain greater insight into how the company’s tools connect to support infrastructure projects and how engineers apply their software in the field.  The event brings together product managers, solution engineers, services teams, technical support specialists, and a select group of industry power users who work with Bentley tools every day. These engineers know exactly where the workflows excel and where there are opportunities to evolve. The aim is simple: accelerate how Bentley, a global infrastructure engineering software company, learns from itself and its users.  Bentley’s Andy Rahden serves as the event host. As the company’s vice president of solution engineering and services, Rahden sets the tone for three days of deep technical learning and cross-team collaboration, positioning BTS25 as a key step in how Bentley prepares its people and solutions for the future.

Read More >

Philadelphia Eagles, Bentley, and a Talented Teen Artist Score Big for Kids with Autism

Madden Orlovsky, the 13-year-old son of ESPN broadcaster Dan Orlovsky, made headlines this year with a heart-warming appearance on his father’s show, NFL Live. The studio set was decorated with the boy’s colorful sketches, featured on floor-to-ceiling screens, to mark World Autism Awareness Day. “I have an autistic son,” his proud dad told viewers. “And his superpower is drawing.” Among the many viewers moved by the appearance was Kelsey Click, enterprise success manager at Bentley Systems, the infrastructure engineering software company headquartered in nearby Exton. Click started a chain of events that culminated on Nov. 5 with the unveiling of Madden’s artwork at the latest All Abilities STEM Clinic. The event is a hands-on science fair for kids held twice a year at the Philadelphia Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field stadium, better known as “the Linc.” The clinics are sponsored by the Eagles Autism Foundation and Bentley. The events, Click says, are “a testament to the power of community, innovation, and inclusion.” Madden’s illustrations grace the cover of a new coloring book featured at the November event, which he attended with his mother, sister, and brothers—he’s a triplet, and though they live in Connecticut, he and his family are Eagles fans. An

Read More >

At COP30, Bentley Puts Technology and Infrastructure at the Heart of Climate Action

Perched where the sprawling Amazon River delta empties into the Atlantic Ocean, Belém, Brazil, is both a gateway to the rainforest and a hub of global trade. When world leaders, scientists, and activists convene here for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) from November 10–21, the symbolism will be hard to miss: The debate over the planet’s future needs to take place where the impacts are most immediate and consequential.  “Resilience is not only about protecting what exists; it’s about designing systems that can adapt, evolve, and strengthen over time,” says Rodrigo Fernandes, global sustainability director at Bentley Systems. “This moment calls for infrastructure that can respond dynamically to changing environments and community needs.”  “COP30 marks a global tipping point,” adds Rory Linehan, Bentley’s director of infrastructure policy advancement. He notes that the Paris Agreement, signed at COP21 in 2015, set a goal of limiting global temperatures from increasing more than 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels—yet the world is now on the brink of surpassing that target. “The conversation can’t just be about mitigation anymore; it must be about resilience.”  Facing the changes That shift—from reducing emissions to adapting to a changed world—has placed infrastructure at the center of the

Read More >

Where the World Meets the Amazon: A 3D Tour COP30’s Host City of Belém

1. Welcome to Belém From floating markets to flood-resilient neighborhoods, Cesium’s interactive 3D experience immerses users in the host city of this year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP30)—revealing how Belém, Brazil, is balancing climate adaptation, cultural heritage, and economic future at the mouth of the mighty Amazon River. Bentley System is hosting a series of events in Belém and across Brazil tied to COP30.   The annual COP summit is the world’s main stage for global climate action—where nations gather to negotiate, assess progress, and strengthen commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. The conference brings together governments, businesses, NGOs, and communities to foster collaboration and accountability.  This year’s conference will spotlight the Amazon’s role in global climate stability, mobilize funding for sustainable development, and mark a shift from negotiation to implementation.  Follow our Bentley Insights blog and our social media channels to learn more.  Check out the visualization of Belém. 2. COP30 When experts, academics, and world leaders gather for COP30 from November 10–21,  the world’s largest climate summit will be heading straight to the Amazon and the heart of the climate crisis. Brazil will host the event in Belém, a vibrant tropical port city that

Read More >

Hacking the Future of Construction: Powered by AI, Bentley’s Next Generation Synchro+ Software Redefines 4D Modeling

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the data centers that power artificial intelligence (AI). One of the largest such centers in the U.S., and possibly the world, is now under construction in the West Texas city of Abilene—and the numbers are staggering. The site will span 4 million square feet, roughly 70 football fields, and include eight buildings that will each house up to 50,000 Nvidia AI chips. The center’s power needs will approach 1.2 gigawatts, rivaling the output of a nuclear plant.  The facility is part of the $500 billion Stargate Project, a massive initiative involving OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, Microsoft, Nvidia, and other AI giants. Once complete, the Abilene datacenter will help form the backbone of AI infrastructure in the U.S. in the years ahead.   Sheer size isn’t the only challenge of building the facility. Complexity is just as formidable, says Hannu Lindberg, vice president for construction technology at DPR Construction, the project’s general contractor. “These hyperscale datacenter projects are in high demand. We’re building in more and more remote locations due to cost-effective land and power, and grid capacity to run these massive facilities,” he says. “And we are building them faster than ever to meet the ever-growing

Read More >

Subscribe to The Bentley Brief

Stay ahead of the curve with the latest infrastructure news and insights.