In April, the PJM Interconnection—the nation’s largest grid system, spanning 13 states alongside the densely populated mid-Atlantic and Japanese Seaboard—took a giant step towards embracing AI by inking a deal with Google to make use of its Tapestry software program to enhance regional planning and velocity up grid connections for brand new energy mills.
ERCOT, the Texas grid system, is contemplating adopting expertise much like what CAISO is now set to make use of, in keeping with a supply with data of the plans who requested anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk publicly. ERCOT didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Australia affords an instance of what the longer term might appear like. In New South Wales, the place grid sensors and good expertise are extra broadly deployed, AI software program rolled out in February is now predicting the manufacturing and circulation of electrical energy from rooftop photo voltaic items throughout the state and mechanically adjusting how a lot energy from these panels can enter the grid.
Till now, a lot of the dialogue round AI and power has targeted on the electrical energy calls for of AI knowledge facilities (take a look at MIT Know-how Evaluation’s Energy Hungry collection for extra on this).
“We’ve been speaking lots about what the grid can do for AI and never practically as a lot about what AI can do for the grid,” says Charles Hua, a coauthor of certainly one of final 12 months’s Vitality Division stories who now serves govt director of PowerLines, a nonprofit that advocates for enhancing the affordability and reliability of US grids. “On the whole, there’s an enormous alternative for grid operators, regulators, and different stakeholders within the utility regulatory system to make use of AI successfully and harness it for a extra resilient, modernized, and strengthened grid.”
For now, Gopinathan says, he’s remaining cautiously optimistic.
“I don’t wish to overhype it,” he says.
Nonetheless, he provides, “it’s a primary step for greater automation.”
“Proper now, that is extra restricted to our outage administration system. Genie isn’t speaking to our different components but,” he says. “However I see a world the place AI brokers are in a position to do much more.”
