How Innovation Can Meet the Mandates of Safe, Clean and Reliable Energy at Affordable Prices
The energy sector is at an inflection point. Electric and gas utilities are facing a convergence of challenges, including aging infrastructure in need of an upgrade after more than 40 years.
Rising inflation, energy cost volatility and supply-chain disruptions impact businesses and consumers. In addition, government and private sector goals around decarbonization, including clean energy and electrification, are forcing utilities to advance their networks and consumer offerings.
Distributed solar, bi-directional networks, microgrids, battery storage and wind accelerate the rate of change required for utilities to keep pace. More digital natives, both as consumers and as employees, expect seamless, personalized and proactive experiences on par with global brands such as Amazon, Apple, Meta and Uber.
Thus, even more traditional industries like utilities must adapt. And that means adopting technology and embracing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
Utilities Must Deploy AI to Keep Up
Only AI allows businesses to transform massive amounts of diverse data into actionable insights. Doing so means improved decision-making, optimized operations, reduced risk, improved customer service and increased safety. Utilities can automate and streamline processes in place for decades to enhance efficiency at an unimaginable scale and speed.
Today’s purpose-built AI for utilities can help every aspect of the business, from augmented workforce capacity to improved infrastructure and optimized operations. Organizations gain numerous benefits with the industry-specific models, patterns and practices validated over time.
The utility benefits of AI include:
- Automate tasks/process automation and optimization
- Make accurate predictions
- Extract insights from massive datasets
- Real-time observation and tracking
- Decision making at speed and scale
Safe and Secure AI Use Cases for Utilities
AI has combined with cloud computing to overcome the cost and storage challenges of large-scale data processing and analytics, dramatically increasing accuracy in planning and forecasting. This means utilities have tremendous opportunities to improve engineering, construction, operations and field service workflows.
Location-based AI, combined with machine learning algorithms, can make predictions and sense patterns and trends with incredible speed and accuracy. It combines and analyzes GPS coordinates, drone imagery, satellite measurements and other remotely sensed data to process and analyze data at scale.
1. Asset Management
Utilities can employ AI (e.g., image recognition) to pinpoint where in the grid to perform asset inspections, maintenance, repairs and replacement. For example, a utility might capture multiple images of a single distribution pole (via remote aircraft systems or ground crews). AI can ingest and process the photos to recognize anomalies such as a cracked insulator or missing pole cap. The AI solution can identify high-risk poles for the engineers to validate and dispatch field crews.
2. Decarbonization
ML solutions can learn from data patterns across customers, distribution infrastructure and power generation assets. This newly generated information can be used to build infrastructure to meet net-zero requirements and goals. For example, geospatial-powered AI and deep learning models can be used to identify suitable sites for solar panels. These tools can measure land elevation, evaluate land use data, assess weather patterns, incorporate environmental factors and determine proximity to infrastructure and grid assets to consider solar power generation potential.
3. Vegetation Management
Utilities can use satellite data and ML models to identify vegetation species and other attributes to prioritize actions. For example, tree species identification can help accurately identify when and where to perform tree trimming and vegetation removal. Utilities can employ AI to take advantage of these higher-quality datasets to identify unstable slopes and determine if there’s a risk of landslides or if vegetation will slide into a transmission or distribution line.
4. Risk Reduction (Fire/Weather)
Predictive AI models can sift through historical and forecasted meteorological data to identify areas in danger of extreme weather or climate risks, including where to harden assets to protect vulnerable populations from hurricanes, flooding and wildfire events. Utilities can overlay asset, weather and location-accurate maps and perform ML-powered simulations around storm scenarios. They can process imagery to detect dead and diseased trees, determine where to remove fuel and what utility poles to harden and coat with fire retardant material.
5. Grid Modernization
AI provides a foundation for grid modernization by accessing and analyzing vast volumes of real-time operational technology (OT) sensor data combined with IT application data. ML algorithms can then predict when grid components will fail and recommend when, where, and in what sequence to repair or replace parts. It can also adjust power distribution based on analysis of demand patterns to optimize energy usage and lower costs. AI-enabled real-time grid monitoring provides on-the-fly response capabilities to enhance capacity and reliability while reducing outages and mitigating their impact.
6. New Business Opportunities
AMI 2.0—the next generation of smart meters—offers significantly more data points to evaluate and drive decisions. Utilities can use AI to extrapolate and understand more details about residential and industrial power usage. For example, new smart meters can determine appliance-level consumption, which utilities can leverage to offer new products and services, such as upgrade rebates. Utilities can also use AI/ML to quickly combine and process diverse data and identify areas of opportunity to market renewable energy products and services.
7. Customer Service
Chatbots can use large language models and prompt engineering to guide customers through common complaints and topics. Based on predefined keywords and phrases and using location-based data and analytics, the chatbot will supply a robust, rich experience for users with service questions. Whether calling to report an outage or asking about the duration of a service disruption, customers can ask questions in their own words and receive a response with more helpful context and detail.
Next Steps: TRC Can Help
Operating at the forefront of innovation, TRC specializes in enabling energy businesses with AI innovation. We have cultivated specific processes, patterns and packages based on deep experience working with utility clients. Whether augmenting staff or outsourcing capabilities, customers gain cutting-edge expertise in deploying cloud services, data pipelines and custom-trained models. Our customer-centric culture allows us to offer leading solutions tailored to organizational needs and goals. We maintain a track record of delivering projects on time and on budget, continuously communicating and collaborating with our clients throughout the lifecycle. As a world leader in utility AI solutions, we offer:
- Deep expertise in secure AI, cloud and emerging technology
- Track record of successful cutting-edge projects
- World-class experts with experience across industries
- Technical GIS, open source and industry knowledge
- Packages, patterns and best practices to accelerate deployment
To learn more about how AI delivers value to utilities, contact us today.