‘The opportunities for us are boundless’ – Utilities survey the possibilities of AI at Itron Inspire 2024

It is staggeringly hot in Palm Desert, California. Sunday’s high temperature touched 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius), a timely reminder of the importance of reliable water and energy resources just in time for Itron Inspire to kick into full gear.

Itron’s signature event wrangles together energy, water, IIoT, and smart cities professionals to share knowledge and address the challenges utilities and cities face in managing energy and water. This year’s theme is “exploring the edge of possibility,” keying in on the importance of grid edge capabilities, especially data management, and the role artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) will play.

Some Sinatra covers courtesy of The Secret Agent Band got Monday’s general session started (who needs a cocktail when you’ve got coffee?), concluding with a customized verse of the classic “My Way” keying in on themes of #ItronInspire24.

It was an apt tribute to the blue-eyed crooner, who performed his last concert across the hall from Itron Inspire’s event space at the JW Marriott.

But when considering the advent of AI/ML in the electric utility space, there cannot be a my way- there must be an our way. Leveraging data and advancing the industry via new technology needs to be a collaborative effort, which is exactly what makes this event so special for Itron president and CEO Tom Deitrich, who told the general session audience that “coming together, sharing experiences, and learning from one another” will be crucial to leveraging the power that data provides.

Have you read?
Tech Talk | The age of AI and edge intelligence for utilities
AI is the master key to unblocking our power grids

“There’s treasure inside of (each) asset and we need to be able to take advantage of it in a full and robust way,” Dietrich explained. “If you take away one thing… I urge all of us to move toward taking advantage of that asset.”

Itron has added more digital assets to its collective capabilities over recent years, allowing customers to improve resiliency and efficiency, meet their sustainability goals, and much more. The cold hard truth, Dietrich delivered, is that we will never have less digital stuff than we do now- it’s going to grow exponentially.

“AI and machine learning algorithms are the dumbest they’ll ever be today,” deadpanned Dietrich. “It’s only going to get better moving forward… And there’s gold in those hills.”

Dietrich says Itron thinks about implementing AI/ML in three ways: to make humans more efficient and productive, to provide resilient and reliable services or detect anomalies in support of operations, and in a generative context, i.e. exploring what-if scenarios via digital twin technologies.

He acknowledges some core challenges facing his customers, including aging infrastructure, a rise in cyber threats, changes in generation profiles skewing toward renewables, environmental/weather hazards, and load growth. The next 30 years will look very different from the last 20, he predicts, whether the low end or the high end of load growth projections come to fruition (guesses range from 2-7%). Compounded annual growth of absolute load driven by the electrification of everything, data centers, and the reshoring of domestic manufacturing will necessitate building more than 150 million kilometers of transmission – about the distance from the Earth to the sun.

Intelligence at the grid edge is essential to cope with those challenges, maintains Dietrich, who wrapped up his speech by showing how utilizing data can solve real-world problems, like helping a new electric vehicle owner learn how to properly set up the right home charging system.

“There is power in data. Let’s put it to use. Let’s do it in a way that takes advantage of agile assets, and let’s do this together across the full ecosystem,” Dietrich concluded. “There’s an awful lot to be done and we’re just scratching the surface.”

“It’s amazing and it’s a little bit scary,” assessed Todd Inlander, senior vice president and chief information officer, at Southern California Edison when considering the march of AI/ML.

Inlander thinks we might be off on some of our demand assumptions, but AI presents an opportunity for electric utilities to protect customers from wildfire, accelerate clean power, and strengthen the grid.

“The opportunities for us are boundless,” he told Itron’s audience. “It’s actually pretty cool to work in a utility right now!”

Inlander shared SCE’s recently-filed wildfire mitigation plans to harden and protect grid infrastructure which include covering conductors (the goal is to have 90% covered by 2025), high fire risk inspections and remediation, vegetation management, public safety power shut-offs, weather stations, machine learning weather forecasting, HD cameras, sectionalizing devices, fast-acting fuses, and battery backup resiliency programs.

Like Dietrich, Inlander sees load growth as an existential threat. He warned of a 7.5x increase in power consumption by 204 and roughly 82% increased demand in CAISO.

Having more sensors at the grid edge will help SCE manage that load growth. About a week ago, SCE became the first utility in North America to deploy a 5G network. It’s just in one location for now, but Inlander says they have about 50,000 more devices to deploy- part of a larger plan to rapidly expand the number of contact points SCE has in the field.

“This is just the beginning,” Inlander said, hinting SCE will grow from about 100,000 sensors to 6 million in over a few years. “We plan on deploying and replacing 5 million meters,” he adds. “These will be new sensor points.”

Inlander encouraged the Itron Inspire audience to collaborate and think creatively about new ideas and ways of hardening the grid. He discussed the growing utility of things like digital twins and kicked around hints of implementing some technology that doesn’t really even exist yet, including self-healing, self-starting grid tech that’s scaling up.

“We need to be bold in how we’re thinking about tech and AI,” challenged Inlander. “How do we leverage AI to autonomously protect the grid?”

“These things, maybe they’re not possible today. But if we’re not bold now, we’re going to miss out.”

Originally published by Paul Gerke on Renewable Energy World, October 7th.