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Artificial intelligence (AI) has breached the control room doors. For the first time, a US power grid operator is deploying AI to help streamline processes, starting with outage management.
Open Access Technology International (OATI), , has announced the launch of the world’s first generative and agentic AI platform purpose-built for the energy industry, OATI Genie™, which will debut in a pilot programme with the California Independent System Operator (CAISO).
CAISO, the balancing authority for 80% of the state of California and parts of Nevada and operator of the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM), and OATI are collaborating to understand outage management system use cases, design the solution architecture, evaluate and select AI models, and deploy OATI Genie in an operations pilot. CAISO will evaluate the Genie tool’s ability to analyse diverse datasets and operating procedures while streamlining outage management procedures.
“We are excited to partner with OATI on this groundbreaking pilot programme. This initiative fits in perfectly with our ongoing control centre modernisation programme, which is designed to make sure our operators have the best tools available to them for maintaining system reliability,” stated Dr. Khaled Abdul-Rahman, CAISO vice president and chief information and technology officer. “Improving situational awareness and freeing up time for other important tasks can make a real difference for our operators, who will have an opportunity to test this product later this year.”
CAISO’s pilot will determine the extent to which its outage management system, which includes structured tables, unstructured text, and long review times for system operators, can be made more nimble and efficient using generative AI.
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Immediate impact and safety measures
OATI Genie was designed to provide immediate impact for utilities, grid operators, power producers, and energy traders. OATI describes it as a layer of intelligence to elevate and expand both existing and future OATI applications, including OATI webSmartEnergy DERMS; GridMind microgrid controller; webTrader energy trading; webTrans transmission planning and scheduling, and more, enabling more efficient and reliable decision making by power grid system planners and operators.
Because public AI models and cloud infrastructure pose potential risks for utilities, OATI Genie AI/ML models are hosted on OATI private data centres that voluntarily adhere to NERC CIP standards and audits, providing utilities and grid operators with an added layer of security over public clouds.
“At OATI, we are hyper-focused on developing the tools that empower the energy industry to provide safe, secure, and reliable power to the communities they serve,” said Dr. Sasan Mokhtari, president and CEO of OATI. “OATI Genie provides the advanced capability and intelligence desperately needed by technology providers.”
Originally published by Paul Gerke on Factor This.
