DISTRIBUTECH keynote message: AI can build the grid of the future and improve our work lives

Zach Kass didn’t need to tell attendees at DISTRIBUTECH International that he’s an “AI optimist.” His enthusiasm for this technology was pretty obvious when he said, for example, “AI was the last technology that humans will invent on our own.”

Kass is an AI futurist and former head of Go-To-Market at Open AI. He navigates the challenges and opportunities that lie at the forefront of AI innovation. He dissects the paradoxical landscape where technology moves at an astounding pace, yet practical, scalable solutions remain elusive.

Whether or not you agree with his thought-provoking projections for the future of AI, it is clear this technology has massive implications for not just our lives but the energy industry as a whole. Personal concerns and issues aside, the potential contributions of AI to our work lives are … close to limitless, it seems.

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Discussing the upcoming “most profound industrial revolution in human history,” driven by AI, Kass said the future is moving toward us at an incredible clip. The movement is now toward developing AGI, or artificial general intelligence.

In essence, at some point, AI will become smart enough that it will help itself generate scientific developments. Over the past few years, scientists have gone from building systems that think in straight lines to building systems that think like your brain, in parallel. Kass said we will achieve AGI by 2030, maybe earlier.

So, is AI going to take our jobs? Kass said this is a concern he hears often when he talks to organizations. Short answer, no. In fact, we as humans are going to harness this technology to improve our experiences, not the other way around. AI will make us more human, not less, he said. AI does not have vision, wisdom, courage, curiosity, empathy. These are qualities that define us as humans.

What AI can do is improve our work lives and processes, boosting worker productivity and job satisfaction. If AI can handle the 50% of their job that many people don’t actually enjoy, we can find more time in our day to do the parts of the job that we love, that require that human input. AI can gift us an “abundance of time,” Kass said, allowing us to rediscover what it means to be human.

What are the challenges and hurdles facing AI? Besides scepticism and resistance to adopting this technology, the industry is hampered by three issues: A computing deficit (lack of microchips), an energy deficit, and bad policy.

DISTRIBUTECH is a perfect place to talk about that second challenge.

Kass said the amount of energy required for AI is equivalent to solar fields the size of Arizona and Texas. And related is the lack of ability to store and transmit the energy needed, to these computers. In a bit of a “the chicken or the egg” scenario, Kass said, “AI probably begets fusion or nuclear but fusion or nuclear probably begets AI.”

Kass encouraged attendees to use the technology and to think about how it can improve their processes and ultimately help build the grid of the future.

Other keynote speakers Tuesday morning included Tom Dietrich, president and chief executive officer of Itron; Harry Sideris, executive vice president – customer experience, solutions & services with Duke Energy; Ali Ipkachi, PhD, chief visionary officer with OATI; and Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings. Duke Energy is the DISTRIBUTECH International host utility, and Itron and OATI are both sponsors.

Dietrich started by talking about big-picture challenges for the industry: infrastructure, environmental, and societal. He discussed the case for enabling grid edge intelligence and said the future is how we make use of all the data that is available to us. Foreshadowing what Kass would discuss later, he pointed out that CapGemini recently reported only about a third of utilities are doing something with generative AI, which can aid in dealing with many different “problems” in the industry.

Sideris discussed the utility perspective on the future, saying Duke Energy has more than 50 GW of generating capacity but plans to double that because of growth in electric demand in its service territories. The utility has 8.3 million electric customers in six states, and examples of this significant increase in demand include a 1,000 MW data centre for AI (sense a theme?) and 500 MW chip manufacturing facilities coming back to the U.S. from overseas.

Electrification is growing rapidly, with companies converting from gas to electric boilers and converting their HVAC systems from gas to heat pumps. And that doesn’t include the electric vehicle space, with about 120,000 now but expectations of over 1 million by 2030.

Duke Energy is on a journey to net zero by 2050, which includes getting out of coal by 2035 and adding “a lot more” renewables, more gas to maintain reliability, and eventually more nuclear, which Sideris said is “the key to the future.” On the grid side, he said the company will spend $73 billion in the next five years, half of that on the grid, to be ready for this electrification and the two-way power flow from customer generation resources.

Sideris also said the utility avoided 1.5 million customer outages from smart technology and self-healing networks. He concluded by saying technology will be critical to what the utility needs to do in the future, so they must embrace it and look at how they can scale it faster.

Ipkachi discussed the “turning point” of the industry as the generation mix is embracing renewables and cleaner energy and the boundaries between transmission and distribution are fading. In 2023, the generation resource addition was 54GW, 84% of that being renewables and storage. At the same time, the interconnection queue stands at 1.9TW, 94% of that being renewables and storage. He said virtual power plants are the most cost-effective resources when compared with alternative generation and DERMs are an essential and enabling component of this architecture.

And Demings discussed the county’s efforts toward resiliency and sustainability. Orange County has many initiatives, including an Orange County Utilities Department floating solar array, a Smart Cities partnership launching its first platform this April, the new Orange County Innovation Lab that will harness the power of AI, a partnership with Duke Energy to install DC fast charging stations for EVs and more. In addition, the Orange County Convention Center rooftop solar installation will be expanded to a capacity of 2 MW.

Originally published by Elizabeth Ingram on power-grid.com