Survey urges switch to renewable power sources

UK Hydrogen Storage Caverns enable long-duration, low-carbon electricity balancing, storing surplus wind and solar power as green hydrogen in salt formations to enhance grid reliability, energy security, and net zero resilience by 2035 and 2050.

Key Points

They are salt caverns storing green hydrogen to balance wind and solar, stabilizing a low-carbon UK grid.

✅ Stores surplus wind and solar as green hydrogen in salt caverns

✅ Enables long-duration, low-carbon grid balancing and security

✅ Complements wind and solar; reduces dependence on flexible CCS

The U.K. government must kick-start the construction of large-scale hydrogen storage facilities if it is to meet its pledge that all electricity will come from low-carbon electricity sources by 2035 and reach legally binding net zero targets by 2050, according to a report by the Royal Society.

The report, "Large-scale electricity storage," published Sep. 8, examines a wide variety of ways to store surplus wind and solar generated electricity—including green hydrogen, advanced compressed air energy storage (ACAES), ammonia, and heat—which will be needed when Great Britain's electricity generation is dominated by volatile wind and solar power.

It concludes that large scale electricity storage is essential to mitigate variations in wind and sunshine, particularly long-term variations in the wind, and to keep the nation's lights on. Storing most of the surplus as hydrogen, in salt caverns, would be the cheapest way of doing this.

The report, based on 37 years of weather data, finds that in 2050 up to 100 Terawatt-hours (TWh) of storage will be needed, which would have to be capable of meeting around a quarter of the U.K.'s current annual electricity demand. This would be equivalent to more than 5,000 Dinorwig pumped hydroelectric dams. Storage on this scale, which would require up to 90 clusters of 10 caverns, is not possible with batteries or pumped hydro.

Storage requirements on this scale are not currently foreseen by the government, and the U.K.'s energy transition faces supply delays. Work on constructing these caverns should begin immediately if the government is to have any chance of meeting its net zero targets, the report states.

Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith FRS, lead author of the report, said, "The need for long-term storage has been seriously underestimated. Demand for electricity is expected to double by 2050 with the electrification of heat, transport, and industrial processing, as well as increases in the use of air conditioning, economic growth, and changes in population.

"It will mainly be met by wind and solar generation. They are the cheapest forms of low-carbon electricity generation, but are volatile—wind varies on a decadal timescale, so will have to be complemented by large scale supply from energy storage or other sources."

The only other large-scale low-carbon sources are nuclear power, gas with carbon capture and storage (CCS), and bioenergy without or with CCS (BECCS). While nuclear and gas with CCS are expected to play a role, they are expensive, especially if operated flexibly.

Sir Peter Bruce, vice president of the Royal Society, said, "Ensuring our future electricity supply remains reliable and resilient will be crucial for our future prosperity and well-being. An electricity system with significant wind and solar generation is likely to offer the lowest cost electricity but it is essential to have large-scale energy stores that can be accessed quickly to ensure Great Britain's energy security and sovereignty."

Combining hydrogen with ACAES, or other forms of storage that are more efficient than hydrogen, could lower the average cost of electricity overall, and would lower the required level of wind power and solar supply.

There are currently three hydrogen storage caverns in the U.K., which have been in use since 1972, and the British Geological Survey has identified the geology for ample storage capacity in Cheshire, Wessex and East Yorkshire. Appropriate, novel business models and market structures will be needed to encourage construction of the large number of additional caverns that will be needed, the report says.

Sir Chris observes that, although nuclear, hydro and other sources are likely to play a role, Britain could in principle be powered solely by wind power and solar, supported by hydrogen, and some small-scale storage provided, for example, by batteries, that can respond rapidly and to stabilize the grid. While the cost of electricity would be higher than in the last decade, we anticipate it would be much lower than in 2022, he adds.

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Cold-Climate Heat Pumps deliver efficient heating and cooling for Northern B.C. Net Zero Ready homes, with air-source Mitsubishi H2i systems, triple-pane windows, blower door ACH 0.8, BC Hydro rebates, and CleanBC incentives.

Key Points

Electric air-source systems that heat and cool in subzero climates, cutting emissions and lowering energy costs.

✅ Net Zero Ready, Step Code 5, ACH 0.8 airtightness

✅ Operate efficiently to about -28 C with backup heat

✅ Eligible for BC Hydro and CleanBC rebates

Heat pump provides heating, cooling in northern B.C. home
It's a tradition at Vanderhoof-based Northern Homecraft that, on the day of the blower door test for a just-completed home, everyone who worked on the build gathers to watch it happen. And in the spring of 2021, on a dazzling piece of land overlooking the mouth of the Stuart River near Fort St. James, that day was a cause for celebration.

A new 3,400-square foot home subjected to the blower door test – a diagnostic tool to determine how much air is entering or escaping from a home – was rated as having just .8 air changes per hour (ACH). That helps make it a Net Zero Ready home, and BC Energy Code Step 5 compliant. That means it would take about a third of the amount of energy to heat the home compared to a typical similar-sized home in B.C. today.

From an energy-efficiency perspective, this is a home whose evident beauty is anything but skin deep.

"The home has lot of square footage of finished living space, and it also has a lot of glazing," says Northern Homecraft owner Shay Bulmer, referring to the home's large windows. "We had a lot of window space to deal with, as well as large vaulted open areas where you can only achieve so much additional insulation. There were a few things that the home had going against it as far as performance goes. There were challenges in keeping it comfortable year-round."

Well-insulated home ideal for heat pump option
Most homes in colder areas of B.C. lean on gas-fueled heating systems to deal with the often long, chilly winters. But with the arrival of cold climate heat pumps capable of providing heat efficiently when temperatures dip as low as -30°C, there's now a clean option for those homes, and using more electricity for heat is gaining support in the North as well.

Heat pumps are an increasingly popular option, both for new and existing homes, because they avoid carbon emissions associated with fossil use while also offering summer cooling, even as record-high electricity demand in Yukon underscores the need for efficient systems.

The Fort St. James home, which was built with premium insulation, airtightness and energy efficiency in mind, made the decision to opt for a heat pump even easier. Still, the heat pump option took the home's owners Dexter and Cheryl Hodder by surprise. While their focus was on designing a home that took full advantage of views down to the river, the couple was under the distinct impression that heat pumps couldn't cut it in the chilly north.

"I wasn't really considering a heat pump, which I thought was only a good solution in a moderate climate," says Dexter, who as director of research and education for the John Prince Research Forest, studies wildlife and forestry interactions in north central B.C. "The specs on the heat pump indicate it would work down to -28°C, and I was skeptical of that. But it worked exactly to spec. It almost seems ridiculous to generate heat from outside air at those low temperatures, but it does."

Getting it right with support and rebates
Northern Homecraft took advantage of BC Hydro's Mechanical System Design Pilot program to ensure proper heat pump system design, installation, and verification for the home were applied, and with BC Hydro's first call for power in 15 years driven by electrification, the team prioritized efficient load management.

Based on the home's specific location, size, and performance targets, they installed a ducted Mitsubishi H2I air-source heat pump system. Windows are triple pane, double coated, and a central feature of the home, while insulation specifications were R-40 deep frame insulation in the exterior walls, R-80 insulation in the attic, and R-40 insulation in the vaulted ceilings.

The combination of the year-round benefits of heat pumps, their role in reducing fossil fuel emissions, and the availability of rebates, is making the systems increasingly attractive in B.C., especially as two new BC generating stations were recently commissioned to expand clean supply.

BC Hydro offers home renovation rebates of up to $10,000 for energy-efficient upgrades to existing homes. Rebates are available for windows and doors, insulation, heat pumps, and heat pump hot water heaters. In partnership with CleanBC, rebates of up to $11,000 are also available – when combined with the federal Greener Homes program – for those switching from fossil fuel heating to an electric heat pump.

'Heat dome' pushes summer highs to 40°C
Cooling wasn't really a consideration for Dexter and Cheryl when they were living in a smaller bungalow shaded by trees. But they knew that with the big windows, vaulted ceiling in the living room, and an upstairs bedroom in the new home, there may come a time when they needed air conditioning.

That day arrived shortly after the home was built, as the infamous "heat dome" settled on B.C. and drove temperatures at Fort St. James to a dizzying 40°C.

"It was disgustingly hot, and I don't care if I never see that again here," says Hodder, with a laugh. "But the heat pump maintained the house really nicely throughout, at about 22 degrees. The whole house stayed cool. We just had to close the door to the upper bedroom so it wasn't really heating up during the day."

Hodder says he had to work with the heat pump manufacturer Mitsubishi a couple times over that first year to fix a few issues with the system's controls. But he's confident that the building's tight and well-insulated envelope, and the heat pump's backup electric heat that kicks in when temperatures dip below -28°C, will make it the system-for-all-seasons it was designed to be.

Even with the use of supplemental electric heating during the record chill of December-January, the home's energy costs weren't much higher than the mid-winter energy bills they used to pay in the couple's smaller bungalow that relied on a combination of gas-fired in-floor heating and electric baseboards, as gas-for-electricity swaps are being explored elsewhere.

Fort St. James is a former fur trading post located northwest of Prince George and a short drive north of Vanderhoof. Winters are cold and snowy, with average daily low temperatures in December and January of around -14°C.

"During the summer and into the fall, we were paying well less than $100 a month," says Hodder, looking back at electricity bills over the first year in the home. "And that's everything. We're only electric here, and we also had both of us working from home all last year."

Word of mouth making heat pumps popular in Fort St. James
While the size of the home presented new challenges for the builders, it's one of five Net Zero Ready or Net Zero homes – all equipped with some form of heat pump – that Northern Homecraft has built in Fort St. James, even as debates about going nuclear for electricity continue in B.C.

The smallest of the homes is a two-bedroom, one-bathroom home that's just under 900 square feet. Northern Homecraft may be based in Vanderhoof, but it's the much smaller town of Fort St. James where they're making their mark with super-efficient homes. Net Zero Ready homes are up to 80% more efficient than the standard building code, and become Net Zero once renewable energy generation – usually in the form of photovoltaic solar – is installed, and programs like switching 5,000 homes to geothermal show the broader momentum for clean heating.

"We were pretty proud that the first home we built in Fort St. James was the first single family Net Zero Ready home built in B.C.," says Northern Homecraft's Bulmer. "And I think it's kind of caught on in a smaller community where everyone talks to everyone."

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Turkey Net Metering Suspension freezes regulator reviews, stalling rooftop solar permits and grid interconnections amid COVID-19, pausing licensing workflows, EPC pipelines, and electricity bill credits that drive commercial and household prosumer adoption.

Key Points

A pause on technical reviews freezing net metering applications and slowing rooftop solar deployment in Turkey.

✅ Monthly technical committee meetings suspended indefinitely

✅ Rooftop solar permits and grid interconnections on hold

✅ EPC firms urge remote evaluations for transparency

The decision by the Turkish Energy Market Regulatory Authority to halt part of the system of processing net metering applications risks bringing the only vibrant segment of the nation’s solar industry to a grinding halt, a risk amplified as global renewables face Covid-19 disruptions across markets.

The regulator has suspended monthly meetings of the committee which makes technical evaluations of net metering applications, citing concerns about the spread of Covid-19, which has already seen U.S. utility-scale solar face delays this year.

The availability of electricity bill credits for net-metering-approved households which inject surplus power into the grid, similar to how British households can sell power back to energy firms, has seen the rooftop projects the scheme is typically associated with remain the only source of new solar generation capacity in Turkey of late.

However the energy regulator’s decision to suspend technical evaluation committee meetings until further notice has seen the largely online licensing process for new solar systems practically cease; by contrast, Berlin is being urged to remove PV barriers to keep projects moving.

The Turkish solar industry has claimed the move is unnecessary, with solar engineering, procurement and construction services businesses pointing out the committee could meet to evaluate projects remotely. It has been argued such a move would streamline the application process and make it more transparent, regardless of the current public health crisis.

Net metering 

Turkey introduced net metering for rooftop installations last May and pv magazine has reported the specifics of the scheme, amid debates like New England's grid upgrade costs over who pays.

National grid operator Teias confirmed recently the country added 109 MW of new solar capacity in the first quarter, most of it net-metered rooftop systems, even as Australian distributors warn excess solar can strain local networks.

Net metering has been particularly attractive to commercial electricity users because the owners of small and medium-sized businesses pay more for power, as solar reshapes electricity prices in Northern Europe, than either households or large scale industrial consumers.

Until the recent technical committee decision by the regulator, the chief obstacle to net metering adoption had been the nation’s economic travails. The Turkish lira has lost 14% of its value since January and around 36% over the last two years. The central bank has been using its foreign reserves to support state lenders and the lira but the national currency slipped near an all-time low on Friday and foreign analysts predict the central bank reserves could run dry in July.

The level of exports shipped last month was down 41% on April last year and imports fell 28% by the same comparison, further depressing the willingness of companies to make capital investments such as rooftop solar.

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Ukraine Winter Energy Crisis highlights blackouts, damaged grid, and resilient solutions: solar panels, generators, wood stoves, district heating, batteries, and energy efficiency campaigns backed by EU and US aid to support communities through harsh winters.

Key Points

A wartime surge of blackouts driving resilient, off-grid and efficiency solutions to keep heat and power flowing.

✅ Solar panels, batteries, and generators stabilize essential loads

✅ Wood stoves and district heating maintain winter warmth

✅ Efficiency upgrades and aid bolster grid resilience

As winter sets in across Ukraine, the country faces not only the bitter cold but also the ongoing energy crisis exacerbated by Russia’s invasion. Over the past year, Ukraine has experienced widespread blackouts due to targeted strikes on its power infrastructure. With the harsh winter conditions ahead, Ukrainians are finding innovative ways to adapt to these energy challenges and to keep the lights on this winter despite shortages. From relying on alternative power sources to implementing energy-saving measures, the Ukrainian population is demonstrating resilience in the face of adversity.

The Energy Crisis in Ukraine

Since the onset of the war in February 2022, Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has become a prime target for Russian missile strikes. Power plants, electrical grids, and transmission lines have all been hit, causing significant damage to the nation’s energy systems, as Ukraine fights to keep the lights on amid repeated attacks. As a result, millions of Ukrainians have faced regular power outages, especially in the winter months when energy demand surges due to heating needs.

The situation has been compounded by the difficulty of repairing damaged infrastructure while the war continues. Many areas, particularly in eastern and southern Ukraine, still suffer from limited access to electricity, heating, and water, with strikes in western Ukraine occasionally causing further disruptions. With no end in sight to the conflict, the Ukrainian government and its citizens are being forced to think outside the box to ensure they can survive the harsh winter months.

Alternative Energy Sources: Solar Power and Generators

In response to these energy shortages, many Ukrainians are turning to alternative energy sources, particularly solar power and generators. Solar energy, which has been growing in popularity over the past decade, is seen as a promising solution. Solar panels can be installed on homes, schools, and businesses, providing a renewable source of electricity. During the day, the sun provides much-needed energy to power lights, appliances, and even heating systems in homes. While solar power may not fully replace the energy lost during blackouts, it can significantly reduce dependency on the grid, and recent electricity reserve updates suggest fewer planned outages if attacks abate.

To make solar power more accessible, many local and international organizations are providing solar panels and batteries to Ukrainians. These efforts have been critical, especially in rural areas where access to the national grid may be sporadic or unreliable. Additionally, solar-powered streetlights and community energy hubs are being set up in various cities to provide essential services during prolonged outages.

Generators, too, have become a vital tool for many households. Portable generators allow people to maintain some level of comfort during blackouts, powering essential appliances like refrigerators, stoves, and even small heaters. While generators are not a permanent solution, they offer a crucial lifeline when the grid is down for extended periods.

Wood and Coal Stoves: A Return to the Past

In addition to modern energy solutions, many Ukrainians are returning to more traditional sources of energy, such as wood and coal stoves. These methods of heating, while old-fashioned, are still widely available and effective. With gas shortages affecting the country and electricity supplies often unreliable, wood and coal stoves have become an essential part of daily life for many households.

Firewood is being sourced locally, and many Ukrainians are collecting and stockpiling it in preparation for the colder months. While this reliance on solid fuels presents environmental concerns, it remains one of the most feasible options for families living in rural areas or in homes without access to reliable electricity.

Moreover, some urban areas have seen a revival of district heating systems, where heat is generated centrally and distributed throughout a network of buildings. This system, although not without its challenges, is helping to provide warmth to thousands of people in larger cities like Kyiv and Lviv.

Energy Conservation and Efficiency

Beyond alternative energy sources, many Ukrainians are taking measures to reduce their energy consumption. Energy conservation has become a key strategy in dealing with blackouts, as individuals and families aim to minimize their reliance on the national grid. Simple steps like using energy-efficient appliances, sealing windows and doors to prevent heat loss, and limiting the use of electric heating have all become commonplace.

The Ukrainian government, in collaboration with international partners, has also launched campaigns to encourage energy-saving behaviors. These include public information campaigns on how to reduce energy consumption and initiatives to improve the insulation of homes and buildings. By promoting energy efficiency, Ukraine is not only making the most of its limited resources but also preparing for long-term sustainability.

The Role of the International Community

The international community has played a crucial role in helping Ukraine navigate the energy crisis. Several countries and organizations have provided funding, technology, and expertise to assist Ukraine in repairing its power infrastructure and implementing alternative energy solutions. For example, the United States and the European Union have supplied Ukraine with generators, solar panels, and other renewable energy technologies, though U.S. support for grid restoration has recently ended in some areas of assistance. This support has been vital in ensuring that Ukrainians can meet their energy needs despite the ongoing conflict.

In addition, humanitarian organizations have been working to provide emergency relief, including distributing winter clothing, heaters, and fuel to the most vulnerable populations, and Ukraine helped Spain amid blackouts earlier this year, underscoring reciprocal resilience. The global response has been a testament to the solidarity that exists for Ukraine in its time of need.

As winter arrives, Ukrainians are finding creative and resourceful ways to deal with the ongoing energy crisis caused by the war, reflecting the notion that electricity is civilization on the front lines. While the situation remains difficult, the country's reliance on alternative energy sources, traditional heating methods, and energy conservation measures demonstrates a remarkable level of resilience. With continued support from the international community and a commitment to innovation, Ukraine is determined to overcome the challenges of blackouts and ensure that its people can survive the harsh winter months ahead.

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Texas Electricity Complaints surged to a three-year high, highlighting Public Utility Commission data on billing disputes, meter problems, and service issues in the competitive retail electricity market and consumer protection process.

Key Points

Consumer filings to Texas PUC about billing, service, and meters, with 2018 reaching a three-year high.

✅ 5,371 complaints/inquiries in FY2018; 43.8% involved billing disputes.

✅ Service issues 15.8% and meters 12.6%; PUC publishes complaint stats.

✅ Advocates urge monitoring to keep deregulated retail market healthy.

The number of electricity service-related complaints and inquiries filed with the state’s Public Utility Commission reached a three-year high this past fiscal year, an advocacy group said Tuesday.

According to the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, a nonprofit that advocates for low electricity prices, Texans filed 5,371 complaints or inquiries with the commission between September 2017 and August of this year. That’s up from the 4,175 complaints or inquiries filed during the same period in 2017 and the 4,835 filed in 2016. The complaints and inquiries included concerns with billing, meters and service.

“This stark uptick in complaints is disappointing — especially after several years of generally improving numbers,” Jay Doegey, the coalition's executive director, said in a written statement. “In percentage terms, the year-to-year rise in complaints is the greatest in a decade. Clearly, many Texans remain frustrated with aspects of their electric service.”

The utility commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While complaints and inquiries increased in 2018, the number of complaints and inquiries has generally decreased since 2009, when Texans filed 15,956 with the commission. That could be because there have been lower residential electricity prices and because Texans have become more familiar with the state’s competitive retail electricity system over the last decade, the coalition's report said.

And complaints from 2018 are well below 2003 levels, when the number of complaints and inquiries soared to more than 17,000, a year after Texas deregulated most of its electricity market structure at the time.

But Jake Dyer, a policy analyst at the coalition, said his group is closely watching the uptick in complaints this year as the Texas power grid faces recurring strains.

“We are invested in making sure the competition works,” Dyer said. “When you see an uptick like this, you should watch very closely to make sure the market remains healthy and to make sure there is not something else going on.”

However, Dyer said that it is too early to know what that something else that is going on might be.

According to the report, concerns about billing made up most of the complaints and inquiries filed this year at 43.8 percent. That’s up from 42.5 percent in fiscal year 2017. Concerns about the provision of electrical service and about electrical meters also ranked high, constituting 15.8 percent and 12.6 percent of the complaints and inquiries, respectively.

The Public Utility Commission publishes customer complaint statistics on its website. The Texas Coalition for Affordable Power takes into account both complaints and inquiries filed with the commission for its report in order “to gauge general consumer sentiment and to maintain a uniform methodology across the study period.”

Texans can file an official complaint with the the commission's Customer Protection Division. Under the complaint process, the complaint is sent to the electric company, which has 21 days to respond.

Some providers outside the competitive market, such as electric cooperatives, drew praise for performance during the 2021 winter storm.

Following the 2021 winter storm, Texas lawmakers proposed an electricity market bailout to stabilize costs and reliability.

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AI Load Forecasting for Utilities leverages machine learning, smart meters, and predictive analytics to balance energy demand during COVID-19 disruptions, optimize grid reliability, support demand response, and stabilize rates for residential and commercial customers.

Key Points

AI predicts utility demand with ML and smart meters to improve reliability and reduce costs.

✅ Adapts to rapid demand shifts with accurate short term forecasts

✅ Optimizes demand response and distributed energy resources

✅ Reduces outages risk while lowering procurement and operating costs

The spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has prompted state and local governments around the U.S. to institute shelter-in-place orders and business closures. As millions suddenly find themselves confined to their homes, the shift has strained not only internet service providers, streaming platforms, and online retailers, but the utilities supplying power to the nation’s electrical grid, which face longer, more frequent outages as well.

U.S. electricity use on March 27, 2020 was 3% lower than it was on March 27, 2019, a loss of about three years of sales growth. Peter Fox-Penner, director of the Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy, asserted in a recent op-ed that utility revenues will suffer because providers are halting shutoffs and deferring rate increases. Moreover, according to research firm Wood Mackenzie, the rise in household electricity demand won’t offset reduced business electricity demand, mainly because residential demand makes up just 40% of the total demand across North America.

Some utilities are employing AI and machine learning for the energy transition to address the windfalls and fluctuations in energy usage resulting from COVID-19. Precise load forecasting could ensure that operations aren’t interrupted in the coming months, thereby preventing blackouts and brownouts. And they might also bolster the efficiency of utilities’ internal processes, leading to reduced prices and improved service long after the pandemic ends.

Innowatts
Innowatts, a startup developing an automated toolkit for energy monitoring and management, counts several major U.S. utility companies among its customers, including Portland General Electric, Gexa Energy, Avangrid, Arizona Public Service Electric, WGL, and Mega Energy. Its eUtility platform ingests data from over 34 million smart energy meters across 21 million customers in more than 13 regional energy markets, while its machine learning algorithms analyze the data to forecast short- and long-term loads, variances, weather sensitivity, and more.

Beyond these table-stakes predictions, Innowatts helps evaluate the effects of different rate configurations by mapping utilities’ rate structures against disaggregated cost models. It also produces cost curves for each customer that reveal the margin impacts on the wider business, and it validates the yield of products and cost of customer acquisition with models that learn the relationships between marketing efforts and customer behaviors (like real-time load).

Innowwatts told VentureBeat that it observed “dramatic” shifts in energy usage between the first and fourth weeks of March. In the Northeast, “non-essential” retailers like salons, clothing shops, and dry cleaners were using only 35% as much energy toward the end of the month (after shelter-in-place orders were enacted) versus the beginning of the month, while restaurants (excepting pizza chains) were using only 28%. In Texas, conversely, storage facilities were using 142% as much energy in the fourth week compared with the first.

Innowatts says that throughout these usage surges and declines, its clients took advantage of AI-based load forecasting to learn from short-term shocks and make timely adjustments. Within three days of shelter-in-place orders, the company said, its forecasting models were able to learn new consumption patterns and produce accurate forecasts, accounting for real-time changes.

Innowatts CEO Sid Sachdeva believes that if utility companies had not leveraged machine learning models, demand forecasts in mid-March would have seen variances of 10-20%, significantly impacting operations.

“During these turbulent times, AI-based load forecasting gives energy providers the ability to … develop informed, data-driven strategies for future success,” Sachdeva told VentureBeat. “With utilities and energy retailers seeing a once-in-a-lifetime 30%-plus drop in commercial energy consumption, accurate forecasting has never been more important. Without AI tools, utilities would see their forecasts swing wildly, leading to inaccuracies of 20% or more, placing an enormous strain on their operations and ultimately driving up costs for businesses and consumers.”

Autogrid
Autogrid works with over 50 customers in 10 countries — including Energy Australia, Florida Power & Light, and Southern California Edison — to deliver AI-informed power usage insights. Its platform makes 10 million predictions every 10 minutes and optimizes over 50 megawatts of power, which is enough to supply the average suburb.

Flex, the company’s flagship product, predicts and controls tens of thousands of energy resources from millions of customers by ingesting, storing, and managing petabytes of data from trillions of endpoints. Using a combination of data science, machine learning, and network optimization algorithms, Flex models both physics and customer behavior, automatically anticipating and adjusting for supply and demand patterns through virtual power plants that coordinate distributed assets.

Autogrid also offers a fully managed solution for integrating and utilizing end-customer installations of grid batteries and microgrids. Like Flex, it automatically aggregates, forecasts, and optimizes capacity from assets at sub-stations and transformers, reacting to distribution management needs while providing capacity to avoid capital investments in system upgrades.

Autogrid CEO Dr. Amit Narayan told VentureBeat that the COVID-19 crisis has heavily shifted daily power distribution in California, where it’s having a “significant” downward impact on hourly prices in the energy market. He says that Autogrid has also heard from customers about transformer failures in some regions due to overloaded circuits, which he expects will become a problem in heavily residential and saturated load areas during the summer months (as utilities prepare for blackouts across the U.S. when air conditioning usage goes up).

“In California, [as you’ll recall], more than a million residents faced wildfire prevention-related outages in PG&E territory in 2019,” Narayan said, referring to the controversial planned outages orchestrated by Pacific Gas & Electric last summer. “The demand continues to be high in 2020 in spite of the COVID-19 crisis, as residents prepare to keep the lights on and brace for a similar situation this summer. If a 2019 repeat happens again, it will be even more devastating, given the health crisis and difficulty in buying groceries.”

AI making a difference
AI and machine learning isn’t a silver bullet for the power grid — even with predictive tools at their disposal, utilities are beholden to a tumultuous demand curve and to mounting climate risks across the grid. But providers say they see evidence the tools are already helping to prevent the worst of the pandemic’s effects — chiefly by enabling them to better adjust to shifted daily and weekly power load profiles.

“The societal impact [of the pandemic] will continue to be felt — people may continue working remotely instead of going into the office, they may alter their commute times to avoid rush hour crowds, or may look to alternative modes of transportation,” Schneider Electric chief innovation officer Emmanuel Lagarrigue told VentureBeat. “All of this will impact the daily load curve, and that is where AI and automation can help us with maintenance, performance, and diagnostics within our homes, buildings, and in the grid.”

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