The Technology Needed for Grid Stability & The Energy Transition

“We’re running out of time.”

That sentiment reflects the fundamental challenge facing the modern grid. And it sat at the heart of a recent conversation we held at Distributech 2023.

Josh Wong, General Manager of Grid Orchestration, and Colin Parris, Chief Technology Officer, sat down to discuss several key issues impacting the entire grid. In this Q&A, they share their thoughts on:

• The major grid disruptors
• Using AI to deal with unpredictability
• Empowering utilities with grid orchestration
• How the energy crisis impacts innovation

Read on to learn more, and listen to the full conversation on Grid Innovation between Colin Parris and Josh Wong.

Colin: The surge in extreme weather events is an obvious one. Since the start of this year, prolonged ice storms and atmospheric rivers have led to widespread disruption.

The rise of distributed energy sources is also creating challenges, like the reduction of inertia on the grid. And increasingly, consumers want to generate their own energy – leading to a more complex, bi-directional power system.  

These challenges all have a high degree of variability, which makes them hard to plan for.

Colin:  As variability increases, we’ll need tools that help manage uncertainty and volatility. This is where data and AI can really help.

For instance, we can use AI models to predict weather-related outages, and to help balance inertia locally rather than on a global scale. In terms of distributed energy resources, we can use AI to forecast load variability and help optimize energy management.

Josh:  In the past, the grid involved a predictable, one-way power flow. But today, it’s connected to millions of energy sources — some of which are controllable and predictable, some of which are not. To handle all this complexity, you can’t rely on traditional grid management.

The modern grid also features an expanding network of utility systems, customer systems, behind the meter systems, virtual power plants, wholesale markets — the list goes on.

We need a coordinated, intelligent way to make these systems work together.

Josh: Utilities may or may not have direct control over all the systems I mentioned. But they still need to manage grid congestion, ensure grid resilience and reliability, and service customers. That’s something that requires overseeing a comprehensive ecosystem. 

In the next few years, utilities will also need to work closely with industry partners to decarbonize the grid. This multi-party, multi-system future is inevitable, and it’s why reducing complexity through orchestration is an essential next step.

Josh: In the past, innovation was often treated as a series of tinkering projects. But we’re running out of time, and we can’t keep running pilots. To tackle challenges like the energy transition, we need to find solutions and then scale them as the norm.

That said, we need to be careful about how we do this. If we scale too fast, we risk getting a solution up and running quickly, but then incurring significant technical debt. If we scale too slow, then we’ll end up staying in ‘pilot land’ for too long.

Josh: We need grid solutions that are truly flexible and scalable, rather than being designed around siloed projects and systems.

As I mentioned, orchestration is key to this — which is where GridOS^® comes in. It allows utilities to orchestrate data sets from multiple sources and parties, so they can make intelligent and coordinated decisions on a unified model of the grid. 

This whole approach is central to success in an unpredictable energy future. It offers utilities a scalable way to tackle their current challenges (such as electric vehicle penetration) and quickly adapt to future challenges and use cases. 

“In the past, innovation was treated as a series of tinkering projects. But now we’re running out of time.”

To navigate the energy transition and overcome complexity, utilities can’t rely on traditional grid management. This is why we’ve built GridOS.  

GridOS is the first grid software portfolio designed for grid orchestration.  This innovative solution orchestrates the complexity that comes with a clean energy grid while delivering a reliable and resilient network – even in the face of increasing security and weather threats.