AI could revolutionize a strained energy grid: Utilidata CEO

America's energy grid is under pressure and adding renewable energy sources makes the system more complex. Nvidia-backed Utilidata seeks to make the energy grid more reliable with its AI platform. Utilidata CEO Josh Brumberger joins Yahoo Finance to discuss how AI can make an intervention in the energy system.

Brumberger elaborates on the three "megatrends" straining the grid: "The first [challenge] is the amount of customer assets that are now being deployed onto the distribution grid. So EVs and solar and induction cooktop stoves and heat pumps –– lots and lots of new energy devices coming online. Second is we are about to see a huge uptick in the need for power and more manufacturing coming online. And then the third is the weather. we're starting to see these 500-year storms fairly regularly."

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Editor's note: This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

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JOSH LIPTON: America's electric grid is under pressure. Plug-in tech like EVs require more energy. And adding renewable energy sources makes the system more complex. It's a lot to navigate.

But AI can help. Nvidia-backed Utilidata is looking to make the grid more reliable and resilient with its distributed AI platform. And joining us now is Utilidata CEO, Josh Brumberger.

Josh, it is good to see you. Maybe to start, Josh, just for viewers who are not as familiar with your company. Maybe just explain what you all do. What's the problem you're solving for?

JOSH BRUMBERGER: Yeah, sure. So the problem we're solving for, if you take a step back and think about what utilities are up against today, I think there are three major issues that are megatrends that are all happening at once. The first is the amount of customer assets that are now being deployed onto the distribution grid.

So EVs, and solar, and induction cooktop stoves, and heat pumps. So lots and lots of new energy devices that are coming online.

The second piece is we're about to see a huge uptick in the need for more power. So you're seeing AI factories, and data centers, and more manufacturing coming online.

And then the third is the weather. We're starting to see these 500 year storms fairly regularly. So all these three megatrends are making it really difficult for the utility to operate in a much more complex environment today.

And that's where the power of AI comes in. AI is wonderful. And accelerated computing is wonderful at taking a lot of data and really complex problems and driving you towards better outcomes. So that's what we're doing at Utilidata. We've partnered with NVIDIA to build a custom module that makes it incredibly easy for any utility or hardware company to start to deploy AI on the distribution grid.

JULIE HYMAN: So, Josh, talk to us about how exactly it happens. Because not only are you talking about all of those demands on the system, you're talking about a system itself that is aging, that is overwhelmed. If you look at the utility infrastructure in this country, it's woefully outdated in many cases. So how does AI take that system, which is sort of not in great shape and make it operate better?

JOSH BRUMBERGER: Yeah, a term I once heard was beautifully antiquated. It is beautifully antiquated which really resonated with me. So it is a very old, but incredibly complex getting more complex machine.

And so when we looked at the needs of the distribution grid, the first question is, how do you get better technologies into the environment fast? Because all the three trends that I just described, they're happening today. They're happening in real time and they're intensifying. What we looked at was the quickest way to get a major uptick in the deployment of our technology was via smart meters.

And so smart meters, everyone knows what a meter is. It's at the side of your home. And more often than not, it just is there to Bill or maybe do some sort of elementary outage management.

But really, what you have is a connected computer at the intersection of all the things that are going on the customer side of the house with all the grid reliability needs. And so if you put AI capabilities right there, you can start to spot problems ahead of time. You can start to see whether or not a transformer is going to overload because too many EVs are now plugged into that particular area.

You can start to see some of the issues that may be happening from a power quality perspective because of an anomaly or because quick moving clouds. So you just start to see and you're able to respond to all of those instances in real-time. And right now, the utilities don't have that capability.

JOSH LIPTON: Josh, you know what's interesting NVIDIA is an investor in your company. I'm just curious, Josh, how that partnership came about?

JOSH BRUMBERGER: So we met in NVIDIA in 2021. Actually, so before ChatGPT and the generative AI boom. And we were both circling around the same problem.

I think NVIDIA believed that there was an opportunity to take an incredibly important machine, the distribution grid and start to make it really smart, really connected, really optimized. And so they were looking at it from how can they think about bringing their technology into a new industry. And we had been doing machine learning and real-time information to drive outcomes on the distribution grid for the last 10 years.

So it was really a unique marriage of two skill sets. NVIDIA, obviously, the underlying AI capabilities and the accelerated computing in all the tech stack that is involved there in Utilidata with that specialized layer of software specific to what distribution utilities need. It was a wonderful partnership at the right time for us.

JULIE HYMAN: Josh, very interesting stuff. We'll keep in touch.

JOSH BRUMBERGER: Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

JULIE HYMAN: Thanks.