Software-Defined Infrastructure is like a fine wine; it gets better over time.

In today's rapidly changing world, innovation in the utility industry is crucial to provide consumers with the lowest cost of energy while ensuring grid reliability and resilience in the face of climate change, energy cost and supply challenges, and physical and cyber-attacks on grid assets such as substations. As we add more distributed energy resources like wind, solar, battery walls, and electric vehicles to the edge of the grid, we need to support the digital transformation of the electric grid. This is where NVIDIA's investment in this key area of energy comes in.

Modernize the Grid with AI at the Edge

To reduce emissions throughout the supply chain of electricity, we cannot afford to waste energy. By harnessing AI, we can ensure that electricity is generated, transmitted, distributed, and used in the most efficient way possible, leveraging as many renewables as possible and making the most efficient use of fossil-based electricity as possible. We need software-defined edge gateways and meters to provide insights for real-time actions that minimize issues with grid infrastructure and optimize energy supply and demand, especially during peak loads or extreme weather.

To protect their investments and reduce stranded assets in the field that result in additional costs to end consumers, utilities need to plan for a future where over 25% of their power generation is projected to come from consumers and not from centralized power plants. While robust processing power at the edge has not historically been a priority for utilities, this is a critical need as the vehicle to deliver the software stack for an autonomous grid that optimizes, anticipates issues and reduces energy waste.

The grid is changing at an unprecedented and unpredictable pace, and the only way to stay ahead is with software-defined technology. Existing solutions are not built to efficiently adapt to these changes at the grid edge. Much like trying to send an over the air update to today’s cars, current grid solutions have no way of accepting new software, nor the compute required to run it. This is no longer a firmware world.

Addressing Concerns from Utility Regulators

Many utilities are concerned with getting regulatory approval for innovative technology that has not yet proven to scale in the utility market. However, I believe that regulators understand that protecting the investments made by consumers is key. They can understand that a software-defined platform will provide the lowest total cost of ownership for the consumer by providing:?

• The ability to benefit from new algorithms and applications that reduce energy consumption
• Better defense against cyber attacks
• Low-income participants with the ability to share infrastructure that today is not affordable to them when weather or other issues cause delivery issues from central resources

Software-defined grid infrastructure continues to get better over time, versus traditional infrastructure that has depreciating value as new capabilities that get introduced cannot be leveraged.

Unlocking Additional Value for Utility Customers

It can be a challenge to ask a customer what they need when they cannot grasp what is possible. To quote Henry Ford, "If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would tell me a faster horse." Tesla’s leadership team has taken this approach to build software-defined products and solutions that continuously improve and provide value to customers with software upgrades–resulting in nearly 15x the market capitalization of the next highest car manufacturer.?We need to think like these leaders and disrupt the industry.

This is not a new concept; this is just new to the energy industry. For example, Sony led the analog music industry at the edge with the Sony Walkman (Think Analog Meter), then disrupted the music industry again with digital when they launched the Sony Discman (Think Smart Meter/AMI). However, once Apple came to market with the iPod (Think Utilidata Smart Grid Chip), we don't see many CD players in the market any longer. The same is likely to happen in the power industry as we transition towards a software-defined platform that learns from the technology being used, optimizes for those use cases and distributes over the air software updates that bring incremental value to the user without requiring a hardware update that proves costly to the customer or requires them to wait 10-15 years for the next generation of hardware to rollout.

Building Grid Edge Solutions on a Proven Platform

Over one million developers across the globe are using the NVIDIA Jetson platform for edge AI and robotics to build innovative technologies. Plus, more than 6,000 companies — a third of which are startups — have integrated the platform with their products. We believe that it will surely drive innovation and open the doors to third-party participants from utilities and their vendors?at the rate the industry requires to meet decarbonization targets.

Innovation in the utility sector cannot just about providing the lowest upfront capital cost, it must be about the lower cost of ownership while ensuring grid reliability and resilience in the face of climate change, the energy transition, and potential physical and cyber-attacks. This requires a holistic approach that includes the digital transformation of the electric grid, as well as the integration of software defined platforms.

You can learn more about NVIDIA’s work in power and utilities by:

• Registering and attending NVIDIA GTC (featuring Portland General Electric and Exelon)
• Registering and attending the AI City Forum (March 21 in Houston, TX)
• Exploring Utilidata’s smart grid chip pilot with Lake Placid Municipal Power
• Joining Utilidata and NVIDIA’s Grid Edge Advisory Board (current members include: American Electric Power, Duquesne Light Company, Holy Cross Energy, PPL, Silicon Valley Clean Energy, Southern California Edison, GM and Sunrun)