Tech Collaboration Designed to Power the Future

According to Edison International's recent paper, "Reaching Net Zero," demand for electricity will grow 35% faster over the next decade than estimated just two years ago. That means California must reimagine how it builds and operates the electric grid and be more flexible and ready for what's ahead.

"Our customers are quickly adopting more products that depend on the electric grid," said Shinjini Menon, SCE's senior vice president of System Planning and Engineering. "They are counting on us to see that the grid is ready to meet their growing energy needs and be reliable, resilient and affordable."

To provide power availability when and where customers need it, the grid must be intelligent, autonomous and adaptive to balance electricity demand and supply. It also needs the ability to detect and resolve issues with minimal customer impacts. Speed and cost-effectiveness are crucial.

To support the development of smarter, more affordable technology solutions and address the complex and evolving challenges of electrical grid planning and management, SCE and NVIDIA are launching the Intelligent Grid Collaboration.

Together, SCE and NVIDIA have started applying their expertise to develop AI-based solutions for issues such as enhancing the interconnection of customer loads, advancing asset and vegetation inspections and maintenance, and improving incident management before, during and after major power disruptions.

"We are entering a new era in the energy sector, with AI enabling utilities to transform their operations at all levels, from microsecond-level grid optimizations to macro-scale network planning and modernization," said Marc Spieler, NVIDIA senior managing director for the energy industry. "The convergence of NVIDIA technologies with SCE is paving the way for enhanced efficiency, reliability and sustainability in power grid distribution, helping benefit millions of consumers and accelerating the global transition to smart, resilient energy systems."

NVIDIA is collaborating with power and utility companies to enhance their capabilities to accelerate the analysis of grid power flow simulations for transmission and distribution grid networks. By leveraging NVIDIA's full-stack accelerated platform, utilities can use smart meters with the NVIDIA® Jetson™ edge AI platform, build digital twins using NVIDIA Omniverse™ and generative AI using NVIDIA NIM™ inference microservices.

These solutions will be designed to support SCE's system planners, engineers and grid operators in managing an increasingly complex grid while helping improve safety, reliability and customer experience. SCE is already receiving increasing requests to support new residential, commercial, transportation electrification and data center developments and to connect new energy sources to the grid.

The Intelligent Grid Collaboration may serve as a blueprint for other electric utilities. By incorporating digitalization and AI into data management, planning, operations and customer engagement, it is set to accelerate affordable decarbonization and electrification. Pilot project demonstrations are expected within the year.