Keeping the lights on — balancing supply and demand in real time, every second of every day.
3 AI translations · Energy & Utilities
Forecast electricity demand hour-by-hour, day-ahead and real-time. Dispatch generation units in merit order — cheapest first, peakers last. Balance supply and demand across the grid while maintaining frequency and voltage within tight tolerances. Manage the economic dispatch optimization that determines which plants run, at what output, and when. Every megawatt-hour of mismatch between supply and demand threatens grid stability, and the margin for error is measured in seconds.
Detect outages, dispatch crews, and restore power — measured by SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index), SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index), and CAIDI. Manage the OMS (outage management system), coordinate with field crews, and communicate with customers. Prioritize restoration by criticality — hospitals, emergency services, then residential. Handle storm events where thousands of outages hit simultaneously. Post-event, analyze root causes and update restoration procedures. Every minute of outage duration is measured, reported to regulators, and benchmarked against peers.
Aggregate distributed resources — rooftop solar, batteries, EVs, and smart thermostats — to provide grid services. Coordinate thousands of devices through DERMS (Distributed Energy Resource Management System) platforms to deliver frequency regulation, voltage support, and peak shaving as a single dispatchable resource.