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Power AI Software

California Set To Become First US State To Manage Power Outages With AI (technologyreview.com) 71

Posted by BeauHD from the AI-to-the-rescue dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: California's statewide power grid operator is poised to become the first in North America to deploy artificial intelligence to manage outages, MIT Technology Review has learned. "We wanted to modernize our grid operations. This fits in perfectly with that," says Gopakumar Gopinathan, a senior advisor on power system technologies at the California Independent System Operator -- known as the CAISO and pronounced KAI-so. "AI is already transforming different industries. But we haven't seen many examples of it being used in our industry."

At the DTECH Midwest utility industry summit in Minneapolis on July 15, CAISO is set to announce a deal to run a pilot program using new AI software called Genie, from the energy-services giant OATI. The software uses generative AI to analyze and carry out real-time analyses for grid operators and comes with the potential to autonomously make decisions about key functions on the grid, a switch that might resemble going from uniformed traffic officers to sensor-equipped stoplights. But while CAISO may deliver electrons to cutting-edge Silicon Valley companies and laboratories, the actual task of managing the state's electrical system is surprisingly analog.

Today, CAISO engineers scan outage reports for keywords about maintenance that's planned or in the works, read through the notes, and then load each item into the grid software system to run calculations on how a downed line or transformer might affect power supply. "Even if it takes you less than a minute to scan one on average, when you amplify that over 200 or 300 outages, it adds up," says Abhimanyu Thakur, OATI's vice president of platforms, visualization, and analytics. "Then different departments are doing it for their own respective keywords. Now we consolidate all of that into a single dictionary of keywords and AI can do this scan and generate a report proactively." If CAISO finds that Genie produces reliable, more efficient data analyses for managing outages, Gopinathan says, the operator may consider automating more functions on the grid. "After a few rounds of testing, I think we'll have an idea about what is the right time to call it successful or not," he says.

California Set To Become First US State To Manage Power Outages With AI More | Reply

California Set To Become First US State To Manage Power Outages With AI

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  • it better handle lock out tag out or people can get killed

  • Can it manage reduce gridlock and improve traffic flow by improving signal coordination during rush hour?

    https://ladot.lacity.gov/proje... [lacity.gov]

    City of LA is already equipped with sensors and remote signal synchronization. Next logical step would be to couple it with slightly better adaptive prediction to squeeze a few more percentage points out of the existing traffic patterns...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      Can it manage reduce gridlock and improve traffic flow by improving signal coordination during rush hour?

      I think that is totally doable, but I'm not holding my breath for it to actually happen. If it worked, traffic would flow a few percent more smoothly, and only the traffic engineers would notice the difference. If it went wrong, anyone involved with the project would be mercilessly mocked, and their careers curtailed. Given that (combined with AIs' well-known penchant for occasionally going wrong), there's not a whole lot of motivation to implement such a system. Traffic engineers would prefer a system

      • It is not that different from a master-system back 30 years ago, although managing 100-1,000x nodes of what was practical then. The real challenge is if it becomes easier or harder to game-- assuming it is using machine learning and not primarily hard-coded, at least there isn't an instruction manual in code to show how to overwhelm the system.

        My concern is if it is designed to maximize ongoing reliability or to simply address first order impacts. The former is about 10x harder.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      Gridlock is a function of people not obeying the law, not signal timing. The solution to gridlock is providing actual disincentives (traffic enforcement) as opposed to what is being done right now (no traffic enforcement).

  • This seems like pretty basic work. Scan a document for keywords, look up scheduled outages, export to another system. They couldn't program that without AI?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by i kan reed ( 749298 )

      AI is first and foremost about threatening people's jobs.

      Not replacing people, it's not actually up to snuff to outright replace many real humans at work, but to say to your employees they'll be out if they don't stay cheap and productive? That's what the bosses love.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by narcc ( 412956 )

      Yes, they could. It would be quick, simple, and efficient. You could even call it AI.

      Of course, you'd have a hard time charging millions for a system like that.

    • You have about 100,000 nodes to work with, although there are subsets with no interdependencies. The opportunity for an automated system is to make decisions in a cascading failure situation fast enough to isolate problems, but this requires overriding some protective devices (relays) that would otherwise operate to protect things. It requires a holistic look for sure.

    • That's very far from what it would need to do.

      I've worked briefly with developing software for training human operators of national power grids how to handle emergencies.
      It is about having a cool head, to route round problems, and to bring plants on and off, all the while keeping supply in balance with demand. It is a delicate thing: if you don't do it right, you'll get rolling blackouts. And if you have had a blackout, you'd need to bring the system online again in a controlled manner.
      Even during normal op

  • So... (Score:3)

    by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @12:49AM (#65521518)

    How much power-that-California-doesn't-have will this AI require?

  • And so it starts... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    AI in control of the power that supplies hospitals, industry and... AIs. How exactly do you think this is going to pan out?

  • Will the AI shut itself down? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ken_g6 ( 775014 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @02:04AM (#65521604)

    To save power when the grid needs it?

    • To save power, it won't shut itself down, it will simply switch to using Thermo Electric Generation from body heat. Think "Matrix".
      "Soylent Green is people!"

    • AI doesn't use a lot of power when making decisions. It uses most of its power to train models. Once a model is trained it is often simple enough that it can run on a mobile phone.

      This is why for example it takes 3+ days to train a video editing model on what your face looks like, but can then fake your face on your webcam in real time. This is why it takes millions of GPU hours to teach an AI model what a "person" looks like, but when you click "Select person" in Lightroom it instantly outlines them.

    • No, it will identify and power down human uses first. It's a new flavor of nepotism between AI power grid managers and other AI instances.

    • To save power when the grid needs it?

      Although the headline says "manage," what the AI is actually doing is data gathering and analysis. That analysis is then handed off to a human who decides what to do, just as they have always done. It's just that the reports are more comprehensive and real-time.

  • California is also the first state (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PubJeezy ( 10299395 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @02:10AM (#65521610)
    California is also the first state where an energy company confessed to killing 80 people and was allowed to continue operating. So this actually makes sense. (source: https://apnews.com/article/678... [apnews.com])

    • Yes exactly. PGE is a conspiracy to kill for profit and the CPUC is a rubber stamping operation. This is on brand with California's proceeding enshittification. Newsom et al want to run our government like a business. No surprise given the Getty-derived wealth and power of that schmuck.

  • CA is being way too cocky about this. AI is still in its primitive stage. Every AI provider disclaims that their information is not guaranteed. Using this to manage electricity state-wide is literally playing with fires, of which we already have way more than we can handle, literally. In my opinion, leadership is so hell bent on politics that they forgot what their main job is. If you ask me, I don't trust them to manage a lemonade stand.
  • if power-consumption > power-production then increase-power-production() endif

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sique ( 173459 )
      How do you ensure 60 Hz synchronicity with your approach?
      • That is the generator control loop... If you didn't understand my sarcasm: Ordinary control logic is suddenly called "AI" these days. As a former colleague said: AI doesn't even exist, but machine learning does. A control loop isn't machine learning. If you let a computer "train" (optimize) the parameters of a model based on actual data, it can be called machine learning.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Sique ( 173459 )
          I would advice you to talk to some engineer from a power plant tasked with keeping the 60 Hz frequency for a larger network of power plants.

  • I suggest AInron

  • ... "AI is already transforming different industries. But we haven't seen many examples of it being used in our industry."...

    Why won't they solve homelessness before engaging in all this AI stuff?

    A great state that just cannot provide housing to its less fortunate is just so depressing!

    I guess I shouldn't blame them for the federal government has served as a mentor on the subject, sad!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Targon ( 17348 )

      Because Republicans will cry about spending money to buy huge buildings to house the homeless, then you need security, plus making sure that food is also available. How many people will complain about the amount of money being spent to actually deal with a problem instead of just blaming others and doing nothing?

    • Why won't they solve homelessness before engaging in all this AI stuff?

      Because the solution to homelessness is politically and socially unacceptable.

    • Why won't they solve homelessness before engaging in all this AI stuff?
      A great state that just cannot provide housing to its less fortunate is just so depressing!

      At least 20-25% of them are someone else's homeless by any measure. And I'd say that it's actually considerably more of them, because that's just the (approximate) percentage who came here after becoming homeless. Still more of them came here for work because there was no work in their home state, and then became homeless; I think we should count them, too. California has to pay for other states to function through our taxes, then we have to pay for their former citizens who left those states because those

    • Why won't they solve homelessness before engaging in all this AI stuff?

      Because homelessness would require the redistribution of wealth. California isn't quite as communist as people like to pretend. We're not going to take property from landlords and developers and give it to poor people that have no jobs and no lobbyists.

  • Fscking idiots (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @03:58AM (#65521746)

    It's electronic voting all over again.

    Government: Wow, electronic dohickies sound really great. Should we use them for voting?
    Every developer ever: My god no, that is the most terrifying thing I've ever heard.
    Government: Right-o, deploying them literally everywhere immediately after security assessment.
    Red team researcher: So I looked at these for a couple hours before heading over to buffet and found about 400 ways to exploit them in 30 minutes with a paperclip and scotch tape but I wasn't really trying and I'm pretty damn hung over.
    Government: Thank you for your honest assessment. *submits PO immediately*

    Now it's happening again but with AI. I'm sorry but if you are using this for anything beyond voice recognition and data mining (with a heavy dose of skepticism just like a real web search) then you are fscking idiot. I don't mean don't use it for mission critical stuff I mean don't use it for anything that matters even a little to you.

  • lolololololololol. Remember this is California.....

  • AI managed grid :o (Score:3)

    by Mirnotoriety ( 10462951 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @05:57AM (#65521846)
    > California's statewide power grid operator is poised to become the first in North America to deploy artificial intelligence to manage outages ..

    To be controlled through SCADA units connected over the Internet. What could possible go wrong?

    Aug 14 2003: Washington [computerworld.com] The W32.Blaster worm may have contributed to the cascading effect of the Aug. 14 blackout, government and industry experts revealed last week.

    Final Report on the August 14, 2003 Blackout in the United States and Canada [energy.gov]:

    The FirstEnergy SCADA system relied on a remote alarm processing unit to monitor and manage critical system alerts.

    This alarm processor failed silently because it wasn’t receiving updated data and alerts from the remote SCADA units (because of a Windows virus clogging up the Internet).

    The failure of the alarm processing unit was a key part of the blackout’s cascading effect, as operators at control centers didn’t get timely warnings about the system’s declining health.

    Jan 2003: Slammer worm crashed Ohio nuke plant net [theregister.com]
    • The unspoken addendum to this announcement is that it's an admission that, between the additional load of AI data centers and the charging of all the EVs that Governor Newsom wants everyone to drive, matched against the inherent intermittency of wind and solar power production (despite the pravda that the blackout affecting the entire Iberian peninsula on April 28 was not the fault of a sudden cutout of renewable production tripping protective cutouts), it will require an AI-driven monitoring and control sy

  • Turn off AI when they have a power shortage. :D
    migrate the workload to a data center somewhere else.

    • How it really works here with CAISO is they cut my solar power from the grid during a rolling blackout. So that I have plenty of power that I can't sell, and my neighbors have no power for their air conditioner.

      The AI datacenters start up the diesel and natural gas turbines in response to the planned outage, they often get an advanced and automated notice.

  • So, TFA says "Today, CAISO engineers scan outage reports for keywords about maintenance that's planned or in the works, read through the notes, and then load each item into the grid software system to run calculations on how a downed line or transformer might affect power supply."

    Sounds like there is already an actual piece of simulation software in place; but the people feeding it scenarios need to manually assemble them from outage reports and maintenance notes; because apparently you can perform, even
  • I think they need to watch the movie Colossus The Forbin Project. In the movie they build an AI system (Colossus) to protect against nuclear attack. California is building one to protect from power outages. Colossus connects to a similar Russian AI and begin talking to each other but the people don't understand what they are talking about. Some other state Washington or Oregon will build an AI to control their power grid. The AI machines controlling the grid are connected in a regional network and begin co

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Targon ( 17348 )

      A big issue really is about where to direct power, and putting limits in place so some jackass doesn't set up a crypto-mining operation that will draw the power of half the grid for personal profit at the expense of EVERYONE else.

      • so some jackass doesn't set up a crypto-mining operation

        In a sane world we would have solved that with fines and prison time.

      • I guess people are stupid, but california is not the place to do that. Electricity is expensive (relative to most other US states) and tiered.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      Yeah and exposing yourself to radiation will give you super powers because I saw it happen in a movie. Go ahead and give it a go.

  • SO A robot will control are power... SKynet party of one, SKynet party of one.
  • My experience using these to summarize things is that they are TERRIBLE with numbers. Words, by their nature, have a certain cadence and relationship. Numbers are just random digits to an LLM, 30 is no essentially no different than 30,000,000. In summary, enjoy having the wrong numbers at least 25% of the time.

  • you can't win (Score:3)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2025 @09:13AM (#65522066) Homepage Journal

    Artificial Intelligence will never beat Real Stupidity

  • AI, failing to make any positive contribution to society, to offset the job loss, lives ruined, millions without medical insurance, money given to billionaires, the de-mothballing of nuclear plants, content and copyright theft, unauthorized pornography....

  • It can't be worse than what Enron did. You got this California.

  • Let's put the algorithms for managing our critical infrastructure into a black box that cannot be audited, analyzed, or duplicated. What could possibly go wrong!

  • I am glad I have an over-sized solar electric system on my roof and a 12 hour backup battery.

  • Manage? Or create?

  • AKA (Score:2)

    by zkiwi34 ( 974563 )
    California is going to be more buggered than ever.

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