How Are Utility Professionals Likely to Leverage AI in the Coming Years?

By Oscar Collins

Utility systems are becoming more complex. With electricity and solar demand growing amid a focus on decarbonization, AI plays an increasingly significant role in identifying anomalies and trends in massive datasets.

With the amount of data in the utility industry, AI is positioned to improve your customer engagement, regulatory compliance, and grid safety and stability while providing opportunities for you to improve energy efficiency.

Customer Engagement and Support

Residential utility consumers appreciate support and engagement from their providers and often welcome additional utility services. Enhanced electrical usage monitoring and management could see utility professionals leverage AI to make improvements by partnering with organizations from different industries — using AI to bring more customer-centric services to fruition.

With utilities’ existing data, AI has the data caches required for machine learning (ML). If professionals utilize AI algorithms to access and learn from this incredible source of information, they could reach enhanced customer personalization levels. They could identify consumer behavior patterns by analyzing emotion in telephone voice recordings and email dialogue to identify and remedy individual pain points and needs.

Utility companies could incorporate AI to identify residential consumers’ specific appliance use by applying ML algorithms to individual smart meter data and monthly readings. As with the smart tech prevalent in most homes, utility companies could incorporate new AI features into existing smart meters to improve ML scope and provide targeted feedback to clients.

Many utilities use bulk marketing to promote efficiency, which may be marked as spam if promotions don’t pertain to a particular customer. For example, promotions for swimming pool pump upgrades to customers who don’t own a pool or energy-efficient appliance advertisements to consumers who have recently upgraded their appliances could be irrelevant.

Targeted AI data analysis and presentation would allow providers to send relevant information, targeting the right consumers and increasing conversion rates.

Regulatory Compliance

Other industries leverage AI for regulatory compliance. In the Fire and EMS industry, AI assists fire marshals and inspectors in enforcing inspection codes for safety regulation and maintenance. AI analyzes inspection images, identifies violations and enhances efficiency by suggesting remedies. Fire and EMS professionals use AI tools to streamline documentation, strengthen quality assurance and provide predictive analytics.

In the utilities industry, compliance burdens differ somewhat, with providers carrying the major burdens instead of consumers. In 2024, a Louisiana-based utility company paid $12 million in penalties for failure to maintain internal accounting controls in compliance with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. Penalty risks are increasing due to growing regulatory complexity. However, utility professionals can use AI to formulate compliance solutions.

Failure to comply can incapacitate utility operations and erode consumer trust. Many utilities operate manually, which is expensive and risks human error. Those already leveraging AI often automate regulatory monitoring to identify mistakes and reduce audit preparations. Automated risk monitoring can potentially save in compliance-related fees. AI algorithms enhance regulatory compliance in the industry in the following ways:

• Increasing data transparency: Continual data source audits enable AI identification of billing data errors by tracking accounts and providing detailed audit trails.
• Improving collaboration with regulators: Real-time compliance metric reports allow AI to collaborate transparently with regulators while providing relevant information for assessing and validating regulatory data.
• Advancing risk management protocols: AI algorithms streamline operations and improve overall efficiency, safeguarding against third-party data leaks by flagging potential data sharing irregularities and risks. Continual ML monitoring identifies abnormal contextual and historical access patterns and encrypts sensitive data to become indecipherable to unauthorized users.

Power Grid Safety and Stability

Leveraging AI provides power grid predictive maintenance through various machine learning algorithms that constantly monitor the grids’ physical assets. AI monitors and controls the distribution sector and other network power flow by pulling and using data from sensors, smart meters and other Internet-of-things instruments. Doing so means a safer and more stable power grid.

Various AI-based products operate worldwide, ensuring power grid stability and safety. For instance, the Chinese utility monopoly State Grid Corporation of China uses AI technology to monitor power cables. According to the company’s inspection department director, the monitoring system has an over 90% accuracy rating in the country.

AI technology is changing the global face of utility monitoring and maintenance, providing enhanced security, reduced safety risks, and advanced grid monitoring efficiency and stability. Utility professionals will likely leverage AI to do even more in this essential utility sector.

Improved Energy Efficiency

Questions have surfaced about how energy-efficient AI implementation is for utilities. Much depends on how professionals leverage it, but there’s room for AI in utility energy conservation for computer hardware and software. State-of-the-art computer chips use almost 100% less energy for calculations than 2008 chip models, and chip efficiency is increasing. With added cooling technology advancement, AI standards are reaching new efficiency levels.

While energy efficiency in utility data center operations is unpredictable, many experts are improving transparency. To become more transparent, incorporating AI innovatively in other areas could assist in measuring energy consumption and identifying ways of enhancing efficiency.

AI Leverage Provides Solutions for Utility Professionals

The rapid progression of AI technology makes anticipating its future use in the utility industry difficult. However, leveraging AI can provide new avenues for improvements in consumer support, regulatory compliance, energy efficiency, and the safety and stability of utility grids.

Besides known methods, ever-changing times mean new, positive uses for AI implementation are always on the horizon.

Oscar Collins is the editor-in-chief at Modded. He’s written for sites like Contractor and StartupNation. Follow him on Twitter at @TModded for frequent updates on his work.