Using artificial intelligence and machine learning to manage the electricity grids of the future - Watt-Logic

Existing power grids were designed to transmit electricity over relatively short distances, however, increasingly grids are required to supply major cities from remote offshore wind farms at the same time as integrating local generation. With generators feeding variable amounts of energy from renewable sources into the grid at all voltage levels, it is more difficult to balance supply and demand, and the risks of overloads and fluctuations increase. By 2020 it is estimated that there will be over 50 billion smart devices connected to the internet, creating vast quantities of data which can be harnessed to develop smart systems for managing electricity systems, both at a local and national level to reduce the costs of balancing the electricity system. Relying on traditional linear mathematical models to manage these processes is not feasible, since both the manpower required to encode the models and the computing power to process them would be extremely large. A more real-time approach is required.