Achieving dynamic power grid operations with AWS (ENU101)

Here is a detailed summary of the video transcription in markdown format, broken down into sections for better readability:

Electricity Demand and the Need for a Dynamic Grid

  • Electricity demand is expected to triple over the next two decades, driven by the electrification of everything from cars to cooktops.
  • The dramatic decrease in the cost of renewable power generation makes it the cheapest source of electricity to satisfy the increasing demand.
  • However, renewables are less predictable and more geographically spread than traditional power plant generation, leading to power grids around the world becoming congested and less reliable.
  • Grid operators are struggling to keep the lights on and need to find a better way to transition to clean energy.

Amazon's Commitment to Sustainability

  • Amazon co-founded the Climate Pledge, committing to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement.
  • Amazon continues to reduce emissions across its operations and encourage other companies to join in the pledge.
  • Transitioning to carbon-free energy is one of the highest impact ways to reduce emissions in the near term.
  • In 2023, Amazon was the world's largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, with 100% of its electricity consumption attributed to renewable energy sources.

Challenges Faced by Utilities

  • Rapid changes in the patterns of supply and demand on the power grid due to the increasing focus on renewable energy and the growth of distributed energy resources (DERs) like electric vehicles, solar panels, and batteries.
  • The existing grid was not built for the dynamic nature of today's supply and demand, and traditional approaches to planning, operating, and maintaining the grid no longer work.
  • Key challenges faced by utilities include:
    1. Lack of a single source of truth for the physical grid assets and operations.
    2. Difficulty in simulating power flows around the grid to plan for changes and respond to events.
    3. Limitations of existing metadata systems to leverage higher-frequency data from smart meters for real-time optimization of demand and supply.

AWS Solutions for Grid Transformation

  1. Duke Energy: AWS collaborated with Duke Energy to develop new technologies to support the transition to clean energy, including power flow simulations that can run 15 minutes on AWS compared to 6 weeks on-premises.
  2. Vector: AWS worked with Vector, a New Zealand energy company, to build a cloud-native energy data platform that collects and analyzes high-frequency smart meter data to offer customers richer insights for decarbonization.
  3. Pacific Northwest National Labs (PNNL): AWS helped PNNL perform a stochastic analysis of residential solar and EV adoption over 30 years, running 131 million power flow simulations in less than an hour to identify grid bottlenecks.

Conclusion

  • Reducing carbon emissions requires a shift to renewable energy, increasing electrification, and planning and operating a more dynamic power grid.
  • AWS is working with utilities and research labs around the world to identify applications and technologies for transforming the power grid and accelerating the transition to carbon-free renewable energy.
  • AWS is building, testing, and proving out the key enabling technologies that make the dynamic grid a reality.

Your Digital Journey deserves a great story.

Build one with us.

Cookies Icon

These cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with this website and allow us to remember you. We use this information to improve and customize your browsing experience, as well as for analytics.

If you decline, your information won’t be tracked when you visit this website. A single cookie will be used in your browser to remember your preference.

Talk to us