My social media feed last weekend featured some dazzling pictures of the Northern Lights across the country. I hope you were fortunate to experience the sights as well. The weather did not cooperate in my neighborhood, so I missed it. However, I jumped on my bike for a long-distance training ride and turned on all my fancy gizmos that track my distance and pace and use radar to alert me to upcoming cars behind me. For some reason, my GPS unit would not track distances until I reset it several times. One of my fellow riders mentioned that farmers in midst of spring planting found themselves sidelined in their fields with the GPS controlling their precision planting equipment disabled by the solar storm. Who knows if that is what happened to my little GPS tracker, but the experience sent me down a rabbit hole of internet searches for the impact of the intense solar storm. I found lots of stories about the proactive work of grid operators to ensure the lights stayed on, but no stories about any grid impacts as a result of the storm. I am hopeful that the focus on resilience investments over the last decade resulted in minimal disruption to the nation’s grid.

GridWise Alliance Convening on AI and Utility Operations

On June 12, the GridWise Alliance will host an in-person convening in Washington, DC with members and federal and state policy makers to explore how utilities are currently using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how technology solution providers are planning to incorporate AI into new products. We will also hear from Biden Administration officials and others about current AI policies and gaps in knowledge about AI adoption. This meeting will inform a survey of our members and subsequent white paper that will highlight key findings from the survey

Sincerely,

Karen Wayland