Amazon Web Services in September announced Agentic Grid Planning on AWS, a program that helps utilities accelerate interconnection studies by providing access to AWS-managed AI agents.
"Duke Energy, the collaborating utility, has seen data preparation tasks go from two weeks of manual work to hours utilizing these agents. The program addresses a critical challenge as interconnection studies grow in volume and complexity," AWS said.
"Through this program, utilities gain access to AI agents that carry out study workflows using the physics-based simulation software, grid models, scripts, and engineering standards their teams already use and trust," it said.
AWS said this enables power systems engineers to complete studies faster, analyze more scenarios and options, and focus on engineering judgment and decisions, while preserving a versioned, reviewable record. Engineers direct the study and make final engineering decisions. The simulation software performs the deterministic modeling and analysis, and the AI agents run and coordinate the study workflow.
AWS worked closely with Duke Energy engineers to help build out Agentic Grid Planning on AWS. "Duke Energy brought the transmission planning expertise and provided ongoing feedback, which was critical to the development of these AI agents," AWS said.
Duke Energy engineers are now working with agents to automate and enhance key components of the interconnection study process, streamline data preparation, analysis execution, and workflow coordination.
Duke Energy aims to increase planners’ capacity, improve efficiency, and support future innovation across the interconnection process. Duke Energy and AWS are also working to expand these capabilities more broadly into large load planning workflows and lay the foundation for load and generation studies.
Across the industry, interconnection processes are changing to shorten study timelines and provide greater certainty, AWS noted.
FERC Order No. 2023 requires transmission providers to use first-ready, first-served cluster studies and meet study deadlines for generator interconnection, while ERCOT, NYISO, and SPP are also developing new interconnection processes for large loads. Agentic Grid Planning on AWS helps address these requirements, the company said.
Agentic Grid Planning on AWS is available to qualified utilities and grid operators. AWS Professional Services is available to support integration if needed.
To learn more, visit aws.amazon.com/energy-utilities/agentic-grid-planning.
