With unprecedented heat and other extreme weather becoming commonplace—from tropical storms in California to record rainfall in Asia to heatwaves in Arizona and northern Mexico—utility companies have an urgent challenge: Prepare for existential climate threats. That’s why Rudy Wynter, president of National Grid’s New York business, is ultra focused on the power grid of tomorrow.
Wynter considers grid resilience a top priority amid the changing weather patterns. Building the power grid of tomorrow requires innovative transmission infrastructure, advanced workforce training and community-centered initiatives. And behind much of Wynter’s work is predictive data analysis made possible by artificial intelligence (AI).
Wynter’s approach to spearheading New York’s groundbreaking grid transformation includes five components.
Grid resilience was previously seen as a capacity issue: Build more power plants and the problem will be solved. Today, forward-thinking utilities like National Grid view that idea as a hammer looking for a nail. The real challenge, says Wynter, is modernizing the distribution of energy, which includes transmitting renewables, like solar and wind, that don’t generate power 24/7. “We need to use more renewable power, but we also need the infrastructure to store and move that power around,” says Wynter.
As an example, Calverton Solar Energy Center on Long Island recently marked its one-year anniversary of providing 22.9 megawatts of electricity to power more than 4,200 households. “Instead of building more power lines to meet peak need, we depend on the solar field and battery energy storage there to meet those needs,” he says.
An early adopter of and investor in AI, National Grid now generates powerful data for asset mapping, predictive grid-impact scenarios and mitigation interventions. “We’re using AI data and satellite imagery to help us target which trees to trim at what time,” he says. “AI also helps us predict how electricity is going to flow on any given day and where a problem is likely to occur.”
In addition to building state-of-the-art infrastructure, Wynter stresses the importance of updating current assets. “Not everything is about building new,” he says. That goes for upgrading power plants as well as drafty homes. He says weatherizing New York’s old homes, apartment buildings and businesses is crucial to curb peak energy use and achieve renewable targets.
The increase in demand for new and upgraded infrastructure brings a growing need for skilled labor. National Grid partners with community nonprofits to train people for these high-demand positions. One recent initiative trained public housing residents in heat pump installation and maintenance, as well as home weatherization. “This country is going to need literally an army of people who are experts in doing energy audits,” he says.