Hi guys! Marina Ventura here… your adventurer into the wonders of the world! I’m on a mission to explore one of the biggest adventures of the 21st century… the world of Artificial Intelligence and how it can benefit our future energy. Wanna come too? Excellent!

Today, we’re plugging into how AI is changing the way we power our lives.

AI can improve efficiency, reduce costs and drive innovation – from more accurate weather forecasting to help predict output of wind and solar farms to real-time monitoring and optimisation of the national grid carrying electricity to where it’s needed.

A big challenge for energy companies has always been to make sure there’s enough supply to meet demand. For many years, data analysts have had to monitor a large number of factors to make their predictions – including the weather, big sport and entertainment events, as well as the time of the day.

AI can help by analysing a vast amount of historical data as well as real-time information much quicker to forecast a change in consumer demand.

As well as forecasting demand, AI can also help energy companies select where to source electricity. Good quality weather predictions helps anticipate output of each wind and solar farms, and if they can contribute to the grid.

In recent years, our power network has had to change as production of electricity has shifted from a small number of large power stations to many small sources located across the country. For many year, human operatives would communicate directly with each power station. But as the number of energy plants increases substantially, AI can help make that communication much quicker and more effective, and improve grid management.

AI can also help improve the efficiency of Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage processes by optimising how we capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or sources of emission, helping reduce greenhouse gases and the impact of climate change.

AI is also helping design new carbon capture materials, like metal-organic frameworks that combine metal clusters with organic linkers, and covalent organic frameworks, which uses porous polymers.

So AI is great at help find solutions. But there’s a flip side. All these powerful AI systems need huge data centres – and those centres use enormous amounts of energy themselves. It’s predicted that by 2030, AI data centres might use as much electricity as entire countries such as Japan! That’s why technologists are using AI… to make AI itself more efficient!

There’s also another challenge – cybersecurity. With more of us using more energy than ever before, keeping the supply going is really important. AI can help detect and eradicate threats so our gadgets stay charged and the lights stay on. It can help defend energy generating plants and the grid itself from hackers, and also help protect sensitive data.

There’s certainly challenges to tackle along the way and talking of challenges…

MARINA MISSION!

So now over to you! I want you to have a think about one way AI could help you create future power. Perhaps a roof that turns rain into electricity, or a backpack solar panel to charge your gadgets on the go? Or how about hamster wheels that light up your bedroom while your pets exercise? Renewable AND adorable!

Click here to find out how to enter