The energy holding company will use AWS as its primary cloud provider for software development and migrate its information technology and grid analytics workloads to the latter’s cloud platform
Duke Energy collaborates with Amazon Web Services to develop new smart grid software and services. (Credit: Duke Energy Corporation)
Duke Energy has entered into a partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop new smart grid software and services on the latter’s cloud platform.
Through the multi-year collaboration, the US-based energy holding company aims to expand the Intelligent Grid Services suite of custom designed applications. The Duke Energy’s suite is expected to help it predict the future energy demand and determine where and how to update the power grid.
Alongside Duke Energy, AWS will develop cloud technologies to speed up and improve the cost-efficiency of the energy company’s grid-planning solutions.
Duke Energy will use AWS as its primary cloud provider for software development and migrate its information technology (IT) and grid analytics workloads to the cloud platform.
Duke Energy senior vice president and chief information officer Bonnie Titone said: “Our digital evolution is foundational to our clean energy transition. For example, to accurately simulate future energy needs and plan investments for the grid, we need to run hundreds of millions of power flow calculations – a process that would take weeks using traditional IT hardware.
“By using cloud technologies that AWS is developing for Duke Energy, we aim to run those same simulations in 15 minutes or less.”
Duke Energy plans to invest $145bn over the next decade in capital projects. A majority of the investment will be focussed on modernising its electric grid.
The investments are expected to enhance the grid’s reliability and resiliency and prepare it for the rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs).
By running the applications of Intelligent Grid Services on AWS, the American utility is said to gain actionable insights from millions of gigabytes of data at scale and speed.
AWS industry products general manager Sarah Cooper said: “Duke Energy and AWS share similar commitments to a smarter and cleaner energy future with net-zero carbon emissions.
“These Intelligent Grid Services leverage the proven scalability and reliability of the world’s leading cloud and will help Duke Energy meet energy demands while maximising the use of clean energy sources, such as solar and wind power, to serve their customers.”