Duke Energy, one of America’s largest energy holding companies, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), are entering a multiyear strategic collaboration to accelerate the utility’s development of smart grid solutions, including new smart grid software and an expansion of their Intelligent Grid Services.

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Duke Energy will build new smart grid software and services on AWS and expand its Intelligent Grid Services – a suite of custom-built applications that help the utility anticipate future energy demand and identify where and how to update the power grid.

AWS will work alongside Duke Energy to build out cloud technologies to support Duke Energy’s grid-planning solutions, so they run faster and more cost-effectively.

This collaboration will further Duke Energy’s commitment to use AWS as its primary cloud provider for software development. The utility is also migrating Information Technology (IT) and grid analytics workloads to AWS.

“Our digital evolution is foundational to our clean energy transition,” said Bonnie Titone, senior vice president and chief information officer at Duke Energy.

“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.”

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These simulations – and other analytics made possible by Duke Energy’s Intelligent Grid Services applications on AWS – deliver insights that will help the utility continue its data-driven grid investment plans.

The applications can forecast where needs will be greatest on the grid and estimate the amount of load the distribution system can accommodate without impacting power quality or reliability.

They are further hoped to recommend the most cost-effective grid solutions needed to meet the evolving needs of customers.

“Duke Energy and AWS share similar commitments to a smarter and cleaner energy future with net-zero carbon emissions,” added Sarah Cooper, general manager of AWS Industry Products.

“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 use of clean energy sources, such as solar and wind power, to serve their customers.”

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Duke Energy is executing a clean energy strategy to create a smarter energy future for its customers and communities. This includes investing $145 billion over the next decade in capital projects, the majority of which will go toward modernising the nation’s largest electric grid.

These investments will improve the grid’s reliability and resiliency, connect a growing number of renewables and prepare the grid for rapid electric vehicle adoption.