Edison Foundation
Raiford Smith is Chief Utility Innovation Officer at AES Corp.
More than a dozen thought leaders and decision makers took the stage at the Edison Foundation's Institute for Electric Innovation's 13th annual Powering the People event in Washington D.C. Enjoy these excerpts.
Raiford Smith: It's more of a master of cheerleading, because so much of what happens in the utility is based on that momentum. In terms of what we're using AI for, what we're using it for is it really touches all of our business, from better understanding our customers.
Ted mentioned it earlier, he said, "I like to think of it as a customer or a segment of one." I always said, "How many segments do we need? Well, first, start by counting, how many customers do we have? That's how many segments we start with."
But we have areas that are going on there to better understand the consumer. From that understanding of the consumer, that helps us better understand the impacts to the grid. If you can predict where those new opportunities are coming from, then you can start to understand how to better plan, design, and ultimately, run your grid.
The power grid is the secondary. The third is understanding all of that also drives us in terms of generation. How do we think about using our assets more efficiently and effectively, of course, but even better, how do we get to that sustainable goal faster?