168 - The Digital Grid: Blueprint for the Future of Power Distribution with GE Vernova's Mahesh Sudhakaran

In this week’s captivating episode of the Insiders Guide to Energy, we delve into the future of energy management and grid modernization with the insightful Mahesh Sudhakaran, General Manager of Grid Software at GE Vernova. As the energy landscape undergoes a monumental shift towards sustainability and efficiency, Mahesh shares his expert perspective on the vital role software plays in orchestrating the complex, multi-directional flow of energy across modern grids.

GE Vernova stands at the cutting edge of this transformation, leading the charge in developing software solutions that address the intricacies of today’s energy networks. From the traditional unidirectional grids to today’s dynamic, omnidirectional systems, Mahesh discusses the foundational changes necessary to manage the electric network efficiently. The integration of software, data, and AI into operational systems marks a pivotal advancement in the energy sector, promising unparalleled efficiency and control.

Mahesh explores the challenges and opportunities brought forth by the electrification of everything—from residential heating to electric vehicles. He emphasizes the importance of software in dynamically balancing the load across the grid, optimizing existing infrastructure, and paving the way for a more sustainable energy future. The conversation touches upon the innovative concept of dynamic line rating and the role of software in enabling utilities to maximize the capacity of their current networks.

The episode also ventures into the collaboration and interoperability required among transmission networks, distribution networks, and edge-based systems to achieve an optimized, end-to-end energy flow. Mahesh highlights the significance of combining IT and OT data to generate actionable insights, the journey towards an autonomous grid powered by AI, and the critical role of cybersecurity in safeguarding the future of energy management.

Tune in for an enlightening discussion on how GE Vernova is redefining the energy landscape through innovative grid software solutions. Mahesh Sudhakaran’s vision for a future where software serves as the grid's copilot offers a glimpse into the exciting advancements and challenges that lie ahead in the journey toward grid modernization and energy sustainability. Don't miss this episode if you're eager to understand the pivotal role of technology in the evolution of the global energy grid.

Transcript

00:00.00 

chrissass 

Welcome to this week’s edition of Insiders Guide to Energy. I’m your host Chris Sass, and with me Im honored to have Mahesh Sudhakaran, General Manager of Grid Software at GE Vernova. This week’s episode is going to take a software path. We’re going to talk about the complexities of running a modern grid. Mahesh is going to start off by walking us through some of the changes during the evolution of the grid and why it needs a control plane to orchestrate energy, moving forward. Near-term may be a more efficient way of using transmission lines, getting data ready for future things and having data driven decisions where we can feed data in. Mahesh is going to explain all that!  

03:09.37 

chrissass 

Mahesh, the grid has changed quite a bit in recent years and it's developed into distributed energy resources and things like that can you help me understand what some of the challenges are of this evolution? 

03:26.93 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Absolutely right. when when you look at the electric grid almost all dimensions of the electric grid is changing the topology of the grid is changing. So but if you look at transmission distribution and edge networks now the broad definition of each of these things are changing because. Distribution networks and are starting to behave like transmission Networks Transmission Networks are starting to behave like distribution networks. So this needs a foundational change in how we manage the electric network. We commonly talk about the grid going from unidirectional to bidirectional. Ah, but but now it is going to omnidirectional or multi-directional right? and that requires an absolutely new paradigm on how you manage to grich this paradigm requires software because when you have complexity in any system you need software to help manage this at scale and we are seeing. Ah, for the first time a lot more software data and Ai get into operational systems and I think I think that is going to fundamentally change how the management or orchestration of the grid is done. 

04:29.72 

chrissass 

And you talked about the different letter pools. You're talking about different directions. How do things like evs and electrification of just about everything play into this. 

04:41.21 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, see electrification um of everything starting from um what we talk about residential heating and and evs is something that is more common but electrification as a trend is going to be a lot more pervasive and it's going to start getting into industrial heat and I hai over period of time. But electrification is extremely essential for us as the world especially electrification is fed with ah carbon freee um sources it gets the world with sustainability faster. It's an important mega drink but electrification also brings new challenges. Right? because ah the electric networks today were size for a particular volume. Ah now with electrification the the number of devices even at at our our own homes the number of devices that consume electricity is going up right? And if you look at just the substation outside. Ah, the pos and breakers out so they were not designed for that kind of electric ah load now the answer to every question could be let's put in more wires and cables or put in more big eye and yes that could be a longer term solution because that has to be done over a period of time but on the shorter term. There's an opportunity to manage some of these with software because software helps you and optimize a network and use it at full scale. So. There's an option to use software to start doing this dynamic load balancing or range engine and that is something that I'm a lot more excited about. 

06:07.51 

chrissass 

All right? So you're saying that dynamic load balancing. We've been balancing networks for quite some time. That's not a new concept. What's new about the way we're doing it with software today that we didn't do let's say ten years ago 

06:23.96 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, it is the sheer size veracity and volume right? if you look at at that in the past in the past you the system's a lot more deterministic right? and the loads that you used to deal with were a lot more understood and the variations were always within finite bounds. So now what is happening is both on the on the transmission distribution side. Yeah, let the role loads are becoming probabilistic if you look at if you look at a generation source like wind or solar. It is driven by climatic conditions right? The big determin is weather and weather changes. And that has to become that is starting to become an input criteria into some of these systems similarly if you look at evs the evs are the classic dynamic mobile load right? So and how an ev injects and where does an ev injected different parts of the day. Especially as a fleet are very different problems. These problems need understanding and also an ability to forecast and simulate what is going to happen and then based on the forecasting and simulation. You can start planning and all of this is underpinned with software today and and. Software is going to get more and more embedded in these processes going forward. 

07:34.28 

chrissass 

All right? So I understand a fleet concept with evs or or light vehicles like trucks and the impact and you could plan around that. But if you if you started in your opening statement saying that we're oversubscribing. Everything's getting electrified your your home has a lot more. Ah, you said you you could fix it with bigger pipes but you basically aren't doing that today just because of the overhead and the time to get there. How is the software getting more out of the existing infrastructure. So. 

08:05.30 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, multiple examples right? Ah Chris let's let just take a example that'ss very easier to understand if you look at a classic transmission network transmiion networks are loaded and rated for a particular capacity now with something called dynamic line rating or dlr. Ah, which is a which is in the industry term called nonwired alternative alternative. We can apply a non-wide alternative that is aka applying software. You can dynamically change the rating of a line based on the weather condition that's in in certain weather condition. You can actually. Ah. To your plumber your example of pipes you can push more in the pipe and certain certain cases. You can't right and this is a combination about temperature and wind conditions. We can model that today so we can actually use the existing network and do more ah with the limited capacity we have and that is a very good example of. Not necessarily putting more hardware into the ground but using software to produce at scale similarly I would give an example of electric vehicles when do you charge and like you your objective is to charge an electric vehicle at the right cost now when do you charge it can be something that software can help determine. And that is another example of using software combined with the the physics of the network to decide what the optimum charge point is and that can delineate and also alleviate. Ah, some of the challenges and network faces imagine doing this at scale that unlocks a lot of value. 

09:30.79 

chrissass 

Well scale comes up at one angle. The other thing I think of is you have transmission Networks you have distribution Networks. You have seems like multiple players. How do they talk to each other and do this across end to end. Right? If you're going to make a forecast across end to end all the way down to a user or a fleet or a commercial user. How's that work. 

09:53.34 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

So I think Chris this is this is still early stage right now because if you look at Promission Networks Distribution Networks on the classic derms or edge-based networks. They're fundamentally 3 different silos in the electric network and based on geographies and countries. There's so many variations of this. But 1 thing is something we as ge believe in is you have to have visibility across transmission distribution and edge to actually run the network of the future and we call it orchestrating across Dd in termss What do you mean by orchestration what you orchestraing is the data and the situational awareness across. All of these networks to optimize the best answer right? So interoperability and data is what becomes extremely critical like like with anything that you would say the more information and more visibility have ah of a particular challenge. The better decisions you can take. And like running electric network is only getting more challenging so more visibility and more data you have you will it'll lead to better insights and better decisions. 

10:53.84 

chrissass 

Let's talk about the data because data means so many different things to so many different people when you're saying more data What specific kind of data. Are we talking about and how do we get it into a format that we can use it make it actionable. 

11:09.30 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, absolutely right? So if you look at data primarily when when a u should talk about data I would define the data into it data and ot data lot of the modernization discussion that has happened in the utteries of the past say a decade or so has been on the it side. It's about. Smart metering data. It is about billing data and all with the purpose of understanding the customer better right? And and there's some good outcomes achieved from that. But what was left out as ot data ot data is the data from all the operational systems that actually run the record grid. So the the systems like an adms and an ems which runs the translation network and also a dump solution which manages distribution. This data was left out of the equation because this data which is realtime was more difficult to access now unless you marry it data and ot data together. You're not going to lead to actionable insights that are required to solve these problems so one of the things that Vsg have done is taken our experience of the physics of the network through our applications that we understand pretty well and we do that for a large amount of customers marrying that with an acquisition that we did. Called Greenberg who who is specialist in data bringing those 2 expertise together and we launched a capability called grios connect. So this capability helps expose ot and it data in ah in a structured manner that is actually usable. 

12:38.32 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Now Now we can actually unlock this data to drive many use cases and and we could talk more about that. 

12:39.91 

chrissass 

All right? So the name grid os implies. It's an operating system for the entire grid is that what the the name should be implying. 

12:51.97 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, that is our ambition or a period of France a grido is is the capability set that we have launched on the market last year which is our attempt to have a common operating operating system fabric across transmission distribution on the edge. And we build the operational capability today. Our ideas should do this at scale or what we're trying to do here is for a period of time and additional capability to this portfolio to ensure we solve this problem of modernization at scale. And gros connect is just an extension of what we have been doing over the past two years 

13:22.43 

chrissass 

And then when you have this data with so many different stakeholders are there concerns about who owns the data and who can see the data is that one of the reasons this hasn't happened already. 

13:35.85 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

The Ah yes because the end of the day this ah this a data that is the operational data to run a network So This is this the most important data for a utility. So One of the things that of course is this has to be done in a federated manner. There are dimensions of cybersec security that are extremely important because end of the day. These are the systems that run the electric grid so managing Cybersec security is important and what is the posture you're going to have for Cyber Security. We Ah G believe in the concept of 0 trust which means every every interaction in a network has to be done in a way where it's encrypted. And not only that every interaction needs to be verified so that is our ethos on how we look at data around the Ot dimension. Having said that this is a data that the utility owns and it is not owned by us. It is owned by the utility we help expose this data for a utility or a provider. Develop additional applications on top of so that is that is something that is very clear from our operating model. 

14:35.95 

chrissass 

Okay, so I'll take a face value the security aspect that you just described I attack the data but when I have this data in a modern world I don't think I can read anything about technology and not hear about Ai today so is Ai a part of the solution then is are we taking this data and. And doing something with the data now is. 

14:56.83 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, yeah, ah course you bring up a very important point there. A lot of folks who talk about Ai and and Ai is very thematic as we're having this conversation I want to first start by opening by saying you cannot do ai any kind of Ai without data. Right? And you cannot do uterity Ai without rot data. It's it's only now with the capability that we're bringing to market that we can expose this data now an ai system is as good as the data. It's trained on so this is going to be the attempted job applying Ai on the ot domain I would give you an example. Like something that we all can understand ev charging if you have to charge an ev with sustainable energy. Ah at the right price point. It is a combination of a forecasting problem. It's a scheduling problem. It's a price problem. It's also market and trading problem. All of these different capabilities need to come together each of these capabilities and models that need to interact with each other and that at its very basic is is how we're going to start applying Ai in the utility domain. 

16:11.50 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Chris you're unm mute I got here. 

16:13.22 

chrissass 

So from a leadership in the organization. Those are separate Silos ah those are just different work functions or tracks. So How do you get the stakeholders across to to have one tool to do all those things you just described because those aren't necessarily the same responsibility by the same individual. As you described it. 

16:30.42 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Absolutely right? So One of the things that you actually said look as you're going into this world of Interoper Interoperability Matters interoper transmission distribution and on the edge would Matter. It is not not in all cases today. But if if you are able to draw a line into the Future. You'll stop seeing that these are all going to be systems that need to talk to each other uiles per say in the past these systems were campus systems as in these are systems that only were required to run a particular operations that error is soon limited because as you get onto the like. For so ah for use cases on the distribution Side. You need to have awareness on what's happening in transmission if you for use cases on the distribution Side. You need to understand how your virtual power plants are operating and how they are getting sized so all of these become interdependent problems and if you look at at the code. Ah,, there's some work to be done at what is an operating model of ah, uter releasespu and what what dimensions do we start exchanging data where do we share data or who owns the data and end of the day. What use cases can you derive. I Believe that as you look at energy transition. This is not just about having one player I thought just Ge or it's not just somebody else. It is about having the right set of stakeholders coming together to build a solution right? then I would say this is this is team sport at scale. 

17:55.94 

chrissass 

Now is there value if in incrementally people coming on board because maybe not all the utilities are at the same place. So my experience in doing energy is no 2 companies are the same digital maturity. They're all at different points on that journey. So how do we bring utilities on to this. Connecttivity and operational. You know ability if only some of them are ready today. No. 

18:20.36 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Ah, Chris this is something that some somebody very wise told me when I started my career in the utilities right? I see they only utility businesses is that is is all about ah being first to be second right? So everybody wants to be a fast follower and not the first person right. Having said that there are some leading utilities that are trailb blazing here because for the first time in many years right some of these problems cannot be specified in an ah Rfp or a requirement. This is a place where a lot of co-creation needs to happen because the solutions are not well understood. This is the place where some of the leading utrateities in the world are actually working with us to start building the solutions but there are also as many fast followers who are coming and taking some of these solutions earlier. This is a place where and ah all utrates need to like come along because. If you look at phenomenal like weather and climate it does not differentiate between a leading utility and a following utility. It affects everybody equally right? So there is an opportunity for all utilityies to take lead but again applying technology and capabilities right? It has to be done in a very balanced manner. The end of the day ah technology. It's about delivering value in a safe affordable reliable manner. It is not just technology for technology sake. 

19:37.47 

chrissass 

And what makes the timing of today. What what makes a Ceo or 1 of the c-suite of one of these utilities wake up and say today's the day we start this project whyn't why now? um. 

19:47.43 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, it is it is because of of what our the uterility Ceo are seeing right? So if you look at. 1 example is climate and weather. It is is only getting more adverse the number of weather phenomena that's unpredictable coming in every year it is at an all-time high. 1 cyber security and so this is ended of there. Its critical national infrastructure cyber security challenges are at an alltime high not other than that if you look at the you the the data tsunami that is happening at every single ot system and also even the it system is it an all-time high. And again this for this for the first time in many in many years the electric network is so critical for electrification right? So these are these are fundamental forces that are actually converging at at 1 time now. So this is an opportunity to like take action. Because the utilities that are going to take action at this stage are going to be the utilities that are going to be in the future as leaders. So as utility ceos this an opportunity to ah take that leadership. 

20:49.13 

chrissass 

I Ah heard you say earlier in the interview that part of the reason you do This is you can get more you more capacity out of the existing infrastructure and I've also heard you talk about operational. So is this an operational savings or capex savings if I go down this path cool. 

21:06.50 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

See the end of the day if you look at end of the data unlocks a lot of value right? and and and the example I gave you is dynamic line reading so dynamic line reading helps you avoid putting new big guy and or big cop as that as you look at it on the ground right? So it definitely helps you with capex savings. It also helps you with opec savings because end of the day. Ah, you're operating the grid. Um at at a similar volume yesterday right? So so the savings happen across board dimension. What is more important is is value. You're getting value today versus value after say 5 years but after doing a large. Infrastructure project so foring when I look at this this is a value conversation. Software is the fastest part for you to get to value and I think the non-wired alternatives as it's called now is one approach to look at this problem again. This is not only solution. This is part of a toolkit. 

22:01.54 

chrissass 

And how disruptive is this to their status quo or doing business as usual to to change as model is it disruptive or do they have the talent and skills in-house to absorb this kind of technology. 

22:03.22 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Ah, that ah utility needs supply. 

22:18.39 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

So I think the the answer varies across utilities like what I would say it's it is ah it's a range. There are some leading utilities that have got technology capabilities that rival technology companies that have quite a few of those about there right? So for them. This is a question of adoption. There are utilities on the other end of the spectrum are going through ah learning and understanding of the technology so they're taking a more pragmatic and prudent approach because they ought to test this out in in in certain service teries before they make it across all service ter so there's an incremental approach but the answer is not 1 or the other. Right? end of the day this these are prun capabilities that I value and ah more and more I see them getting adoption because this is the fastest way for a utility to serve customers and an affordable man. 

23:01.99 

chrissass 

Is this a decision that's usually made by operations or is it more a front office kind of a thing where where are the folks that are looking for this advantage coming from that are coming to you to look at the software. 

23:15.69 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

More and more this is becoming a c-suite conversation right? So this not just in the past some of these decisions where operational decisions are the operations head of the house but more and more these are business resilience discussions right? when you look at a utility of reliability resilience. Um, and caparies are affordability. These are all c-suite decisions because end of the day. How do you deploy software at scale and I think chris v you and I talked about it right? There are a lot of Parallels. What's happening in the industry with the with the teleco telecommunication industry. Which went from a very hardware-based industry to software defined industry. A lot of the control. The control plane is software defined similarly in the utility today if you look get across transmission distribution and at the edge. Ah there's ah, there's a combination of hardware and software that exists more and more. Ah, given the complexity of these networks. You will see software becoming the control plane right? and when when you're talking about control planes and how do you manage this? these are business decisions that need to be done on the speedsue and I see more and more of this. Ah, the Ceo the ceos getting involved in this decision. 

24:25.90 

chrissass 

Is there standards that need to be worried about right now to make this work universally or are there standards already in place that that you are using or are you becoming the de facto standard by doing this. 

24:41.40 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, this is something that I think the one thing I'm I'm so proud about the utility Industry. It's one of the most collaborative industries in the World. So This is something that is being built with our customers in in the uterility Domain. You don't you don't get innovation on its own. All innovation is built with customers. So again, standard bodies matter a lot of these are based on open standards which are adopted from other Industries. So These are not net new capabilities of standards that we are Creating. We are adopting standards that come from other industries right? And also there's ah, there's a lot of work that's happening with. 

25:09.86 

chrissass 

Or. 

25:14.12 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Ah, the standard bodies including aropple. There's a lot of work that's happening with the research labs. This is something that I'm very heartened by what the houses industry operates. It's it's collaboration. It's teamsport. 

25:22.99 

chrissass 

Help me understand the roadmap of what we're talking about today. We we talked about data. Let's let's let's maybe spend a little bit more time on the technology of what you're doing and go through the phases of of how you envision this rolling out through a utility. So. 

25:38.94 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

So the way I let's look at it from or let me give you the the highest level view rights end of the our our ambition as as g or no and as and within that good software. We believe that the grids into the future. We have a lot of autonomous operations. There's going to be a lot of Ai that is that's going to involved in running and managing a grid so an autonomous grid is where the end state would be now is end state will happen or ten years twenty years thirty years that is that's welcome a debate because this has to go through a lot of operational challenges to get there. What is happening today today I think the value is interoperability across transmission distribution and ed systems now with the capability that we are bringing to market. We have made this a reality now. Now we can have transmision systems talking to distribution systems talking to edge so the topics around. Situational awareness forecasting simulation which are core building blocks for any operational systems. They are getting more and more high fidelity and over a period of time we want these building blocks to become. Ah first thing. More more generally available and in almost all systems. So this's some standardization happening there. But again as a laidout into the future. The idea is to have more and more of these decision making being done in an auto autonomous manner for us for a plain reason that you need software and and also ai. 

27:08.95 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Take these complex decisions because they they go beyond the capability of a human operator operator to manage given the sheer scale and volume. So that is a future that we envisci in that and we are working very hard with our utility partners to build capabilities to get there. 

27:21.20 

chrissass 

Are we at the point today where it is too much data and the speed that you need to make decisions is too much for a human already at today's environment 

27:32.27 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

It is already getting there now if you imagine a scenario where and you have a large solar plant in your service territory and the weather is changing now these are becoming large distributed loads imagine you have a fleet of evs that need to be charged. And a particular substation. It's a challenge imagine you have a major weather event coming into your geography which is unlike any weather event that you've seen in the past ten years these are all situations that are happening today. So because of this reason. Ah, the industry is recognizing that we need to apply software more pervasively to be in a position to react faster and also react effectively. So I see this happening today. But I believe that over a period of time this will this will lead to this is going to become ah a standard operating model. 

28:20.75 

chrissass 

And these operations are they all Cloud based I'm assuming that the offerings are. 

28:27.67 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

These are not cloudbased today because one of the little you brought up cybersecurity you brought up regulation and also you talked about these are these are these are these are what I would call the cloud jewells so over a period of time these would yeah my my belief is this would be running on the cloud. And the future but we have to chart a journey to get there right now they are run in a combination of a private cloud environment or on-prem and also hybrid environment. But I think the eventual destination is the cloud but we will go through a hybrid step but some of these systems given the criticality. And the cyber security nature of what we run will will be running on ah on a private environment for a while. 

29:07.27 

chrissass 

So is that dictated by the utilities concern or Doe policy. 

29:16.80 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, it. It is a combination right? It's also about technology maturity right? Ah so it's a combination regulation definitely doesn't play a role but again ah the other beyond regulation. It's about technology writers especially latency. Right? These are all real-time systems wherein the actions are in nanoseconds right? So you're having a system which is more capable offering higher resiliency becomes very critical. So it's it's also technology breakthrough that we need to go through as much as a regulatory breakthrough. 

29:45.63 

chrissass 

Now at the rate that the the data is doubling and growing with at the rate we're going in the utility industry. Um, do you see a point where we're going to have trouble storing and and keeping this much information because for a long time. We just said keep it because disk is cheap but we're we're growing date data to quite a rate these days. Is that going to become a problem in the near future. 

30:05.23 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

The thing is I would approach it slightly differently right? So data is not always a storage problem. Data is an insight problem with technologies that are Today. You're able to take the data and convert in the inside you're required So The footprint of the data you use is different. And the way you store data has gone through phenomenal changes but technology breakro the Past. Ah Decade right? So So this is becoming it. It is a challenge but I would I wouldn't put it in the in ah in my list of the top 3 Ah, storing data I think they're a more intelligent base to handle this problem today. 

30:36.99 

chrissass 

All right? and then let's change gears a little bit talk a little bit about Ge and your software strategy a little bit of where you are as an organization and where you plan to go. 

30:48.53 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Absolutely so Chris we are becoming g one no in a week and and g one no is a purpose built company for electrification and decarbonization. Ah so the entire company is focused on serving this particular customer that is the utility. Right? And our ambition is to is to earn our right to be a provider of choice. Ah for operational systems. Especially the software for operational systems. We today have the privilege of supporting 40% of the world's fast machine utilities and 30% of the world's distribution uities and we are our leading provider of bes in the world. It's ah it's a very privileged position that we have what we're trying to do working with our utility partners and also our industry partners is to create a new paradigm wherein. We are able to create interoperable systems across transmission distribution terms so grios. The the technology capability we spoke about is our intent in that direction. So this is getting a lot of traction and ah one of our ambitions is to build this capability and make it the most robust portfolio to support grid modernization and we are very excited about. 

31:59.80 

chrissass 

So if you had a crystal ball today. What is the Killer app that comes next for this. So if you get gritto asked where you want it to be. You have the interoperability. What's the Killer app that can bring value to the utilities. 

32:01.16 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

What we can do here. 

32:14.62 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, so Chris this is a place where I would I would borrow from my technology peers right? So I think the real killer app is having a copilott for the operator. So a technology copilot that works with the operator works in tandem with the operator to help the operator make. Make decisions because we fundamentally believe that it's not we cannot run a grid without the operator. What we can do is we can augment an operator to take better decisions faster. So the copillot ah for a grid operator is something that I think is going to be a killer app which is going to be something that's going to differentiate how a utility operates. And also it's going to be a massive support for all the grid operators because it can take some of the mundane tasks away and help the operator focus on the most important capabilities and this also will address some of the skill challenges we have right because end of the day. This is a workforce that is. Retiring and we have to get new folks into this industry right? So I think a grid copiot is something I'm absolutely excited about. 

33:12.71 

chrissass 

Okay, so just to make sure I understood our conversation today. We We started out talking about the value of getting the data out of these operational networks and being able to do something with it or apply Ai with it and having good good good data in to get good data out that was one of the values that you get immediately The second value that I heard you say. Is you can do more as there's more demand on the limited resources. It's something you get immediate impact and manage your resources better get more out of it and if we turn the clock ahead. The future gets to if we've done all these things. Well we've put the foundation in place to get a copilot to help me make better decisions for my operation is that. 

33:32.14 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um. 

33:50.28 

chrissass 

Pretty much summarizing today's conversation 

33:52.73 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Chris you absolutely said, right? and there's something that I have been I have been pretty vocal about because I believe that energy transition cannot happen without software right? And grid modernization cannot happen without ot data. The electric network is getting more and more complicated. Right for a variety of reasons and you need a copilot with a grid and I think software and Ai could be that copilot. 

34:14.32 

chrissass 

Well I want to thank you for sharing the story today and what you ease up to this is exciting stuff. Look forward to seeing what happens over the next week and seeing your peers as they all come out with the the new organization keep going forward. Thank you so much for joining us at Insiders guide to energy. For audience. We hope you've enjoyed this episode if you want to find out more ad comments ask in the questions in the Youtube channel and don't forget to subscribe and like the content if you like this kind of content. We'll see you again next time on the insiders guide to energy podcast bye bye for now. 

34:33.16 

Mahesh Sudhakaran 

Um, course absolutely a pleasure. Thank you for having me.