Santee Cooper Taps Google Cloud to Bolster Grid Reliability
Santee Cooper, South Carolina's state-owned electric and water utility, is partnering with Google Cloud to modernize its financial planning and load forecasting. The goal is to reduce costs and risks for customers by improving grid reliability.
The utility will use Gemini Enterprise and WeatherNext 2, a cutting-edge weather modeling technology that can generate hundreds of potential scenarios in under a minute. This allows operators to anticipate demand shifts, manage renewables, and protect grid reliability with greater speed and confidence.
Santee Cooper's vice president and chief financial officer, Tami Wilson, explained that more accurate weather forecasts enable the utility to plan for customer demand each hour of each day. If they overestimate their needs, they spend money on fuel and operations they don't need. If they underestimate their power needs, they are forced to buy electricity on the spot market at high prices.
The partnership also includes deploying a specialized AI model to improve financial forecasting, which can reduce by up to 75% the time necessary to run financial scenarios. This initiative is part of Santee Cooper's commitment to providing reliable and affordable power and water for its customers.