The people who work for utilities have a lot on their minds these days. It’s not exactly a cakewalk to simultaneously integrate a slew of new renewable generation sources, harden an aging grid against digital and weather-related threats, and address unprecedented load growth while maintaining reliability.
Duke Energy, one of the largest utilities in the United States, serves more than 7 million customers across six states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. The actions the utility takes to modernize during this time of transition will likely serve as examples for its peers across the country, so it’s pretty important to get stuff right.
Jason Handley, the general manager of Duke Energy’s distributed energy group, and Tom Artau, a manager of products and services at Duke Energy who focuses on demand response, are two of the guys working on the cutting edge. As they prepare for the biggest DTECH ever, Handley and Artau share some of what they’re looking forward to and discuss ways utilities are changing how the grid serves each of us.
Topics of discussion include:
- Self-healing grid technologies
- Grid edge device orchestration
- Optimized voltage control systems
- Customer-focused smart energy programs/devices
- Transitioning load control switches to wifi and cellular
- Renewable generation integration, particularly solar PV in Florida and the southeast
- Microgrids
- Net-zero progress
Stick around for the end of the video, when Handley shares what he thinks should be the key focus for utilities right now, and hear more from Duke Energy at DTECH, March 24-27, 2025 in Dallas, Texas. Register now!