Duke Energy and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are entering into a multiyear strategic collaboration. As part of the agreement, Duke Energy will build new smart grid software and services on AWS. The energy company says it will also 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, in turn, will work alongside Duke Energy to build out cloud technologies to support Duke Energy’s grid-planning solutions.

“Our digital evolution is foundational to our clean energy transition,” says 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.” 

[Image courtesy: Duke Energy]