Resilient, Reliable, Ready: How utilities are using AI to generate the future

Every day, power companies must balance complex, interconnected priorities: meeting rising electricity demand, operating safely and securely, keeping consumer costs down, and improving grid resilience.

Increasingly, AI is becoming an important tool for helping utilities build and manage a balanced grid. Since the launch of Gemini Enterprise, our team of energy experts has been hard at work, partnering with leaders in this industry to put production-grade AI into daily operations.

Many of these utility and power companies are already seeing real results from AI. Whether you’re a large utility or a smaller provider, Gemini Enterprise is already helping address the industry’s complex operational challenges on the frontlines of our powerlines.

Here is a look at how three energy leaders are using Gemini Enterprise to improve grid operations, financial planning, and development workflow.

NextEra Energy: grid optimization & market intelligence

The demand for energy, in sheer wattage and diversity of sources, has arguably never been higher. As the largest energy infrastructure builder in the U.S., NextEra Energy is working to redefine modern grid operations, so utilities can accommodate the needs of our modern economy and society. To meet these demands, NextEra Energy has just launched Optos, which was developed with Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform.

Optos is a suite of solutions built on decades of real-world utility experience with the aim of breaking down legacy operational silos. Optos Composer, for example, helps unify generation, fuel, maintenance trading, operating reserves, and energy storage into a single, coordinated system. With system-wide optimization, Optos Composer empowers operating teams to execute high-stakes market decisions with speed and confidence — lowering operating costs, bolstering reliability, and setting a new industry benchmark for AI-driven operational excellence.

“Utilities are being asked to deliver greater reliability, lower costs, and a grid ready for what comes next,” Rich Argentieri, president of NextEra Analytics, said. “Optos Composer harnesses NextEra Energy’s expertise to synthesize complex data into decisive action, helping our customers operate more intelligently and better serve the communities that depend on them.”

Santee Cooper: financial planning & load forecasting

Climate and energy are intrinsically connected. We’re seeing how each passing year of extreme weather puts renewed stresses on the grid and increases the demand for energy, further pushing the grid to the limit. In its drive for greater resilience and reliability, South Carolina’s largest power provider, Santee Cooper, is deploying Gemini Enterprise and WeatherNext models to replace manual forecasting with hyper-local, AI-driven data tools.

By using WeatherNext for weather-dependent load forecasting, Santee Cooper is targeting up to $3 million in annual cost savings on spot-market energy risks. Additionally, Santee Cooper expects custom AI-powered financial models could cut scenario-building time by up to 75% — replacing 150 manual Excel reports. These enhancements will help protect customers and efficiently guide a $10 billion grid-expansion plan.

"Our state's rapid growth and transition toward innovative energy sources demand unprecedented agility in how we manage our system," Tami Wilson, vice president and chief financial officer of Santee Cooper, said. "Partnering with Google Cloud helps us turn massive data streams into actionable intelligence and protect our grid-expansion investments, mitigate financial risk and ensure long-term financial stability for the South Carolinians we serve. At the same time, we are building a thoughtful governance structure that protects our organizational and customer data to ensure we are getting the best results from these resources.”

ENGIE: improving efficiency & customer value

Engie, a Paris-based provider of power to more than 27 European countries, has a longstanding partnership with Google that started in 2021 to provide clean energy to Google Cloud in Germany. When Engie set out to develop a suite of specialized AI agents to support accelerating industrial efficiency and the clean energy transition, the company once again turned to Google.

Among the agents Engie has developed are solutions that enable teams to rapidly analyze complex engineering and operational information, These agents are transforming vast amounts of data into actionable insights that support decision-making and decarbonization initiatives across the organization and the continent.

Addressing energy system's critical needs

Managing modern energy networks requires synthesizing streams of weather patterns, geospatial data, and individualized demand forecasts into an immediate operational context.

Deploying Gemini Enterprise enables utilities to transition from reactive maintenance models to proactive, intelligence-driven grid management. Already leading utilities are deploying AI to build the foundation for modernizing the grid, protecting residential customers, and improving grid reliability and resilience.