Google: Engie & Google Cloud AI to predict wind power

French multinational utility company Engie has announced that it will be teaming up with Google Cloud to use AI to predict wind power and optimize its portfolio, making it the first customer of the giant's AI technology. Engie will be utilizing Google's DeepMind technology, which was first announced back in 2019, and uses predictive logic to manage wind power as a "tradable commodity." It will first trial the service with its German wind portfolio.

Speaking about how the technology will function, Engie explained that the "key objective" of the AI pilot is to "predict how much wind power should be sold on which power market and at what price. This is a challenge due to the complexity of the short-term power markets and the unpredictable nature of wind production." 

It also outlined that the technology will help to accelerate renewable energy consumption across Europe: "Once this project is complete, the scale of the impact could be far-reaching: there are hundreds of Gigawatts of wind farms operating around the world, all of which could benefit from improved forecasting using AI."

Alexandre Cosquer, Engie Global Energy Management & Sales executive committee member, commented: "Data, Digitalization and Risk Management are key enablers to bring value and accelerate the decarbonation of our power grids; in that context, a partnership with Google was obvious."