In a significant leap for energy infrastructure technology, ThinkLabs AI has announced groundbreaking results from its collaboration with utility giant Southern California Edison (SCE). The project, which leverages advanced physics-informed AI digital twins, has demonstrated the ability to automate large-scale power flow analytics, dramatically accelerating grid energization processes that are critical for meeting rising electricity demands.
The Challenge of Modern Grid Management
Southern California Edison is facing unprecedented load growth driven by widespread electrification and increasing energy consumption. This surge has created a bottleneck: processing the high volume of requests to connect new customers or projects to the grid, known as grid energization requests, is a complex and time-consuming engineering task. Maintaining grid stability while quickly fulfilling these customer needs is a paramount challenge.
To tackle this, SCE initiated Grid Digitalization programs aimed at improving the efficiency and scalability of its grid analysis. The traditional method is painstakingly slow. Dedicated engineers spend an average of six hours preparing data for a single customer project, running power flow analyses, and generating reports. Due to the sheer volume of requests and other competing duties, the full analysis for an energization request could take between 30 to 35 days.
AI-Powered Digital Twins Deliver Unprecedented Speed
The collaboration with ThinkLabs AI has introduced a disruptive solution. The company built physics-informed AI digital twins on the Microsoft Azure AI Foundry platform, utilizing NVIDIA high-performance computing capabilities. In its first phase, the system learned from tens of thousands of potential power flow scenarios.
The results are staggering. The AI-powered approach can now:
- Train machine learning models in minutes per electrical circuit.
- Process a full year of hourly power-flow data across more than 100 circuits in under three minutes.
- Produce engineering reports with recommended solutions—such as load flexibility, battery storage, or topology optimization—in under 90 seconds.
This represents a reduction from over a month of analysis to mere seconds for key outputs. The system doesn't just work fast; it's intelligent. AI agents within the platform automatically detect and report on potential grid issues like congestion or constraint violations and recommend actionable solutions to maintain reliability.
Transforming Grid Planning for a Renewable Future
Shinjini Menon, Senior Vice President of System Planning & Engineering at SCE, emphasized the technology's importance. "As California's energy demands continue to increase, we need disruptive solutions to mitigate persistent challenges with current grid planning and operations," Menon stated. "Innovative AI-driven power flow technology such as that developed by ThinkLabs, will be a key enabler for our grid digitalization efforts."
When scaled, this technology promises a fundamental shift in how grids are managed. It enables the continuous, automated analysis of thousands of circuits, supporting a dynamic and proactive approach to grid planning. This is essential for integrating renewable energy sources, managing electric vehicle charging loads, and ensuring affordability and reliability amid California's ambitious clean energy goals. The announcement, dated January 6, 2026, marks a pivotal step toward a more resilient and intelligent energy future.
