New AI tools could give utilities real-time data to make the power grid and EV charging more reliable, a very small study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and startup Utilidata suggests.
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How AI could change EV charging
The researchers are using AI to analyze EV charging behavior, hoping those insights might improve the experience for drivers and help utilities prepare for the spike in electricity demand. So far, they’ve found that EV charging can draw power inconsistently and lower power quality, which can wear out charging equipment.
Those underlying problems waste energy and could lead to busted EV chargers that have become a bane for drivers. So the ability to immediately spot and even predict those issues with AI could be a game changer. AI models could give utilities a heads up on how charging might impact the power grid, the authors write. And they can also advise drivers on where and when to charge and help EV charging companies better maintain their equipment.
Those underlying problems waste energy and could lead to busted EV chargers
UMTRI initially reached out to Utilidata for this pilot study, which is meant to inform the design of a larger research project investigating the same issues. UMTRI says it’s already working with the North American Electric Reliability Council to address their initial findings.
For this study, the researchers installed electric meter adapters outfitted with Utilidata’s AI platform Karman at six EV charging stations at the University of Michigan. Karman analyzed voltage, current, power, and other dynamics between March and June of last year. The study authors also installed devices on the vehicles of 10 drivers who frequent the college campus to monitor their charging habits.
While this project is still in an early stage, researchers are hopeful it can help people prepare for the challenges that come with electrifying vehicle fleets. In the US, aging power grids are already straining to accommodate rising electricity demand from AI data centers, crypto mining, and clean energy technologies. But compared to a data center, utilities have a harder time anticipating when and where EVs will plug in to the grid.
Utilities have to cope with that unpredictability without real-time data to help them adjust. Those blind spots are becoming a bigger issue at the “grid edge,” where customers are increasingly connecting their own devices to the grid like batteries for EVs and solar panels.
“There’s a big role for AI to play at the grid edge,” says Siobhan Powell, a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich who was not involved in the study. “It didn’t used to be the case, right? There wasn’t a lot interesting going on and now that we have a chance to do control, there’s more opportunity and more value in knowing what’s going on.”
“There’s a big role for AI to play at the grid edge”
One issue the researchers spotted with this study was short-cycling, inconsistent power draw from vehicles that would stop and start charging even after the battery was juiced up fully. Not only does that burn through energy inefficiently, but it can also overheat wires and transformers. They also found that EV charging lowers power quality, when electricity deviates from ideal voltage and frequency ranges. Flickering is a telltale sign of low power quality, which can also cause more wear and tear on equipment.
“The biggest takeaway, I think, is that we confirmed that there’s a lot of behaviors from electric vehicles that are not known to anyone — not known to car owners, not known to grid operators, not known to charger OEMs,” Utilidata’s vice president of product solutions, Yingchen Zhang, says. “So there’s a great need to really open up all this data.”
The study authors cautiously make the case that places with a lot of unmanaged EV charging could see larger impacts on the power grid. In a worst-case scenario, they say that could impact power supply to other customers. But Zhang is quick to say that the chance of a power outage as a result is very low.
“It’s good to know exactly how these new charges affect voltage, power quality issues locally, but I wouldn’t jump to outages,” Powell says, because there are a lot of steps utilities can take to prevent outages. And again, this is a very small study about unpredictable charging behavior, so it’s still too early to make sweeping statements about broader grid impacts from these early findings.
Both Powell and Zhang want to avoid causing undue alarm over the impact EV charging can have on the grid — particularly as EV adoption faces partisan attacks. “A lot of the fears are because people don’t know the actual EV behavior,” Zhang says. “So actually revealing this information will diminish a lot of those fears.”
The rise of AI has also raised concerns about increasingly energy-hungry data centers stressing the grid. Zhang says his company is thinking about that, too, using custom-designed chips from Nvidia to consume less energy than more generic AI chips. And using machine learning in this way to analyze data is generally much less energy-intensive than generative AI models that spit out text and images.
It comes down to preparation as the key to shoring up the power grid against new technologies that change the way we live, work, and get around. Fleets of EV batteries could even help bolster the grid by acting as virtual power plants that feed power into the grid when it’s needed. Automakers are already testing this out, in part to make EVs more affordable for customers. “We need EVs. We need this transition to happen. And there are things that we have to do to prepare the grid, but we can do them,” Powell says.
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NASA wants SpaceX and Blue Origin to deliver cargo to the moon
The agency wants Elon Musk’s SpaceX to use its Starship cargo lander to deliver a pressurized rover to the Moon “no earlier” than 2032, while Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will be tasked with delivering a lunar surface habitat no sooner than 2033. Both launches will support NASA’s Artemis missions, which aim to bring humans back to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years.
Both companies are developing human landing systems for Artemis missions — SpaceX for Artemis III and Blue Origin for Artemis V. NASA later asked both companies to develop cargo-hauling variants of those landers, capable of carrying 26,000 to 33,000 pounds of equipment and other materials to the Moon.
NASA says it will issue proposals to SpaceX and Blue Origin at the beginning of next year.
“Having two lunar lander providers with different approaches for crew and cargo landing capability provides mission flexibility while ensuring a regular cadence of Moon landings for continued discovery and scientific opportunity,” Stephen D. Creech, NASA’s assistant deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars program, said in the announcement.
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Brazil leads new international effort against climate lies
Brazil and the United Nations launched a new international effort to combat disinformation on climate change. They announced the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change during the G20 Leaders’ Summit taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
It’s a collaboration between governments and international organizations to boost research on misinformation swirling online and around the globe that they fear could slow action on climate change. There isn’t much information available yet, but they say they’ll fund nonprofit efforts to counter that spread of lies.
“Countries cannot tackle this problem individually,” President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a press release.
“Countries cannot tackle this problem individually.”
Only Chile, Denmark, France, Morocco, the United Kingdom, and Sweden have joined Brazil in the initiative so far. Countries that make the commitment are expected to contribute to a fund administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The initial goal is to get more countries on board and raise $10 to 15 million over the next three years. The money is then supposed to be distributed to nonprofit organizations as grants to support research and public awareness campaigns on climate disinformation.
They haven’t yet named any specific groups they plan to work with; “calls for partnerships” are forthcoming. Some environmental organizations are already working together to study disinformation and push for measures to stop its spread, like the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition that publishes reports on misinformation trends and advocates for more stringent content moderation.
A webpage for the new global initiative says environmental disinformation is “increasingly spreading through social media, messaging apps, and generative AI.” That has “serious” consequences, it says: “it undermines scientific consensus, obstructs authorities’ ability to respond effectively to the crisis, and threatens the safety of journalists and environmental defenders working on the frontlines.”
FEMA employees faced violent threats on social media in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the US, for example. Accounts spewing misinformation about the storm and FEMA were also tied to content denying climate change, according to an analysis by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) in October. Posts baselessly accused FEMA of seizing private property and confiscating donations — lies that risked deterring storm survivors from applying for assistance, and that raised fears that FEMA staff might face attacks.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres also voiced his concerns during remarks today with both the G20 summit and a UN conference on climate change currently underway. “We must also take on climate disinformation,” Guterres said. “Our climate is at a breaking point.”
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Amazon and SpaceX attack US labor watchdog in court
Amazon and SpaceX are seeking to hamstring the National Labor Relations Board, asking a court to declare its processes for upholding labor law unconstitutional. But judges on a three-person panel appeared skeptical when the companies presented their arguments Monday.
In two separate cases before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the two companies argued that the NLRB is unlawfully forcing them to participate in administrative law proceedings over alleged anti-labor actions. The Amazon case centers around whether it’s required to bargain with the union at its JFK 8 fulfillment center on Staten Island, while the SpaceX case involves a charge by former employees who claimed they were fired after being critical of CEO Elon Musk.
A ruling in favor of the companies could undermine the NLRB’s power to enforce protections for workers. It comes just as vocal pro-union President Joe Biden is leaving office and deregulation-friendly President-elect Donald Trump takes over. Trump notably counts Musk among his chief allies after his massive fundraising push. The NLRB is an independent agency with five board members appointed by the president to 5-year terms.
During oral arguments, the judges mostly prodded attorneys on the finer points of the companies’ decisions to appeal, and the timeline of their objections. At one point, Judge James Graves Jr., an Obama appointee, expressed doubt that Amazon had even met the conditions for an appeal — suggesting it should have waited on the ruling from the district court first. Two days after Amazon’s notice of appeal, the district court denied Amazon’s request for a temporary restraining order on its NLRB proceedings.
Both companies are seeking to short-circuit the NLRB’s proceedings with a court order
George W. Bush-appointed Judge Priscilla Richman similarly pressed SpaceX’s counsel Michael Kenneally about why the company rushed to an appeal, rather than letting the case progress in a lower court. Kenneally said SpaceX waited as long as it felt it could to bring its challenge and accused the government of leaning on procedural arguments because it couldn’t defend the NLRB’s constitutionality. Graves appeared skeptical. “That sounds to me about like the argument that, ‘well, procedure doesn’t matter if I win on the merits, so just skip right over procedure,’” he said.
Both companies are seeking to short-circuit the NLRB’s proceedings with a court order, which requires demonstrating this would cause them irreparable harm. But in Amazon’s case, NLRB counsel Tyler Wiese called the company’s deadline for the district court “imaginary,” and said, “merely proceeding through an administrative process is not irreparable harm.”
Amazon and SpaceX both argue that the NLRB’s administrative proceedings are tainted because its board members or administrative law judges are unconstitutionally insulated from removal. They point to Article II of the Constitution, which says the president must “take care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” which they say includes removing officials.
Amazon also says the NLRB is violating the Seventh Amendment, which protects the right to a jury trial in certain civil cases. It argues that the NLRB shouldn’t be allowed to decide on financial remedies related to the case because it would deny the company due process. Cox said the board itself “improperly interfered with the [union] election by exercising its prosecutorial authority,” so failing to stop the proceedings would let the NLRB as as judge and prosecutor.
The NLRB says it feels confident in a 1937 Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act. “It is nothing new for big companies to challenge the authority of the NLRB to enforce workers’ rights so as not to be held accountable for their violations of the National Labor Relations Act,” NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said in a statement. “While the current challenges require the NLRB to expend scarce resources defending against them, we’ve seen that the results of these kinds of challenges is ultimately a delay in justice, but that ultimately justice does prevail.”
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