South Carolina’s state-owned utility, Santee Cooper, is pursuing a major digital transformation initiative to boost operating efficiencies and lower customer costs through a new partnership with tech giant Google.

Santee Cooper detailed this month that the digital initiative, which also aims to protect its $10 billion grid-expansion budget, will leverage Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise and WeatherNext 2, a medium-range weather forecasting tool. These AI models will work to drive advanced simulations through Santee Cooper's planning programs to improve the utility's accuracy during key financial and operational planning scenarios.

The Santee Cooper-Google partnership builds on the growing integration of AI management software into the broader utility infrastructure sector.

In a company release, Santee Cooper outlined the complex challenges of balancing grid stability with rapid regional growth, unpredictable weather patterns and fluctuating energy market prices. These challenges are why Santee Cooper explains it’s pairing advanced predictive software with its core operational data.

“We plan to meet customer needs in part based on weather forecasts,” said Tami Wilson, vice president and chief financial officer of Santee Cooper, in a statement. “The more accurate the weather forecast, the more accurately we can plan for meeting customer demand each hour of each day.”

Wilson noted that overestimating electricity needs during severe weather events inflates fuel and operating costs, increasing operational bottlenecks and capital expenditure pressure. Underestimating power needs, she added, equates to “being forced to buy electricity on the spot market, often at high prices.”

“On the coldest winter day, one degree of temperature variance can cost up to $100,000 per hour on the spot market,” said Wilson. “A more accurate AI-enabled forecast could save millions of dollars a year.”

For utility companies like Santee Cooper, managing vast public infrastructure requires processing massive amounts of data across multiple isolated systems. As a result, traditional planning methods are often slow and reactive.

Google claims its weather-modeling technology generates hundreds of ensemble scenarios in under a minute, delivering forecasts across lead times of up to 15 days. For Santee Cooper, this accelerated method aligns with its critical planning window as it deploys advanced reporting systems to handle changing operational demands and multi-billion-dollar grid expansion.

"Our state's rapid growth and transition toward innovative energy sources demand unprecedented agility in how we manage our system," said Wilson. "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.”