European utility Enel has turned to AI software provider C3 to work as a strategic partner of big data platforms and applications across the entire business in a move which it says will strengthen its position at the top of the energy transition.
Enel has already collaborated with C3 for the past five years, however the new agreement will see it take more of a central role in Enel’s digital transformation.
C3’s AI suite, which comprises a range of artificial intelligence-led tools and smart grid analytics applications, will allow Enel to provide its developers, data scientists and analysts to view data in a common and secure way.
This will in turn enable Enel to develop AI applications more quickly, and has already been used by Enel to deploy its ‘Unified Virtual Data Lake’.
That data lake integrates data from Enel’s retail, distribution, trading, renewables and conventional generation businesses in one area, making it accessible from different sides of the business and different operational systems.
Ed Abbo, president and CTO at C3, described how the partnership would allow Enel to aggregate large volumes of real-time data as well as the development and execution of algorithms required to analyse such data and make operational predictions.
Fabio Veronese, head of infrastructure and networks digital hub at Enel, said that leveraging AI and internet of things technologies is “key” for Enel to achieve its digital transformation, and stood to deliver “tremendous benefits” for its customers and shareholders.
“The collaboration with C3 is allowing us to harness innovative business processes enabled by big data analytics, unleashing a new era of operational efficiencies that strengthen our position as leader of the energy transition.”