Badr Jafar CEO, Crescent Enterprises “ AI promises transformational advances across industries, societies, and the environment, but its rapid growth and energy demands strain an already overstretched energy system. Closer collaboration between the AI and energy sectors, alongside governments and civil society, is crucial to unlock sustainable solutions. A multistakeholder approach will accelerate progress, ensuring AI’s full potential is realised in a way that creates inclusive value and leaves no one behind.” Individuals and organizations with distributed energy resources, storage, and flexible demand (including EVs) will continue to go from being electricity customers to being active participants in grid dynamics and energy markets, using millions of digital devices to connect their distributed energy resources to the grid. These devices will enable them to generate, sell, store, and optimize their own electricity profiles.82 On the demand side, up to 1 billion households and 11 billion appliances could contribute to flexibility via demand response and multi-agent systems.83 Balancing supply and demand in these future systems will be far more complex than today. On the supply side, variable sources like solar and wind are intermittent, both regularly (seasonal and diurnal) and irregularly (weather). On the demand side, intraday load variability will be amplified by changes in the location and timing of EV charging. As the amount of dispatchable firm power in energy systems declines, the ability to predict generation and load will be critical to maintaining the stability of energy systems.84 Flexibility management—the ability to balance intermittent supply with variable demand—will also be critical. By shifting intraday load profiles—via storage and demand response, for example—grid operators can reduce peak demand and ensure the optimal load to maintain stability and power quality. The IEA estimates that the energy system’s flexibility must quadruple in a net-zero system.85 This would have the beneficial effect of making power systems more economical, because it would limit the need for additional grid investments and generation sources.86 “ AI is revolutionising energy, just like smartphones changed communication. Our Kraken system manages over 1 GW of flexible demand via 200,000 connected EVs, demonstrating how we can optimise the grid in real time. AI-driven flexibility could save the UK £10 billion a year by 2050, directly lowering energy costs for consumers. This isn’t just innovation; it’s a game-changer for affordable and resilient energy.” Greg Jackson Founder and CEO, Octopus Energy Up to 1 billion 11 billion households and appliances could contribute to flexibility via demand response 83 52 Powering Possible 51