The POWER Podcast

Is It Safe to Invest in Mexican Energy Projects? In late 2013, Mexico embarked on a path to transform its energy markets. Then-President Enrique Peña-Nieto oversaw constitutional reforms that ended state-run monopolies, and opened Mexico’s power market to competition and investment from foreign and private companies. By most accounts, the policies were highly effective in spurring investments in renewable energy and efficient natural gas-fired power projects. A great deal of money has been funneled into Mexico by investors from as many as 45 countries since the law was enacted. “The result of that was dramatically successful. I mean, you have millions and millions of dollars that were sunk into the power sector bringing in modern equipment, environmentally friendly, because there were a lot of renewable projects that went online. You see how the percentage of renewables changed in the last 10 years—you can see that it has been successful,” Roberto Aguirre Luzi, a partner with King & Spalding, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. However, Peña-Nieto is no longer in office, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wants state-owned power company Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to get special treatment in the market. Under the previously enacted reform measures, dispatch priority was based on price, with the lowest-cost generation being delivered first. Earlier this month, Mexican policymakers passed legislation that would change the order in which electricity is dispatched, giving priority to CFE at the expense of private operators. “There were a wave of amparos to challenge this law,” said Fernando Rodriguez-Cortina, senior associate with King & Spalding. An amparo is a protection provided for under Mexico’s constitutional law. It may be filed in federal court by Mexicans and by foreigners in an attempt to guarantee protection of the claimant’s constitutional rights. “The judge granted the amparo with general effects, and now the law is stayed,” said Rodriguez-Cortina. “With general effects” means the stay applies to everyone affected by the law, rather than simply to the amparo filer. President López Obrador is not standing idly by, however. He asked the Mexican Supreme Court to open an investigation into the judge’s conduct, claiming that the judge, who was appointed under the previous administration, acted inappropriately. “This is obviously a political maneuver, because this is not how you initiate a proceeding. I mean, if you want the judge to be investigated, you follow a different route. You don’t go to the Supreme Court,” said Rodriguez-Cortina. The chief justice ultimately referred the case to the proper court for resolution. Aguirre Luzi suggested the actions taken by Mexico’s policymakers should be very concerning to all stakeholders and will have wide-ranging implications on future investments. He said when you have two branches of government making important energy policy changes with the intention of helping two state-owned entities—CFE and PEMEX, which is the fuel supplier to many of CFE’s power plants—it’s going to have long-term effects. “It’s a 180-degree change,” said Aguirre Luzi. “How do you come back from that?” Only time will tell. Rodriguez-Cortina suggested court proceedings could go on for a while. “It usually takes around six months for the amparo to be resolved,” he said, and appeals could take the dispute all the way to the Supreme Court. “So, this is going to be a process that is going to take years to see the actual outcomes,” said Aguirre Luzi.

Are 1-in-10-Year Events Really 1-in-10-Year Events Anymore? When evaluating resource adequacy requirements, many power companies and grid operators have used a methodology that originated more than 70 years ago. This probabilistic reliability approach has generally performed adequately through the years. It has generally evaluated loss-of-load events occurring at frequencies of one-day-in-10-years (1-in-10) to be acceptable in terms of system reliability. However, it’s not without risk, as incidents in Texas, California, and other parts of the country and world have demonstrated in recent history. In light of these events, it’s worth asking: have risks changed? It could be that the method used to evaluate what constitutes a 1-in-10 event is no longer sound. “When you have 1-in-a-5 or 1-in-a-10-year event that’s happening every year, most likely those are not 1-in-a-10 or 1-in-100-year events,” Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) CEO Arshad Mansoor said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “Really, what we need to go is beyond that. We need to look forward to a future, and not really just back-cast, but forecast. What is the resiliency of the grid that we need when maybe societal dependence on electricity has doubled because of electrification, where extreme weather is becoming frequency, and severity is becoming a norm? And, our resource mix is changing pretty rapidly, and these changes are profound. So, taking all those three trends into consideration, we just need to step back—and resource adequacy is one part of the planning process,” Mansoor said. In rather prescient timing, EPRI published a technical update (or white paper) on Jan. 28—about two weeks before uncharacteristically cold weather caused widespread blackouts all across Texas. “That timing was not by design,” Mansoor said, noting that EPRI has long been working on ways to enhance grid design, planning, and operation to help navigate the energy transition. According to the abstract, “This white paper focuses on planning for resource adequacy given a world in which supply disruptions are correlated and no longer limited to the outage of independent units and may be due to widespread or long-duration events with significant economic impacts on consumers.” The 72-page paper highlights several attributes of planning for resource adequacy in an environment of increasing numbers of extreme events. Among the items addressed are: • Supply disruptions that are common-mode events caused by weather, cyber and/or physical attacks, natural gas constraints, or combinations of factors. • The occurrence of an event (zero/one), consideration of its physical impacts (the amount of unserved energy, breadth of customer base impacted, and duration), and its economic costs to consumers. • The need for the definition of probabilistic metrics and methodologies that over time can be used to incorporate consideration of common-mode and high-impact supply disruptions. The paper concludes with an identification of strategies that individual utilities and independent system operators/regional transmission organizations (ISOs/RTOs) could follow based on their unique situations. “I would encourage all of your audience to go to our website www.epri.com and you should be able to download the paper—we have made it available to all,” Mansoor said (see https://www.epri.com/research/products/000000003002019300).

Battery Technology Used in Outer Space Could Be a Gamechanger on Earth Lithium-ion has become the dominant battery technology used in energy storage applications around the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only, or even the best, technology available. Many companies are working on different battery chemistries that could provide safer, longer-lasting, and ultimately more cost-effective options. One alternative that has gotten little exposure until now is a battery chemistry with a 30-plus-year history of successful operation. It’s a metal-hydrogen battery, which has been used by NASA on space missions, including in the Hubble Space Telescope, the Mars Curiosity rover, and the International Space Station. “[The battery was] designed for a use case where these aerospace satellites and so forth needed a battery that would withstand the harsh climate of outer space, meaning super high temperatures, super low temperatures, and then have basically an infinite cycle life and require no maintenance,” Jorg Heinemann, CEO of EnerVenue, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “They worked very successfully with over 30,000 cycles—30,000 cycles is like charging the battery and discharging it three times per day for 30 years,” he said. For the sake of comparison, Heinemann said the longest lasting lithium-ion batteries can handle about 3,000 cycles, about one-tenth the cycle life. The metal-hydrogen battery contains no toxic materials, and unlike lithium-ion technology, it has no fire risk. “There are no safety issues. It’s a really safe device. There’s no thermal runaway risk, which is the primary concern with lithium-ion. Our battery operates in a very broad—what I call a ‘happy’—temperature range,” Heinemann said. Specifically, EnerVenue’s battery has been proven to operate reliably in ambient temperatures from –40F to +140F. That means, whether in artic or desert conditions, it doesn’t require large-scale heating and air conditioning systems, which can be expensive and maintenance-intensive. Cost has been the main reason metal-hydrogen chemistry has not been more fully developed for use on Earth. The batteries used in space were very expensive, costing as much as $20,000/kWh, according to Heinemann. However, about two years ago, EnerVenue’s founder, Yi Cui, a professor at Stanford University who was leading a research lab focused on materials innovations for sustainability, came up with a new set of materials to replace the high-cost elements. “It uses Earth-abundant materials—nothing but—there’s nothing that is either rare or problematic. There’s no lithium, no cobalt, no platinum-group metals. It’s just Earth-abundant stuff that you can find virtually on every continent,” Heinemann said. Which means, the cost has come way down, and the kicker is, it even performs better. “We believe that we can match the cost trajectory for lithium-ion battery packs, which is going to continue to go down over time based on the scale effects,” he said. “We can match their CAPEX [capital expenditure expense], and then, we can give the customer a significantly better value proposition in terms of the capabilities of the battery, especially the high temperature range, the durability, the flexibility, and a very significant economic savings because of the fact that there’s no maintenance costs associated with this battery. It’s basically an install-and-forget battery.” Metal-hydrogen batteries are not particularly well-suited for mobile applications, such as electric vehicles or cellphones, so for now, EnerVenue’s target market is the utility-scale energy storage sector. “Our battery is really good for a super broad range of stationary uses,” he said.

Hydrogen and the Energy Transition Power systems around the world are changing. Renewable energy, mainly in the form of wind and solar generation, is being added everywhere, while more traditional forms of power, such as coal-fired and nuclear generation, are being retired from the grid. Meanwhile, natural gas-fired generation has taken the lead role in facilitating the transition by providing relatively quick ramping capability and stable baseload power to backup intermittent renewables. However, there is a lot of research and development work underway that could eventually push natural gas out of the mix. The reason is that gas, like other fossil fuels, releases CO2 and other emissions to the atmosphere, albeit at lower quantities than coal, fuel oil, and diesel on a per-kWh-generated basis. One of the potential supplements or replacements for natural gas could be hydrogen. The concept of a hydrogen economy is not new. It was first contemplated at least as far back as the 1970s, but the economics associated with producing hydrogen at the time made it impractical. That is changing as countries around the world implement decarbonization goals and the share of renewable energy in the power mix increases. Going forward, there are likely to be situations in which the supply of solar and wind power is high, but demand for the electricity is low. Rather than curtailing production, the surplus energy could be used to produce “green hydrogen” through electrolysis at a very reasonable cost. “There’s no CO2 emissions associated with [green hydrogen],” Megan Reusser, hydrogen development lead at Burns & McDonnell, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “So, bringing hydrogen to the forefront as a potential way to meet decarbonization goals, coupled with other types of renewable energy such as solar or wind, that’s what’s really giving [hydrogen] kind of a new life and a really big interest currently in the market.” Seeing the writing on the wall, the major gas turbine original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have jumped aboard the hydrogen bandwagon. Siemens, GE, and Mitsubishi Power all have programs underway to make their combustion turbines 100% hydrogen capable. Their intentions are really designed to “future proof” investments in new power plants. “All the major OEMs have advanced-class gas turbines that are available and can blend up to 30% hydrogen. Where it gets interesting is you see and hear about the concept of hydrogen-ready for the future, and 100% hydrogen capable for the future,” Joey Mashek, business development manager at Burns & McDonnell, said on the podcast. “The plan to develop those technologies to get near 100%, or 100%, is still about 10 years. And I think all the OEMs will say they can do that and will do that, but it’ll be market driven.” Reusser said Burns & McDonnell has seen a lot of interest in hydrogen pilot projects. “By that I mean small-scale applications where people are just trying to understand how all this is going to come together,” she said. One example that she mentioned was a system installed by the Orlando Utilities Commission. “They are developing a pilot facility that has a little bit of everything. It’s got [an] electrolyzer, some storage, and a fuel cell. So, they’re kind of doing the whole spectrum of generating their hydrogen, storing their hydrogen, and then converting it back to power,” said Reusser. “Only thing I can say is, it’s exciting, really exciting time in the energy industry,” Mashek said.

Dirty Electricity, but Not the Kind You Think When most people hear the term “dirty electricity,” they probably think of power generated from sources considered more-polluting, such as coal, natural gas, or other fossil fuels. However, Satic Inc., an electronics manufacturer and professional engineering firm based in Missoula, Montana, says electricity in homes and businesses is filled with “electrical pollution” that is not necessarily associated with dirty fuels. In fact, the company claims solar power is one of the main sources of dirty electricity. “Dirty electricity specifically comes from three different main culprit places. Number one, it’s delivered to our panel. Number two, we make it with our electronics—our solar inverters, our LED lighting, our DC devices. And, the wiring in our home—maybe half a mile of high-quality copper wiring—acts as a super antenna. So, that’s how we get dirty electricity into our house. What defines it specifically is, it’s electricity that has distortion or interference, low power factor, etcetera, on it,” B.D. Erickson, Satic’s CEO, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. Dirty electricity may affect more than just electrical devices. Some people claim to have a hypersensitivity to electromagnetic fields (EMFs), and they report symptoms such as fatigue, dizziness, headaches, problems with concentration and memory, and sleep disturbances as a result of exposure to dirty electricity. While studies on the effects of exposure to EMFs have in some cases been conflicting, Erickson said his son experienced symptoms when the family moved into a home located near large power transmission lines, which is what led him to research the topic. “Electricity has eight attributes that need to be within an acceptable realm, and if they’re not within that acceptable realm, they are considered dirty,” Erickson said. He explained the eight attributes are volts, amps, watts, electromagnetic fields, total harmonic distortion, interference, ohms law of resistance, and frequency. Erickson said when electricity leaves a power plant, it’s properly regulated and is typically within an acceptable range for all eight attributes. But as it flows out to customers, it can degrade or get distorted, usually as a result of the devices everyone uses. “We live in an alternating current world [but] half the stuff we plug in nowadays isn’t alternating current. Anything with [a] battery is DC,” he said. In today’s world, cell phones, computers, tablets, and some other electronic devices are often powered by batteries. Furthermore, lighting has changed from incandescent bulbs, which were essentially resistors that used to act as “energy cleaners,” to compact fluorescent bulbs, and now, LED lighting, which adds electrical pollution. Lastly, Erickson said solar power, and specifically solar inverters, create a lot of dirty electricity. What Erickson and his team of engineers came up with is a product that provides system-wide power conditioning, robust surge protection, and power factor correction with advanced EMF, interference, and harmonics filtration. The system is easy to install in homes and businesses, and the effects are immediate. “You don't have to wait a month like with solar to see your bill. You can see it, you can feel it, you can hear it in real time. The amp draws—your air conditioner might go from five amps to two, and running better and running quieter,” he said. Erickson said the cost savings on electric bills will usually pay for the device in about two years, and there are other benefits, such as robust surge protection, less heat generation, and longer operating lives for appliances and devices, not to mention possibly improving the health of people with EMF sensitivities.

Is Nuclear Power Poised for a Resurgence? Since 1990, nuclear power has consistently supplied about 19% to 20% of the electricity used in the U.S. However, very few nuclear plants have been added to the U.S. fleet over that time. Currently, the only nuclear project in the U.S. is Southern Company’s Plant Vogtle expansion, which is expected to add two new reactors to the grid by the end of next year. Still, there are 50 reactors under construction around the world—12 of them in China—and several countries are considering adding more. “There has been a fundamental shift in the thinking around the world. As climate change has become front and center as the number one issue globally—environmental issue and societal issue—the recognition that nuclear can and should play a part in helping us overcome the climate change problems has shifted a lot of thinking in governments that I talk to around the world, but also even with people that are environmental-minded—people that have been, in the past, anti-nuclear—and start seeing that nuclear now is and should be part of the solution. So, it’s a very exciting time,” George Borovas, head of Hunton Andrews Kurth’s nuclear practice and managing partner of the firm’s Tokyo office, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. In the future, Borovas said he expects China to continue building nuclear plants at least on the scale it is today, and perhaps at an even greater rate. “I think it’s going to be very easy for them to keep replicating, especially because they have such tremendous needs for energy,” he said. Nuclear power’s emissions-free aspect also provides a huge benefit for the Chinese, which has had air quality problems in a lot of its industrialized cities. “So, I do think that China is going to continue with its new build program very aggressively, and we're starting to see also China becoming more of an exporting nation for nuclear technology and services around the world.” Schedule delays and cost overruns have long been issues for the nuclear industry, but Borovas suggested some of those nagging problems could be remedied through repetition, especially now that first-of-a-kind units have been successfully commissioned. He noted that EPR and AP1000 units are operating in China, and effectively provide a template for future success. Borovas was also optimistic about advanced technology, such as small modular reactors. “The small modular reactors—the SMRs—are very exciting,” he said. “You have some wonderful technologies that are designed to operate in a different environment. They have much more passive systems, they have walkaway safety scenarios, and they’re using technologies that have been around for a long time in the sense, but they’re packaging them in a way that makes more sense for the evolving world that we live in. I think they hold a lot of promise.” Concerning the long-term future of nuclear power, Borovas said he believes it has a place in the world and offers sustainable development. He suggested nuclear energy can help bring people out of poverty in places such as Africa, and its zero-carbon emissions provide a great alternative to fossil fuels. “I think nuclear has a very, very compelling and exciting story to tell, and the more people see that—the more people understand that—I think the more supporters of nuclear we’re going to have around the world,” he concluded.

Bigelow Tea Enhances Sustainability with a Vehicle-to-Grid System Sustainability is a buzzword that’s being bantered about up and down Wall Street, and corporate leaders have taken notice. Many companies have adopted environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives, which are often tied to sustainability goals. In some cases, the pressure to do so has come from customers and/or investors, but in others, CEOs and boards are simply choosing to “do the right thing” to help save the planet. “A lot of companies are really recognizing, we need to use our money to make a difference, we need to use our money to make this world a better place,” Cindi Bigelow, president and CEO of Bigelow Tea, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. Bigelow Tea, which is 100% family owned and operated, has implemented several measures to enhance the company’s sustainability. In addition to obtaining all of its electric power from renewable energy sources, Bigelow Tea also has a waste reduction, recycling, and composting program, which has resulted in all three of its facilities achieving zero-waste-to-landfill status. The company’s most recent sustainability initiative involved installing a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system in collaboration with Fermata Energy. The V2G system includes a bidirectional charger connected to a Nissan LEAF electric vehicle (EV). “What those two elements are doing is they’re operating behind the building’s electric load, and they are managing the building’s electric load in such a way that when the load starts to peak during the billing cycle, we dispatch energy out of the vehicle into the building load behind the meter. And what that does is it reduces the utility costs—the energy costs—for the building by however much dispatchable energy we were able to put into that load. So, we save the customer money,” David Slutzky, founder and CEO of Fermata Energy, said on the podcast. “It’s a customer bill management application.” “Yes, it’s reducing your utility bills,” Bigelow said, but the program accomplishes much more than that. In fact, she suggested there were three clear benefits. One is that the V2G system allows Bigelow Tea to identify when it is operating during peak-load periods, which lets the company make changes within its operational system to reduce load, which is important in the long term. Secondly, if more companies incorporate V2G systems, the total peak demand on the grid will be lessened, which benefits everyone. The third benefit is in Bigelow Tea’s ability to utilize the EV for transportation purposes, which reduces emissions, because, as previously noted, the company gets all of its electric power from renewable sources. “So, there’s many facets to why this program is so important and beneficial for our company,” Bigelow said. In the end, Bigelow suggested all CEOs need to spend time developing and implementing sustainability initiatives. She acknowledged that companies must focus on their core products and services, and turn a profit. “But at the same time, we have to remember, we can make a difference both for our employees, for the community, and the environment, and this is a very important part of what we do,” Bigelow said.

Is a Microgrid Right for You? A microgrid is a discrete energy system consisting of distributed energy resources, such as solar panels, wind turbines, backup generators, and battery storage systems, and loads capable of operating in parallel with, or independently from, the main power grid. A microgrid generally operates while connected to the grid, but importantly, it can break off and operate on its own using local energy resources in times of crisis, such as during storms or power outages, or for other reasons. Microgrids are all the rage these days, but would adding one to your power system provide enough benefit to justify the cost? Answering that question requires a detailed understanding not only of the technology involved, but also the energy landscape in your local area. “People look at [microgrids] because they are a sustainable solution. They’re generally cleaner than [the electricity] you’re buying from the utility—your source of power is cleaner,” Mike Byrnes, executive vice president and Chief Operating Officer of SourceOne, a Veolia company, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “What gets them across the finish line is it adds resiliency, and typically, the lifecycle cost is less than your business-as-usual case.” SourceOne is an energy consulting firm that provides highly specialized energy management, engineering, and owner’s representative services for commercial, industrial, and municipal energy concerns. It has been crafting innovative solutions that help customers ensure sustainable, reliable, and cost-effective utility operations for more than 20 years, so Byrnes has a long history with microgrid technology. “We love sustainability. We love reducing greenhouse gases. We love building resiliency for people with microgrids,” said Byrnes. But, a microgrid requires a serious commitment from the organization doing the project, and Byrnes said you don’t usually get that unless there is a financial benefit. “Those are the ones that are getting built—the ones that have really solid paybacks for people,” he explained. Byrnes noted that decreasing prices for solar power and battery storage systems are making those resources very attractive for many customers. “The price point for renewables has come down so far that it's become in everybody's reach,” he said. “Every project we work on right now, instead of just having CHP [combined heat and power]—which you still need because you need the heat component out of it—typically, will have a solar and a battery storage component, or at least to start everybody wants it, and they make great sense. It gives you so much more flexibility in the market, and your ability to actively manage your electric usage is huge.”

Enhancing Operations and Maintenance with an EAM System Enterprise asset management (EAM) involves a combination of software, systems, and services that are used to maintain and control operational assets and equipment. The aim is to optimize the quality and utilization of assets throughout their lifecycle, increase uptime, and reduce costs. EAM involves work management; asset maintenance; planning and scheduling; supply chain management; and environmental, health, and safety initiatives. “Maximo is an enterprise asset management system. It’s a tool, if you will, a software tool, that’s used to manage and maintain expensive assets, primarily, and power has been a big part of the Maximo portfolio for as long as I can remember,” Steve Richmond, CEO of Projetech, a Maximo-as-a-Service provider, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “It’s good for managing equipment and the people that work on it. So, if you’re tracking labor or certifications, compliance issues, all that detail-oriented data collection, it’s a perfect repository for it.” EAM is often associated with a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), but it’s different. While a CMMS can be one aspect of EAM, it focuses on centralizing information to facilitate and automate maintenance management processes. EAM, on the other hand, provides an approach for managing the entire asset lifecycle, supporting asset performance from acquisition to disposal. “Maximo-as-a-Service is essentially what it says,” Richmond said. Unlike 30 years ago, when a company would have had to buy a CMMS or EAM software product, and then purchase and install servers, operating systems, databases, and all the related technology that goes along with owning and operating a system, today, providers such as Projetech offer a “no-hassle, login, and simply use-the-product concept,” he explained. While the solution has long been used at conventional power plants, such as coal, nuclear, and gas-fired facilities, Richmond said it is also suitable for wind and solar farms. “It’s been the largest growth area of my business for over five years now. We are a perfect fit for renewables,” he said. The reason is that many solar and wind farms are located in remote areas. “The ability to look at your entire farm, or many farms in the aggregate, and make decisions about what’s the best way to schedule and plan your maintenance, makes this remote connectivity a perfect fit for them,” Richmond explained. “And the ability to be able to connect anywhere, again, from the cab of a pickup truck to a phone on top of a tower—everybody’s connected and they all have the same information available to them at any time.”

Improving Asset Inspections with Drones and AI The U.S. bulk electric system consists of more than 360,000 miles of transmission lines, including approximately 180,000 miles of high-voltage lines, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. That means power companies have a lot on their plates when it comes to inspecting and maintaining those assets. Furthermore, the stakes are high. As wildfires in California and elsewhere have shown, billions of dollars can quickly go up in smoke when equipment fails. San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), for example, faced as much as $30 billion in potential liabilities for the role its equipment played in causing wildfires in 2017 and 2018. PG&E filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2019, at least partly as a result. Therefore, finding and fixing problems before components fail is worth the effort. “For the most part, utilities are inspecting somewhere between 10% and 12% of their assets each year,” Chris Beaufait, CEO of Sharper Shape, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “They’re always trying to figure out how to prioritize in the best way, but then they also run into human resource issues, and just how much they can accomplish in a single year.” That’s where automated drone technology and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms can help. “We can do detailed inspection of various assets using drones, and we actually have specific software packages that allow parts of that to be automated so the utility can get a repeatable process on their inspection,” Beaufait said. “Then, we basically process all that data. If we do a LIDAR [light detection and ranging] data collection, as an example, we can create data assets of everything that they have in the physical world, and then we can use AI algorithms and human intelligence to really come up with actions that they can do around that so they prioritize what they're going to do in the field, around maintenance, around vegetation management, around asset replacement, or asset improvements,” he explained. Utilizing drones and AI technology allows a much larger area to be covered in a shorter amount of time. “We're talking tens of thousands of miles, and using this combination of artificial intelligence, we can tell them where they may have risks,” said Beaufait. The inspections generate an enormous amount of data. According to Beaufait, Sharper Shape has completed more than 35,000 miles of collection, which includes more than 800,000 different structures and assets, equating to about 5 petabytes of data (5,000,000 GB). It would be impossible for a human to thoroughly process all the information in that amount of data, but computers with AI algorithms can look for anomalies and prioritize the problems identified. And while the inspection capabilities available today are remarkable, the technology is constantly improving, which means future asset assessments could be even more advanced.