AWS for Industries

AWS re:Invent 2020 – Power and Utilities Industry Guide

AWS re:Invent routinely fills several Las Vegas venues with standing-room only crowds, but we are bringing it to you with an all-virtual and free event this year. This year’s conference is gearing up to be our biggest yet and we have an exciting program planned for the Power & Utilities industry with five keynotes, 18 leadership sessions, and over 500 breakout sessions beginning November 30. See how AWS experts and leaders of the Power & Utility industry are using cloud technology to transform their businesses and innovate on the behalf of their customers.

For Power & Utilities attendees looking to get the most out of their experience, follow these steps:

Power & Utilities at re:Invent 2020

As the world’s population continues to grow, so does the world’s consumption of energy and water. To meet these growing needs, AWS provides power and utility companies the foundation to transform complex business and operational systems and accelerate the transition to a more sustainable, decarbonized energy and water future.

Power & Utilities sessions

We look forward to welcoming you to AWS re:Invent! Learn more and bookmark each Power & Utilities session and our additional recommendations for your virtual reInvent agenda. Learn from from AWS power and utilities customers and partners including Accenture, Autogrid, Octopus Energy, Origin Energy, Portland General Electric, Siemens, San Diego Gas & Electric, and more:

Alexa, charge my car! Test drive the Accenture EV roaming platform (Wed. December 2, 10:30-11:00 a.m. PST)

As legislation and brand awareness drive electric vehicle (EV) adoption in the market, several points of friction surround ownership and user experience. Electric vehicle owners are challenged with fragmented charging infrastructure and uncertain battery health. Learn how Accenture developed an EV roaming platform with the AWS Connected Vehicle Solution, AWS IoT Greengrass, Amazon Kinesis Data Analytics, and more. Explore the architecture and see how it enables mobile applications and head units to allow OEMs and utilities a more meaningful role in shaping the EV experience, from charging and payments to trip planning and maintenance.

How Phillips 66 transformed their business with SAP on AWS (Thurs. December 3, 11:15-11:45 a.m. PST)

When Phillips 66 embarked on a journey to transform its hydrocarbon value chain with SAP’s new S/4HANA platform, it partnered with AWS, SAP, Accenture, and SUSE to deliver business value throughout the organization. With two of three key phases completed, learn how Phillips 66 partnered with AWS to innovate on the AWS platform, driving new services and features, in addition to leading innovations across partners and the industry.

Smart Vision for Predictive and Preventative Industrial Operations (Wed. December 9, 8:15-8:45 a.m. PST)

Industrial facilities and assets can be complex, old, and the cost of error can be extremely high—yet the need for industrial digital transformation cannot be understated. With IoT and machine learning, industrial customers can combine machine data from a single line, factory, or a network of sites, to improve performance and efficiency by remotely and proactively identifying issues before they happen. Learn how ConocoPhillips is taking advantage of rapid IoT and ML innovations to integrate with on-premises data, process unstructured machine data, and generate predictive and preventive actions to increase operational efficiency.

AWS On Air: Autogrid Voice of the Customer (Live: Wed, December 9, 11:00-11:30 a.m PST)

On Air interview with Autogrid CEO Amit Narayan on enabling a smarter energy internet to meet societal decarbonization goals.

PGE’s customer and operational improvement journey with AWS  (Wed. December 9, 1:30-2:00 p.m. PST)

Electric utility Portland General Electric (PGE) has reduced customer friction and reaped numerous operational improvements with AWS services. In this session, learn how PGE leveraged AWS technology and developed ML and analytic solutions to improve the operational efficiency for full-pole inspection, estimated restoration time calculation, and PV disaggregation. Also learn how PGE “in-sourced” meter data analytics work and the real savings it is accruing. The session also covers how PGE leveraged the AWS stack and developed APIs and microservices for a web and mobile app and a data lake for internal customers.

AWS at the edge: Using AWS IoT to optimize Amazon wind farms (Wed. December 9, 2:00-2:30 PST)

AWS IoT and edge computing solutions move data processing and analysis closer to where data is generated to enable customers to innovate and achieve more sustainable operations. In this session, learn how Amazon renewable energy projects use AWS IoT to collect and analyze data in real time from wind farms in order to optimize performance and progress toward the goal of powering AWS global infrastructure with 100% renewable energy by 2025.

SDG&E: Fighting wildfire with artificial intelligence  (Thur. December 10, 1:00-1:30 p.m. PST)

Fueled by heat and wind, wildfires are burning throughout states on the West Coast of the United States. As part of its continued efforts to reduce the risk of wildfire, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) is building machine learning models using AWS services to automatically identify asset damage on drone imagery and vegetation risks on satellite imagery. Also, to improve customer awareness ahead of public safety power shutoff events, the company has expanded its communication channels to smart assistants that enable convenient access to important information.

AWS On Air: Power & Utilities Industry Update (Live: Thur, December 10, 6:00-6:30 PST)

On Air interview with AWS WW Power & Utilities Business Development Lead Rolf Gibbels

Migrating a legacy data warehouse to Amazon Redshift (Fri. December 11, 3:00-3:30 PST)

Are you interested in moving from a legacy data warehouse to Amazon Redshift but aren’t sure where to start? Attend this session to learn how other users have made the move and about the migration tools offered by AWS and the new features in Amazon Redshift that make it easier and faster to migrate. The session covers tools like AWS Schema Conversion Tool and AWS Snowball, and it reviews enhancements in Amazon Redshift that help you quickly migrate to a cloud data warehouse and take advantage of the service’s performance, scale, and ease of use.

Utility meter data analytics and Quick Start walk-through (Tues. January 12, 11:00-11:30 a.m PST)

Utilities have been running smart meters for over a decade now, and yet utilities have gained little benefit for themselves or their customers from the rich data flowing from them. The focus has remained on the data needed for billing, while the rest is ignored. This has been largely due to the high cost, low capacity, and slow speed of legacy RDBM meter data systems. In this session, learn how AWS data lakes, analytics, and AI/ML unlock the value of your smart meter data and see a walk-through of the new meter data analytics AWS Quick Start.

Origin Energy delivers great agent and customer experiences (Wed. January 13, 8:45-9:15 a.m. PST)

As one of Australia’s largest integrated energy companies serving over 4 million customers, Origin is focused on providing customers with affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy as well as outstanding customer experience. Hear how Amazon Connect powers Origin’s customer experience transformation, which has increased call quality scores, improved customer satisfaction, and increased agent productivity. Origin shares its recipe for success and its innovation roadmap for the future to deliver continuous improvement for its customers.

Octopus Energy: Enhance speech recognition accuracy using custom language models (Thur. January 14, 2:15-2:45 p.m. PST)

In this Level 400 technical session, learn how to train custom language models in Amazon Transcribe that supercharge speech recognition accuracy. Octopus Energy, a UK-based utility company, shares how it leverages domain-specific data to train a custom language model that is fine-tuned for its business needs and specific use case.

Extras you won’t want to miss out on!

Andy Jassy keynote (Tuesday, Dec. 1, 8:00AM – 11:00 a.m. PST)

Live from Seattle, Andy Jassy takes the stage to share his insights and the latest news about AWS customers, products, and services.

Machine Learning Keynote (Tuesday, Dec. 8, 8:00AM – 9:30AM)
Join Swami Sivasubramanian for the first-ever Machine Learning Keynote, live at re:Invent. Hear how AWS is freeing builders to innovate on machine learning with the latest developments in AWS machine learning, demos of new technology, and insights from customers.

Power & Utilities Attendee Guide

Download the full AWS Power & Utilities Virtual Attendee Guide 2020 to get further information on industry sessions, activities, and “how to re:Invent.”

Don McDonnell

Don McDonnell

Don McDonnell serves as global segment lead utilities for Amazon Web Services partner network. When not helping partners build and grow on AWS, Don volunteers serving on the board of trustees of non-profits BetterGrids.org and Goshen Valley, Georgia’s top-rated foster agency provider.

Joseph Beer

Joseph Beer

Joseph (Joe) Beer is the AWS Worldwide Technology Leader for the Power and Utilities vertical, responsible for guiding the development of reusable IT, OT, customer engagement, data, and asset management solution architectures on AWS. Joe advises customers and partners on how AWS cloud can enable their digital transformation strategies and help them achieve their business goals. Joe is an industry veteran with 30+ years of leadership experience in IT management, solution architecture and delivery, and consulting across multiple industries both domestically and internationally. Joe joined AWS from Puget Sound Energy, where has was the CTO/Chief Architect and was responsible for directing IT strategy, architecture, and design work for both traditional IT and “Operations” IT.