What role can artificial intelligence play in shaping the future of energy systems? In this episode, Dr. Aidan Rhodes, Research Fellow at Imperial College London and Energy Policy Briefing Papers Fellow at Energy Futures Lab, explores the intersection of AI and energy with two expert guests:
Francesco Leofante, Imperial College Research Fellow, affiliated with the Centre for Explainable Artificial Intelligence. Francesco’s work focuses on safe and explainable AI, particularly counterfactual explanations and their robustness.
Daniel Lewis, Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology Fellow and author of the Energy Security and AI policy briefing paper. Daniel examines AI applications in energy systems, associated challenges, and key policy considerations for the future.
In This Episode:
- The potential solutions and opportunities for AI within energy systems
- The challenges and risks of integrating AI into the energy sector
- How AI could help accelerate the transformation of energy systems for net zero
YouTube Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction to the Energy Futures Podcast
00:01:02 - Meet the Guests: Francesco Leofante and Daniel Lewis
00:03:15 - How AI Can Transform Energy Systems
00:08:10 - Safe and Explainable AI in Energy
00:15:45 - Policy Insights: Energy Security and AI
00:21:20 - Challenges of Integrating AI in Energy Systems
00:29:30 - Counterfactual Explanations and AI Transparency
00:37:00 - AI and Grid Flexibility for Net Zero
00:44:15 - Key Policy Considerations for AI Adoption in Energy
00:50:30 - Closing Thoughts and Where to Learn More
Guest Bios:
Dr. Aidan Rhodes
Dr. Rhodes is a Research Fellow at Imperial College London and the Energy Policy Briefing Papers Fellow at Energy Futures Lab. He prepares accessible briefing papers for energy sector policymakers, focusing on topics like digitalization, smart energy systems, and national energy innovation.
Aidan’s links
Imperial profile: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/aidan.rhodes
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-rhodes-06b16030/?originalSubdomain=uk
Francesco Leofante
Francesco is an Imperial College Research Fellow at the Centre for Explainable Artificial Intelligence. He leads the ConTrust project, a four-year initiative to study robustness in explainable AI. His work delves into safe and transparent AI applications.
Francesco’s links
Imperial profile: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/f.leofante
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francescoleofante/?originalSubdomain=uk
Website: https://fraleo.github.io/
Daniel Lewis
Daniel is a Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) Fellow and author of the Energy Security and AI policy briefing paper. He transitioned into this role from his anthropology PhD research at Durham University, which focused on primate host-microbiome coevolution.
Daniel’s links
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-lewis-bio/
POST Paper Energy security and AI: https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pn-0735/
Additional Links
Smart Meter Paper: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/energy-futures-lab/reports/briefing-papers/paper-9/
https://www.neso.energy/what-we-do/data-ai
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_learning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_Nuclear_Generating_Station
https://viso.ai/deep-learning/computer-vision-tasks/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model
