Sacramento Municipal Utility District's Digital Approach to a Changing Electric Grid

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

As a professional involved in electricity delivery, the T&D World Podcast and tdworld.com is your definitive source for breaking news, industry updates, and more. We've got you covered from transmission to distribution, and everything that affects the power grid. And now, on to today's episode.

Jeff Poulsitowait (0:20)

Hello, and welcome to the T&D World Live Podcast. I'm Jeff Poulstewaite, Senior Editor and Lead Reporter for T&D World. And I'm so glad to have you here for another episode. Today, we are talking about optimizing the grid with computing technology, and I have a guest here who's very knowledgeable about that.

I'd like to share with you my interview with Suresh Kotha, who is Senior Information Officer with Sacramento Municipal Utility District. And SMUD is, you know, it's a really forward-looking utility that's always on the leading edge of this kind of technology. So I really hope that you'll get something valuable out of this interview.

So here is my chat with Suresh Kotha of SMUD. We have Suresh Kotha, who's the Chief Information Officer for Sacramento Municipal Utilities District or SMUD. And thank you for joining us, Suresh.

Suresh Kotha (1:11)

It's my pleasure.

Jeff Poulsitowait (1:12)

Yeah. So yeah, I think you're our first CIO to have on the show.

So I was wondering if maybe you could walk me through what your role is for a large municipally owned utility like SMUD, and how would your job there be different than, say, maybe at a bigger publicly owned utility or co-op or things like that?

Suresh Kotha (1:35)

Sure. So at SMUD, we as a community-owned not-for-profit, we are focused and aligned with serving our customers and region, prioritizing reliability, affordability, and a clean energy future. So what's different from an investment utility? We are a publicly elected seven-member board of directors, allows for local governance and the opportunity to build a direct connection to our community needs. So as SMUD's CI Chief Information Officer, I lead our digital transformation and technology strategy, making sure we have the advanced systems, AI capabilities, and tools needed to support our 2030 Zero Card Plan, a very ambitious carbon plan to eliminate greenhouse emissions from our power portfolio. My focus is on integrating smart grid technologies, modernizing our IT platforms, and responsibly adopting AI to enhance reliability, affordability, at the same time, cybersecurity and customer experience as we deliver clean energy for our community.

So, being we are not too large and we are not too small, and we are a vertically integrated electric utility, that gives us the flexibility to more quickly pilot, integrate, and scale advanced digital technologies like ADMS, Advanced Distribution Management System, or DERMS, Distributed Energy Resource Management System, and Distributed Intelligence, or it's also called Edge Computing, to modernize the grid and support our zero carbon goals. So, overall technology at SMUD is a strategic enabler for resiliency, cybersecurity, and customer engagement, and of course, mainly the decarbonization with an emphasis on responsible innovation that benefits our community and supports our regional growth.

Jeff Poulsitowait (3:35)

Yeah, I would like to get more into that balance of sustainability and affordability and reliability here in a little bit. But is your department involved in SMUD's efforts to accommodate data centers and the new big load that's coming from that, taking in data centers as new customers? And if so, what work are you doing along those lines?

Suresh Kotha (3:57)

Sure. I mean, the short and quick answer is yes, because all parts of our organization are actively involved in preparing for large new loads, including data centers, as part of our broader growth strategy for the Sacramento region. So our approach starts with IRP, which is called Integrated Resource Planning, where we balance affordability, reliability, and our clean energy goals, while planning for new technologies and large customer projects.

So we work very early on. We work very closely with our customers and developers early in the process, because capacity is not uniform across our service area.

That early coordination helps identify the right sites, clarify timelines and costs, and ensure we can plan the necessary grid upgrades efficiently. So as an ongoing, we regularly invest in grid modernization and targeting infrastructure in high growth areas and plan years in advance, so we can support major projects while keeping service reliable and rates lowest among in California. Today, all grid modernization efforts require foundational technology solutions that my team support, especially for sectors like data centers, advanced manufacturing, or AI-related development, that is NeoClouds or hyperscalers. Power infrastructure is increasingly a key site selection factor, and SMUD is working to be a strong, forward-looking utility partner. So from my team's perspective, we support that work through data, forecasting grid visibility, and cybersecurity. Our role is to make sure SMUD has the digital tools and secure technology platforms needed to plan for large load growth, like I talked about, whether it's hyperscalers, any data centers, or the NeoClouds, and operate the grid reliably and support increasingly complex customer needs.