[Media Alert] HOUSTON, TX — September 17, 2026 — Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company, has announced Agentic Grid Planning on AWS, a program that helps utilities accelerate interconnection studies by providing access to AWS-managed AI agents. Duke Energy, the collaborating utility, has seen data preparation tasks go from two weeks of manual work to hours utilizing these agents. The program addresses a critical challenge as interconnection studies grow in volume and complexity.
Meeting the demands of the rising interconnection requests offers a vital opportunity to support the growing demand for new energy generation and load growth. According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, more than 2,000 GW of generation and storage were seeking U.S. transmission interconnection at the end of 2025. The report also found that projects entering operation that year had spent a median of more than five years in the process. In ERCOT alone, requests to connect large loads reached approximately 410 GW in March 2026.[1] At the same time, demand for interconnection studies is outpacing the number of qualified engineers available to perform them.
Through this program, utilities gain access to AI agents that carry out study workflows using the physics-based simulation software, grid models, scripts, and engineering standards their teams already use and trust. This enables power systems engineers to complete studies faster, analyze more scenarios and options, and focus on engineering judgment and decisions, while preserving a versioned, reviewable record. Engineers direct the study and make final engineering decisions. The simulation software performs the deterministic modeling and analysis, and the AI agents run and coordinate the study workflow.
AWS worked closely with Duke Energy engineers to help build out Agentic Grid Planning on AWS. Duke Energy brought the transmission planning expertise and provided ongoing feedback, which was critical to the development of these AI agents. Duke Energy engineers are now working with agents to automate and enhance key components of the interconnection study process, streamline data preparation, analysis execution, and workflow coordination. Duke Energy aims to increase planners’ capacity, improve efficiency, and support future innovation across the interconnection process. Duke Energy and AWS are also working to expand these capabilities more broadly into large load planning workflows and lay the foundation for load and generation studies.
"Duke Energy maintains one of the largest utility grids in the United States, and our engineers must complete a higher volume of increasingly complex studies as demand for generation and load grows," said John Pressley, Managing Director of Digital Strategy and Engineering at Duke Energy. "As part of our collaboration with AWS, Duke Energy engineers are using specialized AWS AI Agents to study grid upgrade decisions around reliability, costs, and the impact on customers and the Duke Energy grid, all through auditable and codified Agentic workflows. Our engineers lead the work and make all final engineering decisions, while AI agents provide them with more time for engineering judgment and review. For our customers, that means that we are enhancing reliability and positioning ourselves to meet future demand."
Across the industry, interconnection processes are changing to shorten study timelines and provide greater certainty. FERC Order No. 2023 requires transmission providers to use first-ready, first-served cluster studies and meet study deadlines for generator interconnection, while ERCOT, NYISO, and SPP are also developing new interconnection processes for large loads. Agentic Grid Planning on AWS helps address these requirements.
"Utilities are facing a challenge that scaling their manual processes alone cannot solve," said Joseph Santamaria, general manager, Energy and Utilities at AWS. "Thousands of gigawatts of generation and storage projects are waiting to connect to the grid, while electricity demand continues to grow. Agentic Grid Planning on AWS will help utilities bring AI into the grid planning workflows they depend on every day, helping engineers conduct interconnection studies faster. By working with the applications that planners already trust and keeping engineers in control at every step, we are helping utilities move studies forward and connect the energy infrastructure that communities and businesses need, faster than ever before."
Agentic Grid Planning on AWS is available to qualified utilities and grid operators. AWS Professional Services is available to support integration if needed. To learn more, visit aws.amazon.com/energy-utilities/agentic-grid-planning/ or contact your AWS account team.
About AWS
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[1] Source: ERCOT Update, Texas State Senate Committee on Business & Commerce, 1 April 2026.
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