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Consider ethical and social challenges in smart grid research

Nature Machine Intelligence volume 1, pages 548–550 (2019)Cite this article

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Artificial intelligence and machine learning are increasingly seen as key technologies for building more decentralized and resilient energy grids. However, researchers must consider the ethical and social implications of these developments.

The UK and most EU countries have committed to a target of offering a smart meter to every home by 20202, with similar monitoring being installed in other parts of the energy network. This has led to what some refer to as a ‘data tsunami’ and the need for machine learning techniques to deal with the ensuing challenge of extracting useful information from these data, often in real time.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the UK Research Councils through the CESI projects CESI (EP/P001173/1), CEDRI (EP/R008655/1), NCEWS (KTP:510925) and Reflex (InnovateUK: 104780).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Smart Systems Group, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

    Valentin Robu, David Flynn, Merlinda Andoni & Maizura Mokhtar

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  1. Valentin Robu
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  2. David Flynn
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  3. Merlinda Andoni
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  4. Maizura Mokhtar
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Correspondence to Valentin Robu.

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Robu, V., Flynn, D., Andoni, M. et al. Consider ethical and social challenges in smart grid research. Nat Mach Intell 1, 548–550 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-019-0120-6

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