Jim Glass hasn’t stopped learning yet, and he doesn’t plan to any time soon.
Glass, assistant vice president of EPB smart grid operations, discussed the role of Artificial Intelligence in the future of the power grid on the student-led CH-AI Brews podcast from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
“We don’t necessarily call it AI, but some of the technology that we use in our distribution automation system processes information makes decisions and takes action without operator intervention,” Glass said. “Specifically what happens is if there is a problem on our electric system like a tree that falls into the lines, these switches are able to sense the problem, isolate the problem to a relatively small area, and then kind of reroute power around it to maintain service to as many customers as possible. All of that happens in just a few seconds.”
He predicted an increasing use of AI technology in EPB’s future.
“I think what is likely to happen is we’ll use the same sensors and switches that we have in place today, but the AI technology will take advantage of those to a greater extent. I think AI technology will start to automate or optimize some of the processes that we do today,” Glass said. “I think there will be other things that it does that are completely different from how we do it today, but I expect it to start by just kind of mimicking the human actions that we take today.”
Regardless of whether or how widely AI is adopted by municipal service providers, utility companies, power generating companies or other organizations, Glass said he’s not looking for any quick changes.
“I don’t expect there to be a wholesale replacement of these applications right away just because it’s such a big effort. What I do think is going to happen and what we’ve already started to see happen a little bit is some of our existing software products’ vendors will begin to embed AI technology in their existing products.”
Glass said he and his colleagues work to acquire and maintain new knowledge and skills required to keep up with and effectively use evolving technologies. He cited a collaboration with UTC as a source of some of important new knowledge.
“We recently did a project with UTC where we worked with a couple of professors and grad students to develop some drone technology to patrol our power lines, take video and thermal imagery, and then automatically process that imagery so that it would tell us where we had potential problems,” he said. As a result, it was possible to determine the location of and address potential problems before they became actual problems.
Glass joined EPB as manager of Smart Grid Development after more than 20 years with Florida Power & Light for more than 20 years. He was named assistant vice president of Smart Grid Operations in 2024.
He considered his decades of experience in utility company technology before offering advice on how to navigate one’s career path alongside the continuing evolution of AI.
“Never stop learning, No. 1,” Glass said. “Your college diploma is not the end of your education. There’s always going to be ways that you can explore new ideas and technology and figure out how to apply them to your job.
“That makes you a more valuable employee to your company, which creates opportunity, gives you more chances for advancement within the company, but it also makes your job a lot more interesting.”
After 23 years with public utility company Florida Power & Light, from technology manager, to emergency preparedness manager to smart grid manager; Glass joined EPB in in 2010 as manager of smart grid development and was named assistant vice president of smart grid operations in 2024. He has a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
CHAI Brews: Infusing Conversations About AI is a UTC student-led podcast exploring the impact of AI on university classrooms and campuses; the career fields students are pursuing and the workplaces that await them; the city of Chattanooga, the state of Tennessee and the people who live there.
Excerpts of the podcast are aired on Mondays on WUTC-FM 88.1 and can be found online at wutc.org. CH-AI Brews is also available on Spotify and Apple podcasts. You can listen to the entire interview with Jim Glass HERE.