In this onsite interview, Luke Jenner, Chief Assets and Digital Officer at Essential Energy, shared how AI is reshaping grid operations across regional New South Wales — and how that same shift is now intersecting with a new source of demand: data centres.

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Mr. Jenner walked through AI's growing role inside Essential Energy itself — from optimising maintenance schedules and powering a voice agent that speeds up storm-time response, to detecting faulty neutrals through real-time smart meter data. What sets this apart from decades of digitalisation, he said, is pace: an internal example saw AI cut a nine-month coding process down to nine hours, allowing the business to iterate at a speed that simply wasn't possible before.

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​That acceleration is colliding with a parallel trend: data centres unable to secure grid capacity or land in major cities are increasingly turning to regional networks like Essential Energy's, which holds roughly 8 gigawatts of spare capacity spread across a vast service area. Jenner framed this three-way relationship — between AI, the grid, and data centres — as one where AI helps identify where that spare capacity actually sits, while a genuine partnership model, built from the earliest planning stages with communities and government at the table, determines whether it gets used well. Looking ahead, he described success as growing network connections through smarter use of existing capacity, resting on three layers that need to coexist: the physical network, a digital backbone, and a strong data backbone.