(Bloomberg) — Last week, French utility Engie SA announced that it will use Google’s AI-powered wind-prediction capabilities to optimize operations of its German wind assets. The pilot program is an extension of Google’s in-house work that it says allows it to capture higher revenues by scheduling hourly wind-power commitments to the grid up to one day in advance. A Google executive calls this offering “a trading recommendations tool,” which it is — but it is also a source of intriguing and important strategic questions for Google, Engie, and Big Tech in energy in general.
Google’s artificial intelligence sister company, DeepMind, continues to expand its scope, scale and capabilities. Essentially, feed DeepMind with a big and difficult set of problems to solve and it can often solve them. In 2020, for instance,…