Perspective

James Duehning, Mark Van Dyne, Kent Herzog, Alex Lee, and Andrew Schulte: “We need to shift from a deterministic planning model to something more probabilistic, especially with all the uncertainty around future load and generation. The way we identify project needs today doesn’t fully reflect the realities we’re facing.”

From the sidelines of its Annual Transmission Symposium, conversations with Burns & McDonnell’s Alberto Ruiz, Chih-Hung Chen, Jess Kurpius, Zach O'Toole, JC Perkins, Matt Ingram, Matt Lind, Kyle Combes, Michaela Nickell, Brent Windsor, Brad Gardner, Paul Barker, Danny Serrano, Vinny Montemurro, James Duehning, Mark Van Dyne, Kent Herzog, Alex Lee, and Polsinelli law firm’s Andrew Schulte.

Respondents describe an industry grappling with accelerating load growth, infrastructure vulnerability, and policy uncertainty – even as they continue to work toward clean energy goals and distributed resource integration.

“All these resources coming on have a lower accredited capacity than traditional resources. You have to make sure you’re meeting that supply-demand balance in an already tight market. That’s what we’re focused on. We’re also focused on getting more transmission built.”

“Regulatory incentives focusing on improving overall system utilization create a net downward pressure on rates, just as prioritizing rate impact benefits over other benefit-cost tests helps lower rates more readily than do traditional avoided capital cost tests.”

“Leading utilities’ resiliency programs are also typically ahead in their digital journeys by developing geospatial asset registries, accessible outage management systems, and digitized inspection data.”

“The race for skilled resources is more competitive than ever as the existing workforce ages and labor markets wane, making enterprise alignment on talent acquisition strategies, career pathways, and succession planning critical.”

“If utilities are to become fast followers in AI adoption, they should build a robust ecosystem that strategically integrates AI and other new technologies into their operations and across their networks.”

“Utilities should develop incentive programs encouraging data centers to adopt energy-efficient cooling technologies like liquid cooling and direct-to-chip cooling.”

“Under an energy scarcity regime, such as the U.S. is entering due to projected load growth, energy efficiency and load shifting must be reconsidered as critical energy resources.”