Decentralization, Digitization, and Decarbonization
Mackinnon Lawrence is a director in Guidehouse’s global Energy practice and leads Guidehouse Insights.
Michelle Fay is a partner in Guidehouse’s global Energy, Sustainability, and Infrastructure segment supporting clients as they implement transformational programs.
Dan Hahn leads Guidehouse’s Energy Providers practice within the company’s Energy, Sustainability, and Infrastructure segment.
The utility as we know it will soon cease to exist. With the industry at the beginning of a massive digital transformation, utilities will become more dependent on technology and data to drive value, manage the grid, and enable decision making.
The future belongs to full-service providers that orchestrate an ever more complex, clean, distributed, mobile, and intelligent energy system. These organizations must do so while maximizing safety, reliability, and affordability. These are the key takeaways from Guidehouse (formerly Navigant) and Public Utility Fortnightly's fifth annual "State and Future of the Power Industry report."
No forward-looking discussion of the utility industry is complete without acknowledging that the coronavirus outbreak has ripped the rug out from under business-as-usual thinking. The pandemic has turned our collective eye toward business continuity planning and raised new questions about the role of technology in serving customers, maintaining operations, and keeping people safe.
Coupled with an energy transformation already underway, utilities need to approach the energy industry and its associated infrastructure differently, operating with agility, and relentlessly innovating.
While risk mitigation and adaptation are central to these efforts, the current pandemic is unique in its acute, short-term disruptive impact, and in its far-reaching implications on long-term investments. There is simply no blueprint.