Resolving the Grid Expansion Dilemma
Adam Farabaugh is Director of Market Development and leads regulatory affairs at Uplight, where he works at the intersection of utility regulation, markets, and distributed energy resources (DERs). He works with utilities, regulators, and policymakers to develop the regulatory and economic frameworks to value, integrate, and scale DERs, energy efficiency, and flexible demand as grid resources. His expertise spans utility planning and program design, quantitative modeling and cost-effectiveness, measurement and verification, wholesale market rules, and FERC Order 2222 implementation. Adam regularly participates in regulatory proceedings. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Energy, Business, and Finance from Penn State University.
For nearly three decades, electric power planning operated under a relatively stable planning paradigm: modest load growth, predictable asset replacement cycles, and infrastructure expansion paced over years rather than months. Today, that playbook is being tested by a very different set of system conditions.
Data center expansion, industrial reshoring, and rapid electrification are forcing power system planners to confront a sharp surge in load growth. At the same time, many substations, transformers, and feeders are aging or approaching thermal and operational limits.
The default industry reaction has been to accelerate traditional infrastructure investment: proposing new generation, expanding high-voltage transmission, and upgrading substations. Supply-side expansion remains essential, but relying primarily on new capital infrastructure creates structural bottlenecks across development timelines, supply chains, permitting processes, and customer bills.