A Guide for Utility Executives
Michelle Fay is a partner in the Communities, Energy & Infrastructure segment and leads the firm’s global Energy Providers practice, supporting clients as they implement transformational programs. She brings more than twenty-five years of experience planning and delivering complex and innovative programs for utilities. Michelle’s expertise includes program and project management, organizational change management, account management, process and performance improvement, grid modernization, energy efficiency, and analytics.
Stuart Brown, Guidehouse Technology Leader, shapes the firm’s digital innovation strategy and helps clients turn emerging technologies into enterprise value. With more than twenty-five years of experience delivering complex transformations across sectors, he’s known for connecting big ideas to practical outcomes, whether through AI, cloud, or platform modernization. A trusted advisor to Fortune 500 leaders, Stuart brings a pragmatic, people-first approach to solving today’s toughest technology challenges.
With almost half of the world’s data center capacity currently centered on the United States — and a potential tripling of associated electricity consumption by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) — the nation’s power sector finds itself at a crossroads.
Not only does the AI data center boom present utilities with a potentially large revenue opportunity from these new loads, but AI deployment within the industry also offers a burgeoning array of opportunities to improve operational efficiency and resilience, maintain competitiveness, and preserve capital.
That said, AI adoption is at a clear inflection point and the resultant data center infrastructure expansion presently underway brings a unique set of challenges to an industry prone to measured (read slow) innovation.
While AI is not a silver bullet for the many challenges utilities currently face, it is quickly proving to be a critical tool in the toolbox as they work to adapt to a rapidly changing operating environment.
According to Guidehouse’s annual Pulse Survey of utility executives conducted in partnership with Public Utilities Fortnightly and published in the June 2 PUF Special Issue, nearly two-thirds of industry executives indicate that their organizations are prepared for substantial load growth from the AI economy and data center infrastructure but cautioned that maintaining system reliability remains a mitigating factor.