Integrated distribution planning is a framework for meeting electric power distribution system affordability and reliability objectives. EISA provided the legislative support for DOE’s smart grid activities and reinforced its role in leading and coordinating national grid modernization efforts. These advanced technologies include advanced sensors known as Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) that allow operators to assess grid stability, advanced digital meters that give consumers better information and automatically report outages, relays that sense and recover from faults in the substation automatically, automated feeder switches that re-route power around problems, and batteries that store excess energy and make it available later to the grid to meet customer demand. Utilities also benefit from a modernized grid, including improved security, reduced peak loads, increased integration of renewables, and lower operational costs.

He has advanced through diverse operational and leadership roles, overseeing complex projects, guiding cross‑functional teams, and strengthening organizational performance across multiple service lines. Immediately prior to joining Think Power Solutions in 2024, Amy was in a strategic, executive sales leadership role at Osmose which included creating and running an advisory board comprised of industry executives. Advanced practices include segmentation, zero‑trust models, and threat detection platforms embedded within modernization projects. “Modernization could create a more reliable and sustainable power system,” but “there is also the risk that customers are left to pay for a system that doesn’t deliver,” Anthony said.

Another leading trend in electric utility infrastructure modernization is the use of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and digital twin technology. This website is owned and operated by Informa TechTarget, a global network that informs, influences and connects the world’s technology buyers and sellers. “The stakes are too high for regulators to take bets on the outcome,” but on the AMI deployment a good business case convinced the Rhode Island commission, she added. The commission’s decision is frequently between “what https://nebrdecor.com/air-conditioning-service-reliable-solutions-for-home-and-business.html the utility wants and what Rhode Island needs,” said RI PUC Commissioner Anthony, long an advocate of the business case approach. Protecting customers with affordable rates may mean making imperfect choices, regulators and analysts said.

Use software as the intelligence layer

• Protecting sensitive data, maintaining system integrity, and preventing disruptions to power delivery require robust cybersecurity measures at every level to ensure the reliability and security of grid operations.
• Advanced practices include segmentation, zero‑trust models, and threat detection platforms embedded within modernization projects.
• Demand-side grid (dsgrid) toolkit harnesses decades of sector-specific energy modeling expertise to understand current and future U.S. electricity load for power systems analyses.
• Unlocking this potential requires advanced digital technologies to enable active management but could deliver cost savings to utilities and customers.
• Energy Resilience Analysis for Distribution Systems (ERAD) is a free, open-source Python toolkit on GitHub for computing energy resilience measures in the face of hazards such as earthquakes and flooding.

Reach out to explore how we support end‑to‑end utility engineering services and modernization strategy. These platforms underpin modernization strategies, from vegetation management to transmission expansion, and enable utilities to track ROI, compliance and performance consistently. With a central source of truth, decision‑makers can prioritize modernization capex more effectively, based on condition, risk and value. These technologies allow utility engineering services to shift from reactive maintenance to condition‑based and predictive models, reducing cost and increasing uptime.

Workforce Transformation and Digital Field Tools

NLR’s ReEDS is an open-source capacity expansion model for the contiguous U.S. electricity system that has been used in several transmission, grid integration, and policy and scenarios studies, and is NLR’s flagship capacity planning model for the power sector. Estimating the resource adequacy contribution of existing thermal and hydropower resources, new energy resources, energy storage, and flexible demand resources is increasingly complex given the interactions between these resources and the impact of increased electrification. GridSight on GitHub can help disseminate results, visualize and interpret large-scale and data-intensive results, and aid transmission expansion planning. View the transmission and distribution coordination recording on YouTube and access the transmission and distribution coordination slides. The transmission and distribution coordination presentation was given by Bryan Palmintier. The calculator provides a process to elicit facility outage vulnerabilities and estimates how costs vary with outage duration.

Enterprise Capabilities Are Being Democratized

What was once a predictable flow from large, synchronous generators (such as coal, gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric plants), today includes inverter-based technologies that intermittently generate (namely solar and wind) and store electricity (figure 1). But if utilities successfully engage customers, they could harness DER to help meet peak demand with clean energy and provide essential grid services, while equitably sharing revenue and resilience benefits with households and placing downward pressure on rates. She has 20 years of experience delivering international advisory services and developing thought leadership across the Energy, Electric Vehicle, and Manufacturing sectors. Carolyn Amon leads Power, https://ecrfeg.org/what-almost-no-one-knows-about-6/ Utilities & Renewables’ projects at the Deloitte Research Center for Energy and Industrials, where she focuses on decarbonization strategies. Christian Grant is a principal in the Power, Utilities and Renewables practice of Deloitte Consulting LLP, focused on his clients’ strategic and operations challenges. The National Council of State Legislatures estimates that the US will have to spend up to $2 trillion on grid modernization by 2030 — just to maintain electric grid’s reliability.

• Several shifts have occurred, including cost-effective technology advancements, consumer expectations, and regulatory policy.
• She is a strategic growth leader who is passionate about consulting and connecting utility clients with solutions to their key challenges, particularly around resiliency and infrastructure.
• Another leading trend in electric utility infrastructure modernization is the use of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and digital twin technology.
• Another example of the growing emphasis on the business approach was the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities June order authorizing spending for utility modernization plans.

Industry outlooks

Modernized grids improve efficiency, reduce outages, accelerate restoration, and support the integration of distributed energy resources, including solar, wind, and battery storage. Many were never designed to support today’s levels of electrification, renewable energy integration and rising demand for reliability. As utilities prepare for the decade ahead—marked by electrification, distributed energy resources, affordability pressures and heightened resiliency expectations—digital innovation is no longer optional.

Utilities are moving beyond pilots toward full‑scale deployments of connected sensors, asset health monitoring, and real‑time analytics. At Think Power Solutions we advise clients on how to structure modernization programs that deliver measurable outcomes, in reliability, capacity, and cost‑control. For utilities and their engineering partners, the focus is shifting from incremental upgrades to strategic, system‑wide modernization. “The first piece of the accountability framework was a hard budget cap on ratepayer costs of $154 million, which the company itself offered,” Anthony said. A landmark “business case proceeding” led to May’s Rhode Island Public Utility Commission authorization of Rhode Island Energy’s AMI deployment.

Utilities eye small modular nuclear reactors for reliability as hyperscalers drive demand

Alfalfa Virtual Building Service is a web service designed to simulate building energy models. View the microgrids, virtual power plants, and distributed energy resources management systems https://www.penparents.org/Cross/cross-fine-writing-instruments recording on YouTube and access the microgrids, virtual power plants, and distributed energy resources management systems slide deck one and two. It allows homeowners, small building owners, installers and manufacturers to easily develop estimates of the performance of potential PV installations. PVWatts® Calculator estimates the energy production of grid-connected PV energy systems throughout the world. Distribution Integration Solution Cost Options (DISCO) is a Python-based NLR software tool for conducting scalable, repeatable distribution analyses, with a focus on hosting capacity and DER integration. PRECISE is an automated DER interconnection evaluation tool that quickly assesses grid impacts and leverages smart inverter functionality.

Written by Think Power Solutions

All customers could save, especially if they stack TOU rates with utility incentives to participate in demand response programs. Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) deployment already enables such rates for three-quarters of residential connections.35 In all 1.5 degrees Celsius–aligned states, utilities offer TOU rates that vary between two or three periods on a set schedule reflecting typical daily system costs (figure 6). The technological foundation is largely in place to align households to climate targets through opt-out time-varying rates. Customer engagement through opt-out TOU rates can align households with state targets and grid needs. Most states have implemented some elements of performance-based regulation to help address legacy biases that slow DERstribution progress, and a few, led by Hawaii, are even moving toward comprehensive performance-based regulation (figure 6).

However, if unmanaged, these resources could complicate utilities’ efforts to balance decarbonization with affordability. Using DER, households can now pursue their own financial, operational, and environmental priorities, while utilities still have an obligation to serve them. Individual purchases of smart home appliances, solar and storage systems, and electric vehicles (EV) are exponentially increasing the number of distributed energy resources (DER), which can generate, store, or flexibly draw energy from the grid. Household energy use is transforming, placing utilities at the center of two important trends—decarbonization and customer affordability. In tandem with Deloitte’s energy, resources, and industrials leadership, she drives energy research initiatives and manages the execution of the center’s strategy as well as its eminence and thought leadership.

Advanced Analytics, AI, and Digital Twins

The Customer Damage Function (CDF) Calculator is a resource for facility owners and resilience planners to understand the costs of an electric grid outage at their site. It uses graph database to store data and perform computation at the household level for a variety of critical services that are connected by power distribution network. Energy Resilience Analysis for Distribution Systems (ERAD) is a free, open-source Python toolkit on GitHub for computing energy resilience measures in the face of hazards such as earthquakes and flooding.