Commentary

As demand for artificial intelligence (AI), hyperscale cloud and high-density computing accelerates, data centers are being built at an unprecedented pace. Yet this expansion is outstripping the fiber infrastructure required to support it—introducing real risks to capacity, cost and timelines. Industry research indicates that without significant investment, global networks will require up to 200 million […]

AI-driven load growth is putting significant strain on the grid, intensifying pressure on utilities and developers to secure firm capacity and meet increasingly compressed delivery timelines. While tools such as transmission optimization can deliver incremental gains, they do not address the core issue: the pace of AI data center expansion is forcing a shift from […]

Join energy leaders in the Space Solar Power Symposium at Experience POWER 2026 in Washington, D.C. A few weeks ago, while opening a panel on Space Solar Power (SSP) at SF Climate Week 2026 co-hosted by the Space Frontier Foundation and the Young Professionals in Energy, Bay Area, I asked the audience a simple question: […]

For much of the past decade, the climate and energy debate has been fixated on how electricity is generated: which technologies are cheapest on paper, how renewables can scale fastest, which breakthrough is

Artificial intelligence (AI) has overturned the long-stable trajectory of U.S. electricity demand. After decades of flat growth, planners and regulators now face a surge driven by hyperscale data

The unique demands of floating offshore wind turbines require a blend of specialized coating systems engineered to help prevent corrosion and extend asset service life in some of the world’s harshest environments.

The global hunt for clean, always-on power is intensifying. Data centers powering artificial intelligence (AI) are signing long-term energy contracts at extraordinary speed. Against this backdrop, geothermal energy—carbon-free and available around the clock—is attracting serious capital for the first time in a generation.

Utilities have long been accused of slow-walking innovation. Fair or not, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and the subsequent wariness from those responsible for maintaining our most critical infrastructure, has only intensified that perception. But make no mistake: we’re in the midst of the most-rapid technological evolution of utilities in the power grid’s […]

Hydrogen has long been positioned as a cornerstone of the energy transition. But after an intense hype cycle, the conversation is shifting toward a more practical phase defined by targeted deployment and measurable value. Rather than serving as a universal solution to decarbonization, hydrogen is increasingly being recognized for what it does best: complementing electrification […]

The electricity conversation in America has become increasingly focused on one question: How do we meet rising demand? The surge in artificial intelligence, data centers, electrification, and domestic manufacturing is placing unprecedented pressure on the grid. The industry’s response has largely centered on adding supply, such as building more generation, expanding transmission, and accelerating new […]

The U.S. averages 470 GW of demand, reaches summer peaks of 759 GW, and has 1,250 GW of generation capacity. Does that sound like a grid running out of power? PJM’s latest capacity auction signals the need for an additional 14.9 GW of power resources, while the industry is expected to invest $1.4 trillion over […]

Wildfires are no longer isolated disasters limited to the western United States—they are a growing threat to communities, infrastructure, and electric grid reliability nationwide. For the 42 million Americans served by electric cooperatives, the risk is especially acute. Co-ops power more than half the nation’s landmass, primarily in rural areas where wildfire danger is highest […]

In order to appreciate just how quickly risk solutions for data centers have evolved, consider the fact that three years ago, it was nearly impossible to appropriately insure a $20-billion campus. By 2026, it’s become a weekly conversation.

The Trump administration’s unprecedented assault on wind energy development in the U.S. stands in sharp contrast to its promotion of oil and gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG) production, and microreactor nuclear projects. Agencies have blocked 165 wind projects nationwide while simultaneously spending nearly $2 billion in taxpayer funds to convince energy companies to abandon offshore […]

Power demand across the U.S., particularly in Texas, continues to accelerate, driven by data center expansion, electrification trends and sustained industrial growth. Recent market analyses, including JLL’s data center outlook, show Texas accounting for more than one-third of the nation’s active data center construction pipeline, signaling a significant and sustained increase in electricity demand. To […]

Installed utility-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) is expected to cross the 100-GW milestone this year, and yet no two utility-scale BESS installations are exactly alike. A 4-hour, fully integrated AC block LFP shifting 100 MW of Kern County sunshine, a 1-hour tier-2 air-cooled NMC tied to a dusty 5kV pole somewhere in West Nowhere, […]

NERC’s recent Level 3 alert flagged something that should concern every data center operator: Artificial intelligence (AI) facilities are causing sudden 1,000+ MW load swings in single events.

It’s a known fact that wind power sites across the U.S. eventually will reach the end of their lifecycles. So now what? The industry is coming upon an age where owners and operators must repower these sites by leveraging existing infrastructure to help meet the growing national demand for power. With more than 75,000 turbines […]

A year after President Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 14300 directing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to cut red tape and speed nuclear deployment, the agency is claiming a string of historic firsts, a backlog of rules in motion at unprecedented scale, and an internal reorganization due to take effect next month. In a news […]

The requests flooding interconnection queues come from data center developers, private equity funds, land brokers, and shell companies, many of whom lack site control, a construction timeline, or even a signed customer. They secure a queue position, bet that powered land will attract a buyer, and wait. The industry calls them “phantom data centers,” and the grid isn’t prepared to handle them.

Behind even the smallest convenience powered by AI is a massive surge of computing power for training models and inference. All that computing power requires energy.

Utilities are under increasing pressure to move distributed energy resources (DER) through interconnection queues more quickly. In many regions, review timelines have stretched from months into years as requests for solar, storage, and electric vehicle infrastructure continue to rise.

On May 5, 2026, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released its CI Fortify initiative, new guidance instructing electric utilities and other critical infrastructure (CI) operators to plan for a geopolitical crisis in which their operational technology (OT) networks are actively compromised and/or their connectivity to telecommunications, internet, vendors, and service providers is gone. […]

Grid capacity and the interconnection queue aren’t the only constraints on U.S. data center growth. Community acceptance is becoming the toughest bottleneck to break through, and a hot political topic with the approach of the midterm elections.

The electric vehicle (EV) charging conversation in America has focused largely on hardware: how many ports, what power level, where to locate them. That framing misses the more consequential challenge. Projected EV adoption this decade requires a public charging network far larger than the one operating today. Meeting that demand requires grid infrastructure that does […]

The global energy landscape is undergoing a profound transformation. Increasing demand for power driven by the proliferation of data centers, the rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), expansive manufacturing, and widespread industrial electrification has brought the need for new, sustainable power sources into sharp focus. This burgeoning load growth necessitates the urgent deployment of renewable […]

With many hyperscale data centers requiring hundreds of megawatts of reliable, uninterrupted power, contractors often find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Cybersecurity is no longer the domain of the experts, it’s a distributed responsibility across the whole organization. It’s critical for each company in every sector, but electric utilities have some unique attributes that make cyber resiliency the highest priority and network managers of the utmost importance.

The American Public Power Association welcomes renewed bipartisan negotiations in the Senate on permitting reform. America’s demand for electricity is rising at a pace few anticipated just a few years ago. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC’s) recent Long-Term Reliability Assessment warns that 10-year summer peak demand is projected to grow by 224 GW, […]

Powering data centers is receiving significant attention at the federal level with the Department of Energy’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, or ANOPR, on large-load interconnections, and with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gathering input on the proposal.