Reframing Large Load Growth: From Grid Strain to Grid Security Asset
As demand from AI data centers, electrification, and renewables accelerates, utilities must shift from traditional expansion to integrating flexible, distributed resources that enhance system reliability, security, and affordability amid aging infrastructure and regulatory pressures.
Delivering flexibility at scale: Data center growth requires a new power model
The shift toward flexibility is gaining momentum across the industry. Efforts like the EPRI Flex MOSAIC initiative reflect a growing alignment among data center operators, utilities, policymakers, and technology providers. The initiative has a clear premise: large loads must operate more flexibly with the grid, and stakeholders must incorporate flexibility into power delivery from the outset.
AI Needs Power. Scaling It Without Raising Ratepayer Costs Requires a New Power Strategy.
Recent policy developments in Washington have underscored a growing reality: the race to build AI infrastructure is directly tied to the challenges associated with powering it. As AI data centers scale rapidly, power strategy is becoming a core infrastructure decision, enabling faster deployment while protecting ratepayers and strengthening the energy system.
Winning the Race to Power: Behind-the-Meter Generation as a Competitive Advantage for Large Loads
Behind-the-meter (BTM) generation is emerging as a speed-to-power strategy that translates directly into a competitive advantage for the businesses that install it. When strategically deployed, BTM generation strengthens the system as a grid asset, enabling a win for the utility, the data center, and the surrounding community.
Flexible Generation is Becoming a True Grid Partner. The Gas Market Must Adapt.
Electric load growth is accelerating at a pace few anticipated just a decade ago. Utilities are increasingly offering interruptible service structures. Renewable penetration continues to expand, bringing valuable clean energy to the system, but also intermittency that must be managed. These forces are reshaping how reliability is delivered and accelerating the search for practical, near-term solutions like flexible capacity.
A New Role for Onsite Generation: Accelerating Grid Access for Large Loads
For hyperscale data center developers, the challenge is no longer theoretical. Utilities in many regions cannot deliver 24/7 firm power, with waits as long as three to six years, forcing developers to either delay projects or rely on costly, standalone power solutions that lock in long-term self-generation and cause friction in communities. Now regulators, utilities, and large load facilities recognize that the solution is flexible, dispatchable generation co-located with large loads.
Weathering the Storm: The Role of Design, Preparation, and Execution in Reliability
Nearly five years ago, a rare winter storm barreled toward Texas and several surrounding states, bringing with it the prospect of widespread power outages and major impacts to the grid infrastructure across the region. It exposed deep vulnerabilities across the state’s power system, causing widespread disruptions for businesses, hospitals, and critical services. But it was also a wake-up call for the entire energy industry, forcing a hard reckoning with how infrastructure performs under truly extreme conditions.
FERC Order Unlocks New Rules for AI-Driven Demand
For years, the data center conversation has been defined by a single anxiety: the grid cannot keep pace with accelerating demand. But FERC’s unanimous decision in December 2025 changed the math for one of its RTOs, which may be the ripple that generates a larger wave of action.
The Evolution of the Commercial & Industrial Microgrid in the Era of the Data Center
Beyond backup: The strategic role of flexible power in a new era of AI-driven demand
Visions of an AI-powered future are driving a global race to develop and deploy digital infrastructure and manufacturing facilities at breakneck speed. But this future endeavor is hitting a critical roadblock, as the aging grid struggles to keep up with soaring demand.The challenge for the energy industry is two-fold: new facilities are large-scale, requiring enough power to serve the equivalent of small cities; and these new loads need power on timescales that are much faster than traditional grid planning and deployment have moved.