Following in my predecessor’s footsteps, I am presenting my top three predictions for trending topics for the upcoming year. Teresa Hansen, our former VP of content, retired this past January, and I looked back at her predictions for 2024.
1. AI, particularly GenAI, will continue to be adopted by utilities for several applications.
Teresa predicted that AI adoption by electric utilities would grow, and a recent report from Itron that summarized findings from 600 global utility executives announced that 82% of utilities were in the process of adopting AI/ML. The Resourcefulness Insight Report also found that enhancing safety was the top use case for AI/ML in the utility sector (49%), followed by cyberthreat detection (34%), and low-voltage distribution network management (20%).
We are picking this prediction again for this year, based on what our more popular and engaged articles were from this past year. AES’ article on its acceleration with AI was regularly on our most-read list. The utility outlined how it is using AI in vegetation management, asset optimization, dynamic line rating, digitalization and virtual power plants.
As demand for electricity continues to grow — which utility executives indicate is driven by data centers for cloud computing and AI (40%), new construction (32%) and sustainability initiatives like solar and electric vehicles (31%), according to the Itron report — utilities are facing unprecedented challenges in maintaining reliable and resilient grid operations. AI and ML will be crucial in addressing these challenges.
Technology Editor Gene Wolf also addresses how AI and its subsets are changing everything about the power delivery system in his “Charging Ahead” article on page XX. He contends that GenAI, a kind of AI that uses algorithms that are somewhat different from typical AI, shows great promise for forecasting energy consumption, anticipating how loads might vary throughout the day, and envisioning congestion spots on the power grid, to name a few potential applications.
Aspen Technology’s Sally Jacquemin, vice president, Power and Utilities, also included the increased adoption of AI by utilities in her 2025 predictions: “The perfect storm of power generation and grid infrastructure growth with new technologies and consumer-engagement will drive an exponential growth in data to be sorted, managed, and acted upon within the utility. Gone are the days of paper maps, whiteboard job orders, and limited field crew communication. As veteran utility workforces are set to retire, a new generation of utility operators require AI technology to sort through the noise of complex grid data to ensure safe, efficient, and resilient utility service.”
2. Utilities will get creative in addressing the burgeoning growth of data centers.
As I attended a few electric utility events this year, the main topic of conversations steered from the supply chain problems (which the industry is taking steps to address) to what are we going to do about load growth from data centers?
We also had several articles about data centers in our top 20 articles of the year. Gene Wolf asked in September if data centers were the next grid crisis. According to the 2025 Power and Utilities Industry Outlook, about 75% of the top 35 electric utilities in the U.S. have reported a rise in electricity demand from data centers. I have heard anecdotal reports from utilities that they have been approached by developers who sometimes want to build data centers that the utility does not have the current capacity for, so the projects are in limbo.
Deloitte, like Gene, offered several solutions that utilities are considering including grid-enhancing technologies, diversification of generation, new rate structures that would charge more to large energy users, and on-site generation such as microgrids (or co-location with power generation).
3. Utilities will continue to pursue intelligent undergrounding.
Other industry analysts are predicting more distributed energy resources integration, carbon management development, and even more focus on cybersecurity. But based on our observations, we see that investment in underground distribution will pick up.
PG&E is probably the most recent leader in undergrounding lines after battling devastating wildfires and the continued threat of more as climates change. The utility announced this past November that it had constructed and energized more than 800 miles of underground lines since 2021.
Regular T&D World contributor Mike Beehler has been evangelizing for underground distribution for the past few years, with his message picking up momentum with even more wildfires and recent reliability failures. Having worked in the utility industry for more than 40 years, he knows the reality and approaches the topic with fairness. He believes that we can achieve 50% underground distribution by 2040 to address the energy transition and ensure resiliency.
Based on the popularity of the topic with our readers and on some projects in the works, we think this will be an important trend for our audience this next year. For example, NextEra is embarking on a $1 billion per year, 20-year plan to underground overhead laterals. Eversource Energy is planning an underground 345-kV substation below street level in downtown Boston. These are all projects that Mike follows, and you will hear more from him in an upcoming Straight Talk.
We live in exciting times, and I know 2025 will prove to be just as interesting and dynamic to watch as in the past 75 years. T&D World will be here for it.
