The Electric Grid Worker's Role in the Future Grid: More Than Just Keeping the Lights On
by Bob Shively, Enerdynamics President and Lead Facilitator
As an energy professional, you may feel consumed by the day-to-day challenges of maintaining reliable power delivery and serving your customers. But your role is about to become even more crucial to society's evolution. Recent work by the Power Grid leadership team at Japanese utility TEPCO paints a fascinating picture of where we're headed – and why electric company employees are at the heart of this transformation. [1]
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, as it's described by the team, represents a fundamental shift where today's physical and digital worlds merge. The team envisions a world powered by carbon-neutral electricity with information systems moving and processing huge amounts of data, all guided by artificial intelligence. But here's the key insight: This transformation cannot happen without a modernized, robust electric and communications grid and without the professionals who build, maintain, and operate it.
The Second Industrial Revolution transformed factories through electrification by shifting the driver of production from steam engines to electrical motors. The Third Industrial Revolution brought us the information age with electronic computers automating processes and information becoming readily available on the Internet. Today, we're at the early stages of the Fourth Industrial Revolution with the development of ubiquitous data coupled with the ability to process and act on data through the application of AI.
As described by Hiroshi Okamoto, Chief Technical Officer of TEPCO: “The Fourth Industrial Revolution of AI x Big Data will be implemented in society only by integrating the decentralization of electric brain, electric motor, and electric heat with decentralized electric power systems.” [2]
Electric vehicles will evolve beyond traditional cars into diverse forms of electric-powered autonomous mobility. Building loads will evolve into flexible “digital grid assets.” Data centers – the "brains" of our digital world – may consume up to 10% of all electricity by 2030. This will be powered by a diverse set of electric supply resources including centralized wind, solar, and nuclear coupled with distributed solar power, flexible loads, and storage. These changes depend on one critical infrastructure: the power/communications grid.
The future hybrid electric grid:
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The communications grid integrated with the electric grid:
What does this mean for you, the energy professional? Your role is evolving from maintaining a one-way power delivery system to managing a complex, bi-directional energy and communications platform that integrates:
- Centralized supply resources
- A transmission grid integrating multiple regions
- Robust energy storage
- Distributed energy resources
- Electric vehicle charging networks
- Flexible customer loads
- Edge computing facilities
- Advanced telecommunications infrastructure
- Automated industrial systems
- Ubiquitous data centers processing huge amounts of data
- Sophisticated information technology systems
Data and control signal volume is dramatically growing while the necessary speed of transmission of data has changed from minutes to milliseconds:
To prepare for this transition, consider developing skills in:
- Construction and operation of electrical systems (if the systems don’t work none of the rest of this matters!)
- Construction and operation of communications systems (if we can’t move data, our electrical systems will no longer work!)
- Digital information systems
- Data analytics and visualization
- Distributed energy resource management
- Cybersecurity fundamentals
- Cross-sector integration (for example, telecommunications and electric delivery systems, electric delivery systems and transportation networks)
The TEPCO team emphasizes that future utilities will operate on three integrated platforms: energy data, physical assets, and human resources. This means your expertise will need to be complemented by digital literacy and system thinking. But don't be intimidated – many of the core skills you use today in maintaining grid reliability, safety, and customer satisfaction will remain fundamental to this new era. The energy sector's transformation may seem overwhelming, but it also presents unprecedented opportunities for professional growth and meaningful impact.
Now your day-to-day work isn’t just about keeping the lights on – it's about powering humanity's next great leap forward.
Footnotes:
[1] IEEE Electrification December 2024, The New Role of Electric Power Systems in Society 5.0, by Hiroshi Okamoto iD, Teruo Ohno iD, Naoki Kobayashi, and Toshiro Kataoka
[2] See Electra, June 2023, The Fourth Industrial Revolution Empowered by End-to-End Electric Power System, by Hiroshi Okamoto
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