The Future of Electricity: How Can We Keep the Lights On and Transition to New Technologies?
by Bob Shively, Enerdynamics President and Lead Facilitator
The electricity industry is experiencing the most dramatic transformation in over a century. At the same time, society demands safety, reliability, resiliency, and affordability. In essence, energy companies are being asked to rewire the world while keeping the lights on and without causing unbearable cost increases for consumers. Pulling this off will require the application of key
evolving technologies.
The IEEE Power and Energy Society's latest technology roadmap offers a detailed discussion of the technologies and reveals opportunities and challenges that energy companies will face.
The big challenges ahead
The roadmap identifies five key areas where the industry must apply new technologies:
1. Integrating renewables: Adding significant amounts of renewables to a grid is more complex than simply adding solar panels and wind turbines. When renewable resources replace traditional power plants, the physics of how the electrical grid operates changes. Solar and wind don't provide the same dispatchable power that nuclear, coal, and gas plants do, which means grid operators need new ways to maintain stability and prevent blackouts.
2. Maintaining reliability and resilience: Society requires that electricity be available in quantities desired by consumers, be highly reliable, and be resilient (able to withstand and recover promptly from disturbances). Challenges include increasing extreme weather conditions, potential human-induced threats, electric market volatility, a changing supply mix, potential capacity shortages due to barriers to supply and transmission development, and increasing electric demand. 
3. Integrating grid edge assets: With rapidly growing distribution system monitoring and control devices, distributed energy resources, EVs, batteries, controllable customer loads, and grid-integrated smart buildings, energy companies are experiencing both opportunities and headaches. Imagine trying to coordinate millions of grid devices, rooftop solar systems, electric car chargers, and smart appliances—all interacting with the grid simultaneously and causing power to flow in different directions at different times. This development will require distribution companies and transmission grid operators to change system design and operations practices.
4. Adopting computation resources to make sense of data: Computing power needs are exploding as utilities try to make sense of all the new data sources and increasing grid complexity. Among them are increased uncertainty and variability, control complexities, time-intensive computation related to various complicated simulations and analyses, real-time optimization and decision support, as well as the need for an automated smart real-time application.
5. Practicing effective cybersecurity: Threats of attacks by bad actors are multiplying as everything becomes connected and digital. Every smart meter, solar inverter, and grid sensor becomes a potential entry point for hackers. The challenge isn't just protecting against attacks—it's doing so while keeping decades-old equipment working alongside brand-new technology.
A roadmap for success
Given these challenges how can energy companies attain competitive advantages? Here are some key strategies:
- Understand evolving technologies: The IEEEE technology roadmap outlines the current and future state of key technologies addressing each five key areas and describes challenges and potential solutions. Everyone in the industry should have at least a high-level understanding of what is possible and what needs to be done to achieve an effective grid.
- Stay flexible with technology: Think of your technology infrastructure like building blocks that can be rearranged as needed. Instead of buying massive, inflexible systems, invest in modular solutions that can grow and adapt. Partner with technology companies and be prepared for continual upgrades and evolution.
- Become a data detective: Data is a new critical resource. Start collecting and analyzing everything: weather patterns, customer usage habits, equipment performance, and market trends. The companies that get really good at turning this data into insights will have a huge advantage in predicting problems before they happen and optimizing their operations.
- Invest in your people: The energy transition is a people challenge. Employees need new skills—cybersecurity expertise, data analysis capabilities, the ability to work across different technical disciplines, and skills to develop deep relationship with consumers. The companies that invest heavily in training their workforce and attracting new talent will come out ahead.
- Build strong partnerships: No company can handle this transformation alone. Partner with universities doing cutting-edge research, work closely with technology providers, and collaborate with other energy companies on shared challenges. Continually consider new technologies and how they can be implemented.
Why this matters now
The energy companies that will thrive in the coming decades are those that see opportunity in complexity rather than just problems to solve. Instead of clinging to old ways of doing business, they're reimagining their role as coordinators of sophisticated energy networks. Effectively adopting new technologies will be a critical part of success.
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