How Utilities Can Boost Modernization With the ‘Network Effect’

Let’s be blunt – we do not have enough power for forecasted demand. Electricity demand in the U.S. is expected to increase 26% by 2035. The most emotionally evocative of these demands is the expansion of data centers – in fact it is challenging to find a community in this country that isn’t facing the immediacy of zoning and consumption discussions around proposed data centers.

Even without those demands, electricity consumption is growing at nearly 3% per year the US – approximately 120 GWh per annum. Meeting this demand requires utility companies to launch complex capital projects requiring coordination with engineering firms, contractors, regulators, and technology providers, as well as peer utilities and regional grid operators.

Critical and complex projects often require processes and networks that can pair complexity with flexibility as detailed documentation - engineering drawings, compliance reports, and asset designs - move quickly between counterparties throughout the project. Usually, these systems are disconnected and can present tremendous challenges to owner/operators, their agents, and distributed engineering and procurement teams.

To combat this, utilities must adopt an approach known as the "network effect" for project documentation, using a shared, standards-aligned platform in concert with other utilities and their contractors to ensure the accessibility of accurate documentation and resiliency among major industry shifts and events.

Industry Challenges Grow

Operating pressures will never reduce for utility providers – emissions targets, 100%+ uptime, 100% safe, and 100% compliant. These aren’t goals that our utilities are hoping to hit, they are viewed as base expectations. Our society is counting on the tap being available with water and the switch having power behind it every single time. And the projects launched to meet those expectations, and the planned needs of the future, are just as critical as those base operating expectations. Without successful growth, the unreliability of our network is assured.

Power delivery has entered the largest investment cycle in years, and more than $5 trillion in grid spending necessary by 2050 to support a 150% increase in electricity demand, utilities are now facing more pressure to accelerate grid and generation modernization efforts. These projects haven’t historically been characterized as “speedy” or “simple." Strict regulations, approvals, equipment backlogs, labor shortages, and material scarcity are key factors driving a quarter of projects in civil and infrastructure projects beyond 200 days late.  Even late, how many projects have significant failures during commissioning? An improperly commissioned solar system has a failure rate 3x the norm, with 8% less energy production over its lifetime

Reliability is also an increasing pressure. In the first half of 2025, the U.S. experienced 15 natural disasters with each causing $1 billion in damages, with at least three events exceeding $5 billion in losses. The rising frequency and cost of extreme weather events are forcing utilities to improve infrastructure resilience. One of the fastest ways to improve this is to improve operational coordination required to respond effectively.

In addition to these challenges, utilities are inherently interconnected, mutual interest assets like power substations, pumping stations, and water mains span across multiple service territories, and require coordination between neighboring utilities and regional operators. To keep modernization efforts on schedule, it’s increasingly vital that asset documentation and engineering records remain accurate and accessible across organizations.

Fragmented Documentation is Slowing Modernization

Many organizations still manage critical engineering and asset documentation through fragmented workflows. This critical information is often stored across disconnected repositories, labeled with inconsistent metadata, or exchanged through manual transmittals between organizations. Even the best system can be subverted by something as simple as an old print out sitting in a truck somewhere – so systems must enable the team to find the right information with minimal input, training, and equipment. The world’s knowledge is available on my phone – for your techs, does that knowledge include the world they work in?  If they have a phone and the right tool, it very well can!

Streamlining Workflows with the ‘Network Effect’

By implementing a standards-aligned platform, we have seen utilities working together to make significant progress in their physical and digital transformations across the market areas they serve.

Centralizing documentation into a single, accurate, secure repository can enable seamless collaboration across traditional collaborative barriers: company firewalls, geographic spread, project assignment, legacy infrastructure, and more. 

For example, with a renewable energy project, multiple utilities and grid operators often need to review engineering drawings and compliance documentation. If each team has siloed receiving, workflow, and management solutions reviewing and approving these materials can take weeks. With a shared platform, partners exchange documentation through consistent workflows designed to meet everyone’s requirements. When the right people collaborate on the right document at the same time, regardless of the company behind the @ in their email address, work gets done faster and better.

When neighboring utilities adopt this approach, it creates a ‘network effect’ that enables large-scale infrastructure programs to move forward with greater speed, transparency, and confidence.

Looking Ahead

Legacy and aging equipment is still a crucial linchpin of minute-by-minute utility operations. The documentation needed to support these assets has to be managed perfectly in parallel with the newest 3D models created for every major update of your network. This "network effect" should include viewing new and legacy in conjunction, because that is the reality of utilities today: a brand-new 3D model of a substation that is represented downstream by TIF files scanned from the old hand drawings!   

When utility providers can easily navigate across older documentation, newer models, projects in-design, projects in construction, vendor-provided documentation, and commentary from outside experts during either projects or normal operating updates – simply put – better decisions get made faster.

If current solutions or systems are built to ensure a project clears a status hurdle, leaders may have projects that meet intent. But a system that fosters innovation through creating a network of your smartest individuals putting their expertise into your documents and processes at the right time (during planning, design, and emergency maintenance) will always create a better utility network.

A strong, flexible, and accurate network of people creates a strong, reliable, adaptable utility network providing for your customers. These are the networks we all want to be a part of.