As 2025 closed, the speculation of where the power delivery system is heading in 2026 picked up significantly. Studies, surveys, and papers focused on skyrocketing electric rates, surging power demands, and climbing infrastructure investments. None of these topics are new, but the factors driving them have gotten complicated. There are also more debates and questions with plenty of finger pointing concerning the causes. One of the biggest controversies is the rising electricity prices, which promises to be a catalyst in 2026, so let’s start there.
The popular media said electricity costs have risen at twice the rate of inflation nationally in the first three quarters of 2025, but a little digging shed more light on the subject. The New York Times ran a story about spiking electricity prices and found the pain is not equally shared. They discovered that “over the past six years the average retail price of electricity has risen faster than inflation in 26 states. But rates have stayed flat or even declined in the rest of the country.”
Here in New Mexico renewables make up 54.1% of the generation and the electric rates have dropped 6.5%. It turns out there are many factors involved when it comes to inflation fueled electricity prices. The cost of delivering electricity is one of the main components when it comes to determining electricity rates.
Grid Modernization
Utilities have been extremely busy improving the power grid’s infrastructure. Looking back at ASCE’s 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, it gave the energy sector a D+ and needs upgrading. The bottom line here is that infrastructure is nearing the end of its life span, which means spending money. Supporting this are a number of news releases such as the recent one from EEI (Edison Electric Institute). It stated that in the past decade, EEI members spent more than US$1.3 trillion to enhance critical grid infrastructure. It went on to say that members are planning to spend US$1.1 trillion more over the next five years to expand the power grid.
Also we can’t overlook the old supply and demand equation and its impact on electricity pricing. A timely Deloitte paper projected that the U.S. peak demand would increase by approximately 26% by 2035. They went on to say, “In 2026, the challenge for utilities will be quickly delivering uninterrupted or “firm” capacity to stressed parts of the grid.” Some experts are blaming new hyperscale data center demand for the problem. They pointed out that new data centers can be built faster than power plants or transmission lines, which is bottleneck that really drives up pricing.
Renewables are the cheapest and fastest generation option. It’s a proven fact that wind and solar power can be built much faster than fossil fuel plants. Utility-scale solar can be online in 6 to 21 months. Wind farms take longer but they’re quicker than fossil-fueled power plants. Still, fossil-fueled power plants and transmission lines can take decades, but there’s also a workaround. It’s the advanced transmission technologies that have been bred for this type of challenge.
Technological Solution
These grid-enhancing technologies (GETs) are not a strangers to “Charging Ahead,” since we have been talking about them for several years now. If you remember, GETs are off the shelf hardware and software that increase the capacity and efficiency of the transmission grid. They’re not stopgap measures, but rather near-term solutions that require far less time to install and alleviate critical issues like congestion, limited capacity, improve reliability, and meet rising demand. They come in two types; one provides fast-track installations while the other takes more time to deploy because they’re more complex.
For example, advanced conductors can be used to reconductor an existing transmission line without replacing structures and in many cases not requiring permits. There are examples of reconductored lines adding 50% to 110% to the power line’s capacity rating and it can be done in months rather than years. Another fast-track GET is the dynamic line rating technology. It’s hardware is installed on the transmission lines conductor and provides real-time loading data. Many operators see 25-30% or more unused capacity being made available. Long-term GETs include power electronics that can shift flows of power, balance overloading, and improve congestion.
It looks like 2026 is going keep us busy. There are power hungry hyper-datacenters popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm, an aging infrastructure getting attention, and GETs poised to address issues traditional approaches can’t handle. These are interesting times indeed!
