The onset of renewable generation, distributed generation, energy storage, and peak demand reduction technologies pose significant challenges to effective grid management. These emerging energy resources complicate distribution planning and the efficient dispatch of local and utility-scale generation. Electric utilities and the electric industry as a whole must transform their operating models, strategies, and infrastructure to be able to manage the increasingly complex landscape of modern energy delivery.

Complementary state and federal policies have successfully facilitated the proliferation of these new energy resources, particularly of renewable resources and distributed generation. State policy is broadening to compel adoption of demand response and energy storage as well. Meanwhile, federal regulation is moving beyond carbon emissions reduction to insist on higher standards for system reliability and disaster preparedness. These regulatory drivers ultimately reflect consumer demand for more sustainable, resilient, customizable energy resources. As a result, the industry has opened to nontraditional, third-party players. These market entrants are deploying creative marketing and financing mechanisms to win customers interested in tailored energy products and services, cutting into utility market share.

Together, these developments create an opportunity for utilities to step in as market enablers, overseeing the evolution of the electricity sector and plotting a tenable long-term strategy for energy delivery. Utilities must transform into Network Integrators. The Network Integrator function will be anchored by traditional utility experience in grid operations and maintenance, and will be the driver and enabler of new energy markets, standardization, resiliency, reliability, and centralized management of the distribution grid.

To capitalize on this opportunity, Network Integrators must invest in robust infrastructure that can accommodate the rapid adoption of these new energy services, resources, and seize a leadership role in standardizing this infrastructure. They must enable a more intuitive, customizable experience for energy consumers in their service territories. They must develop deep competencies in the technologies and processes through which energy consumption and grid data is collected, analyzed, and subsequently deployed for customer engagement. The Network Integrators that embrace these new responsibilities will be able to chart a stable, profitable path forward in the perpetually shifting electricity sector.