Trends and Opportunities for Utilities in 2022

Utilities face a lot of challenges, including extreme weather events, aging infrastructure, cybersecurity concerns, and grid and load disruption caused by accelerating distributed energy resource (DER) penetration, among other things. Taken together, the drivers behind the ongoing energy transition are like a snowball rolling downhill: the farther it goes, the larger it becomes, and the faster it travels, the greater its impact at the bottom of the hill. Each year, Guidehouse and Public Utilities Fortnightly (PUF) survey utility executives across the U.S. to understand key industry trends and top-of-mind concerns as part of the annual State and Future of the Power Industry report.

Despite some of the challenges utilities face being the same as recent years, in 2022, utilities have a unique opportunity to make strategic upgrades and investments to address not only concerns around grid resiliency and cybersecurity, but growing social equity concerns and competitive threats thanks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). In the July publication of PUF, Guidehouse's Dan Hahn, Mackinnon Lawrence, and Richelle Elberg discuss the State and Future of the Power Industry report findings, including IIJA funding opportunities and how they can help address resilience concerns, the energy transition, the need for utilities to engage in ESG efforts and customer engagement, among other things.