The rising demand for critical minerals and metals and their long development timelines highlight the need to ensure consistent supply and reduced emissions. He is focused on delivering solutions to complex and critical challenges within the industry and brings a strong passion for making a difference with some of our largest power, utility, and renewable energy businesses and their customers. Stanley has more than 30 years of industry and global client leader experience, and has worked with some of the largest names in the industry on a range of business issues, assisting client executives in strategy, restructuring, mergers, operations optimization, and technology adoption. He oversees and drives the development and execution of the overall ER&I strategy across all geographies and businesses, including more than 44,000 professionals and serving close to 75% of the Global Fortune 500 clients. By aligning stakeholder efforts and prioritizing strategic investments, the current challenges can create a path for a sustainable, net-zero energy landscape. For example, the https://ordercialisjlp.com/?tag=expansion finance-technology nexus is foundational, with financial support enabling technological advancements, which can lead to cost reductions and increased investment attractiveness.

A critical component of grid modernization is a coordinated, strategic research, development and demonstration (RD&D) effort that involves both the public and private sectors. “Smart grid” technologies are made possible by two-way communication technologies, control systems, and computer processing. Using the ESIF’s power electronics research capabilities, partners can develop cost-effective, power-dense, and high-performance technologies and validate them in real-world applications designed around grid modernization goals. One project culminated in a 1-MW multivendor experiment that covered interoperability of GFM and GFL units, black-start by GFM units, and grid-connected and islanded operation, all hosted on a real-world emulation to validate key learnings. The facility’s test bed features seven grid-forming inverters https://forestwildwood.com/articles/grand-teton-teepee-lodge-guide/ (GFM) from six vendors and multiple grid-following inverters (GFL) that can be interconnected with various types of loads to evaluate the control, functionality, and interoperability of GFM inverters. NLR researchers are using the unique capabilities in the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) to solve complex computational and data analysis problems related to examining the impact of energy technologies on transmission and distribution power systems.

Wind and solar generation create rapid fluctuations in voltage and frequency, pushing utilities to adopt smarter, automated control technologies. Automation Upgrades Driven by Renewable Energy Integration As renewable power sources become a larger part of electricity grids, traditional substation control systems are no longer sufficient. The market is witnessing steady expansion as utilities and energy operators increasingly prioritize grid reliability, operational efficiency, and real-time monitoring capabilities. Hyderabad, Feb. 18, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — According to Mordor Intelligence, the substation automation market size was valued at USD 40.04 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach USD 57.59 billion by 2031, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.54% during the forecast period.

United States

Global substation automation market size is projected to reach USD 57.59 billion by 2031 as growth is driven by grid infrastructure upgrades, renewable energy integration, and reliability mandates, with strong adoption across North America and rapid expansion in the Asia-Pacific region. Ten years ago, OATI recognized the emerging value of integrating demand-side and distributed resources into bulk power operations. When asked about OATI’s emphasis on providing comprehensive solutions rather than modular tools, Ipakchi traced the approach to the company’s origins. However, introducing these tools requires a measured approach. By processing information closer to its source, utilities can focus on actionable insights rather than being inundated with raw data.

Executive Overview

Growing investments in renewable power infrastructure, battery storage systems, and distributed energy resources continue to strengthen demand for AI-powered energy management platforms capable of enhancing grid stability and maximizing asset performance. These capabilities are becoming increasingly important as energy providers face growing pressure to enhance reliability while supporting the transition toward cleaner and more sustainable energy systems. Energy providers are leveraging AI-powered platforms to transform this data into actionable insights, enabling faster decision-making, lower maintenance costs, and improved service reliability. TRC’s multidisciplinary team combines utility operations knowledge with advanced technology skills, enabling them to bridge the gap between current capabilities and future goals. For example, integrating AMI with OMS and DMS can provide utilities with more accurate and timely information about outages, enabling faster response times and improved customer communication, which leads to greater customer satisfaction. Integrating enterprise systems offers utilities a powerful solution to address their challenges in today’s dynamic energy landscape.

• Both types of inverters might be assisted by a system that controls how the solar system interacts with attached battery storage.
• Regulatory pushes and large-scale digital substation rollouts across major economies are further accelerating investments in automation solutions designed specifically to support high renewable penetration.
• Electricity demand projections are growing for the first time in decades, driven by a combination of manufacturing onshoring, increased electrification and data center demand growth.
• Of the two, direct-to-chip has more near-term applications, integrating more readily into existing data center architectures.

IEC 62933-5-3 – Grid Integration Safety

A comprehensive checklist for integrating AI capabilities with smart meter infrastructure. AI/ML Capabilities – Physics-informed neural networks – Hybrid modeling approach – Edge-to-cloud architecture – Real-time optimization engines This is caused not only by new technologies, but also by deferred maintenance needs, electrification, and the growth of new demand centers (e.g., re-shoring of manufacturing and data centers). Through AI, utilities can better understand load modeling capabilities and build them into planning-related activities and ongoing grid management for resilience and reliability.

Why Integrating Enterprise Systems Matters

While utility engineers may be eager to pursue numerous emerging technologies use cases, IT, regulatory and risk departments require protocols and control mechanisms in the back office. Utilities ramp up AI use for demand forecasting, customer service and grid management amid tech innovation. Investment in customer technology, reinventing the customer operating model and enabling growth presents an opportunity to save on ongoing costs, enable agility and improve both the customer and the employee experience. Utilities customer organizations are at a unique moment facing pressures around enabling growth, affordability, customer satisfaction, grid reliability and resiliency. However, the customer experience for large commercial and industrial customers looking to grow or build capabilities in new geographies is often slow and challenging.

Direct Impact

McKinsey research states the next generation of smart grids will enable customers to make more informed decisions about their energy consumption. Because of the fluctuating nature of renewables like solar and wind — which depend on the availability of sun and optimum wind power — smart grids ensure the smooth integration of renewable energy with more conventional power sources and secure its efficiency, too. As well as facilitating the optimisation of utilising renewable energy sources, smart grids also enhance grid flexibility to accommodate the variability of renewable energy generation.

The authors would like to thank Ashlee Christian and Elsie Hung for their key contributions to this report, and Marlene Motyka for her subject matter input and review. The oil and gas industry is poised to spend half of its IT spending on AI and gen AI by 2029, focusing on process digitization, optimization, asset performance, and operation integration.9 Event-based, predictive maintenance is reducing downtime across power grids, pipelines, and plants.7 Many companies are adopting digital tools for supply chain visibility, asset management, and customer engagement, with sectorwide collaboration on best practices and governance.8 Across the energy landscape, AI and automation are scaling efficiency and redefining productivity. For many leaders across the energy industry, the question isn’t whether to spend—it’s where efficiency and innovation can make the biggest impact. Add in a volatile macroeconomic environment, shifting policies, and ongoing supply chain hurdles, and it’s clear that energy companies are facing both new opportunities and challenges.

IEC TS 62933-2-2 – Functional Safety Assessment

• Organizations across the energy value chain are investing in intelligent software platforms capable of delivering actionable insights from large and complex datasets.
• Utilities customer organizations are at a unique moment facing pressures around enabling growth, affordability, customer satisfaction, grid reliability and resiliency.
• The average age of the data center workforce is 53, and 60% of data center providers report difficulty filling open roles.
• What has changed the equation for utilities is not just the scale of the risk, but the growing complexity of managing it under simultaneous pressure from regulators, insurers, customers, and communities.
• GridUnity streamlines interconnection, providing real-time insights and automation to get new energy to users faster.

However, this transformation requires not just the decentralization of power sources but also a reimagining of the logic and controls, extending these to the grid edge. This phase focuses on strengthening and transforming the core grid infrastructure into a dynamic and responsive system capable of integrating new technologies and accommodating diverse energy sources. However, this is proving to be a bottleneck in achieving clean energy goals, both in terms of the availability of financing and the pace of development. He also provides clients with strategic planning, business transformation, business model development, systems engineering, systems integration, feasibility planning and analysis, project/program management and customer relationship management. Grant architects and delivers smart operational solutions that address regulatory, technological, and consumer shifts.

Key Statistics at a Glance

The Commission’s deadlines underscore the urgency in integrating large loads. With tight 60-day deadlines, these orders address the urgent need for clear, consistent provisions to integrate large energy users onto the transmission system in a timely and non-discriminatory manner. Generator interconnection remains a barrier for project development in the United States, despite improvements since FERC Order No. 2023. The same wildfire risk that threatens communities flows directly into the rate cases, plan filings, and policy frameworks that commissioners and advocates are responsible for evaluating. Camera-based detection networks that can identify smoke in its earliest stages and route confirmed alerts to both utility operations and fire agencies in real time are a relatively recent development still being adopted across the industry. Most utilities are still building capacity to aggregate risk intelligence across vegetation analytics, asset condition data, and fire behavior modeling into a coherent prioritization framework and produce documentation that walks stakeholders through the logic.