In case you missed it, this month the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its analysis of generation capacity additions for 2024, and if all proposed projects are completed, utility-scale solar and battery storage will make up 81% of new capacity added to the grid this year. That would be a record for both solar and battery capacity additions. Wood Mackenzie projects that the U.S. market for distributed energy resources (DERs) will double from 2023 to 2027, with almost as much new capacity (262 GW) added as the 272 GW of utility-scale renewables that will come on-line.

When I was at the Department of Energy (DOE) from 2013-2017, I can’t tell you how many times I wrote some variation of “the electricity sector is experiencing a period of flat demand.” Although the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) isn’t happening as rapidly as expected (and the Biden Administration is reportedly scaling back its targets for EV manufacturing), the increasing number of EVs on the road is already adding to the load. Between transportation electrification and the rapid growth of data centers, no one is talking about flat electricity demand anymore; in fact, now we are talking about record demand growth. Add record renewables and record weather extremes, and now the conversation has to turn to how we can accelerate grid innovation to deliver a more secure, reliable, resilient, clean, and affordable grid—the GridWise Alliance mission.

At the December meeting of the GridWise Alliance Board of Directors, we discussed how to focus our 2024 activities to deliver the greatest impact for our members, the grid industry, and our key stakeholders. The consensus was that GridWise could provide value by highlighting artificial intelligence (AI), the distribution system operator (DSO) model, and utility communications throughout the year. We will explore these topics in our monthly members-only Policy and Technology Council meetings, as well in our public-facing GridWise Forum series and white papers.