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", "languageSelectorImage": { "imageLarge": "\/content\/dam\/stantec\/images\/Icons\/Map.svg", "altText": " World map" }, "globalRegion": { "name": "Global", "regionTag": "localization:global", "description": "", "languages": [ { "langCode": "en", "name": "English", "pathLink": { "url": "en" }, "active": "true" }, { "langCode": "fr", "name": "Français", "pathLink": { "url": "fr" }, "active": "false" } ] }, "regionLanguages": [ { "regionTag": "localization:china", "name": "China", "description": "", "languages": [ { "langCode": "en", "name": "English", "pathLink": { "url": "cn" }, "active": "false" }, { "langCode": "en", "name": "", "pathLink": { "url": "en" }, "active": "false" } ] }, { "regionTag": "localization:italy", "name": "Italy", "description": "", "languages": [ { "langCode": "it", "name": "Italiano", "pathLink": { "url": "it" }, "active": "false" }, { "langCode": "en", "name": "", "pathLink": { "url": "en" }, "active": "false" } ] }, { "regionTag": "localization:latin\u002Damerica", "name": "Latin America", "description": "", "languages": [ { "langCode": "es", "name": "Español", "pathLink": { "url": "es" }, "active": "false" }, { "langCode": "en", "name": "", "pathLink": { "url": "en" }, "active": "false" } ] }, { "regionTag": "localization:netherlands", "name": "Netherlands", "description": "", "languages": [ { "langCode": "nl", "name": "Nederlands", "pathLink": { "url": "nl" }, "active": "false" }, { "langCode": "en", "name": "", "pathLink": { "url": "en" }, "active": "false" } ] }, { "regionTag": "localization:taiwan", "name": "Taiwan", "description": "", "languages": [ { "langCode": "zh_tw", "name": "繁體中文", "pathLink": { "url": "zh_tw" }, "active": "false" }, { "langCode": "en", "name": "", "pathLink": { "url": "en" }, "active": "false" } ] }, { "regionTag": "localization:turkey", "name": "Turkiye", "description": "", "languages": [ { "langCode": "tr", "name": "Türkçe", "pathLink": { "url": "tr" }, "active": "false" }, { "langCode": "en", "name": "", "pathLink": { "url": "en" }, "active": "false" } ] } ], "originPath": "/content/stantec/en/ideas/content/blog/2026/qa-us-electric-grid-modernization-is-urgent-what-should-utilities-do-first.html" } }The challenge facing utilities is no longer whether to modernize and expand the grid. That’s simply the reality we face.
The question is this: How do utilities prioritize limited resources? They face aging assets, rising demand, extreme weather, and affordability concerns.
There aren’t easy answers. But in this Q&A, Bryan Schurko and Robert McClellan discuss priorities and actions US utility owners should take for electric grid modernization. Bryan lives in Florida and has seen the devastation of powerful hurricanes. Robert is from the West Coast. He’s lived through and helped design solutions for ever-increasing wildfires.
Bryan: It was not built for the rapid growth in demand it is experiencing. Electrification, EV adoption, and the expansion of AI-driven data centers are all putting immense pressure on a grid that was not designed for this level or type of load. We are no longer seeing incremental increases year over year. Demand is stepping up in a way that is forcing utilities to rethink capacity, planning, and long-term investment strategies all at once.
" }Grid modernization in the US is an investment in the energy transition and in the communities, economies, and critical services that depend on it every day.
At the same time, a large portion of the transmission and distribution system is aging well beyond its intended life. Roughly 70 percent of the US grid is now more than 25 years old, with many core components built 40 to 70 years ago. They are nearing or exceeding their original design life. These older assets are designed for a different generation and are now being pushed harder under more volatile operating conditions. This creates limitations in how much load can be added and how reliably the system can operate.
We are also seeing these weaknesses exposed in real-world events. The 2021 Texas blackout left more than 4.5 million homes and businesses without power. In many cases, the outages lasted days. It caused major economic damage and loss of life.
On the West Coast, California wildfires have shown how aging transmission infrastructure can be both a reliability issue and a public safety risk. The power lines there have contributed to some of the most destructive fires in recent history.
Other challenges we see are interconnection bottlenecks and more frequent extreme weather events. Together, the result is a system that is under continuous stress, with reliability and cost pressures increasing across the board.
Robert: Age is a big factor in the US energy infrastructure. Many of the structures out in the field use small conductors with 60-plus-year-old wooden structures supporting them. This places the system at a greater risk of failure, especially amid increasingly severe weather events.
Robert: The grid that we know today was planned and built from the 1950s to ’70s. Because so much of that infrastructure was installed during the same period, many of those assets are now reaching the end of their intended service life at roughly the same time.
Bryan: That has created a significant backlog of replacement and upgrade needs across the industry. What could have been a gradual replacement cycle has turned into a wave of infrastructure investments that we must address all at once.
" }The grid went through decades of relatively stable demand. During that period, many utilities chose to maintain rather than modernize. They focused on small improvements instead of major investments. As a result, many upgrades were deferred into the future.
Now, those deferred investments are coming due just as demand accelerates and operating conditions grow more extreme. Now this is creating a convergence of aging assets, higher loads, and added stress on the grid.
Bryan: We are focusing on as many high-impact solutions as possible with the grid upgrades we provide for our utility clients. For utilities that seek reliability we have some options. Often, undergrounding distribution lines and reconductoring lines provide some of the greatest return.
In addition to physical upgrades, how the system is monitored and operated needs attention. Deploying smart grid technologies, adding sensors, and improving real-time visibility are good options. It allows utilities to better understand where constraints exist and respond more quickly when issues arise. Combined with more focused asset assessments, this approach helps utilities prioritize the areas that will have the biggest impact on reliability and resiliency in the short term, rather than trying to solve everything at once.
Robert: Our teams are all working on the same idea: protecting and servicing the electrical grid. We know that utilities have limited resources and a long list of needed upgrades. This is why we support and prioritize targeted upgrades.
Our power team applies advanced modeling and engineering analyses to identify high-risk assets and validate the most effective near-term interventions. By utilizing industry engineering software such as PLS-CADD, we are modeling and predicting current and future structural load requirements. This approach allows us to do the short-term actions that will create the biggest impact.
Bryan: The demand load will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. We used to experience less than 1 percent demand growth per year. We are now experiencing 3 to 5 percent per year—and higher—increases in some areas of the country. Much of the load growth is the continued electrification and large load additions such as data centers. Our grid was designed with predictable load patterns with centralized generation. Today, this is becoming obsolete.
Other than the obvious—but costly—solution of building more high-voltage transmission lines and reinforcing and upgrading existing lines, substations, and other “steel in the ground” solutions, we need other solutions. That includes leveraging the technical side of grid modernization just as much. Examples of electric updates include:
Downed power lines from trees falling during a hurricane.
Robert: One option is new pole materials. Traditionally, wood poles have been used in many places. However, in recent years, many programs have begun to replace wood poles with steel to last longer in the field and also to maintain resilience against wildfires.
Notably, fiberglass poles are a recent development that are seeing much more widespread use. These poles have unique characteristics that allow them to be used where wood or even steel might not be suitable.
Bryan: A range of new technologies are both implemented and being explored by utilities. While the physical upgrades that Robert mentioned are integral, the biggest changes are happening on the digital side.
We are seeing more advanced sensors, monitoring systems, and controls hit the market each year. Utilities are aggressively using these based on their needs. However, one new concept I find very interesting is the digital twin. While the technology itself is not new, its application within the utility industry is accelerating.
A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical asset or system. It can continuously apply engineering, operational, and sensor data to simulate real-world performance. The technology has been used in manufacturing, aerospace, and renewables with success. For instance, operators use digital twins to model system changes, evaluate equipment upgrades, and test operating scenarios before putting them in the field. Today, utilities are looking to use them on the larger-scale power grid, creating digital twins of substations, transmission lines, and distribution feeders.
The value of this comes from the ability to test what may happen tomorrow. Utilities can evaluate future load growth, impacts of new data centers, and simulate more distributed energy resources.
It is valuable to understand the impact of these instead of relying completely on historical data and engineering predictions. While still in the early stages for many utilities, they are still investing in and developing these capabilities along with working with major organizations. US utilities are closely watching National Grid UK, which is making major strides with this technology. Digital twins give utilities a way to test billion-dollar grid decisions in a virtual environment before making them in the real world.
Bryan: Physical limitations of the existing structure restrict more amps being added to what’s already there. Here’s the bottom line: The grid was not designed for today’s generation profile.
Much of the power grid evolved more for centralized generation, not for geographically dispersed sources such as where renewables are strong. For example, wind power is heavy in the middle of the country and solar is strong in the southern and sunny part of the country.
This has created challenges in moving power from where it’s generated to where it’s needed. This all leads to congestion. And that requires new transmission lines, which are expensive and take a long time to permit and build. Additionally, interconnection queues are growing longer and more complex for utilities. System studies and upgrade requirements are becoming more complex due to the age of the infrastructure, and that is taking longer, which adds to the waiting period.
Bryan: The workforce gap has become a defining challenge for electric grid modernization because so much of the work depends on experience that simply cannot be quickly replaced. As seasoned engineers retire, the industry is losing decades of knowledge built through design decisions and construction lessons learned.
At the same time, many younger engineers have been drawn to fast‑growing industries like technology and software. This has left the power sector with a smaller talent pipeline just as demand, complexity, and investment are speeding up. This creates a mismatch where the need for grid modernization is growing rapidly but the number of people with the depth of experience required to deliver it is not keeping pace.
As a result, workforce constraints make efficiency, prioritization, and knowledge transfer just as critical as capital investment. The industry can no longer rely solely on traditional onboarding and slow skill development cycles; it must actively mentor, train, and attract the next generation while finding ways to pair human expertise with modern tools like AI.
But technology alone is not enough. Modernizing the grid still requires judgment, coordination, and people skills, from working with landowners and regulators to managing complex relationships with all the interested parties. Investing in people, and seeing that experience is passed down rather than lost, is essential to electric grid modernization at the speed the future now demands.
Bryan: Extreme weather has shifted grid modernization from an occasional challenge to a core part of how utilities plan and operate their systems. Storms and hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, and heat events are not rare occurrences. They are now expected norms and are becoming the primary drivers of outages across the country. This has made hardening the grid against extreme weather vital. For instance, three hurricanes in 2024 accounted for 80 percent of outages (in terms of hours without electricity) in the entire US.
" }Annual number of weather-related major power outages. Source: US Department of Energy Form OE-417, Climate Central.
As a result, utilities must plan and prioritize upgrades differently. They need to focus on targeted and high-risk sections of their grid rather than system-wide blanket solutions of the past. Areas of focus include:
Resilience planning is evolving from these broad stroke solutions to focus on hazard-specific strategies. For instance, our Power Delivery team is working on a number of wildfire-resiliency solutions in California. We support utilities in identifying prone areas that can be undergrounded or have overhead conductors covered to reduce damage from wildfires.
Bryan: We operate in an age of unaffordability. Ratepayers are becoming more engaged in the spending of utilities as bills continue to rise. Public tolerance now directly affects regulatory outcomes and investments. The growing question of “who pays” for grid upgrades is becoming central to prioritization decisions, especially as new large loads (like data centers) enter the system. Utilities must also grapple with all factors, including reliability, safety, and resiliency.
How can our approach consider this? Utilities need to shift more towards a vulnerability-based planning model. Focus on the risk, hazard, exposure, sensitivity, etc. And balance that with the cost.
In other words, where can we upgrade that will have the most benefit with the lowest cost?
" }Fire burns near power lines in 2025 California wildfire.
Robert: As we continue to experience more climate change, utilities should prioritize fire mitigation.
Here in San Diego, we have seen the effects of errant wires sparking wildfires, and that is part of why I enjoy working for my community here. Increasing the level of public safety and reliability of power access should be prioritized by each utility. San Diego Gas & Electric’s major wildfire mitigation program led the way by replacing many wooden structures in high-risk areas with steel structures. This program has forged the path for other types of wildfire-mitigation programs, including drone inspections and using covered conductors. It helps to harden the grid.
The drone inspection program has been instrumental in leading to replacements and fixes for structures that have been identified as physically defective via photos captured from a drone. This has allowed SDG&E to better allocate resources to target high-risk structures in their high fire threat districts.
The Covered Conductor program removes the risk of electrified wires arcing to each other in high wind events by replacing traditional bare electrical conductors with ones that have a polymer coating to insulate each wire. This provides another degree of safety for areas that are prone to high winds and wildfires. For utilities facing similar wildfire threats, these efforts offer a model for balancing public safety, system resilience, and long-term infrastructure investment.
Bryan: One clear lesson is that waiting for failure is far more costly than proactive investment, as seen in regions that experienced major outages before taking action. We must get ahead of these challenges that are already facing us.
Another key takeaway is that there is no single solution that works everywhere. Different regions are exposed to different risks. In the Western US, that often means wildfire and heat, while in the Eastern and coastal regions the focus is on storms and flooding. The most successful strategies are tailored to those risks.
In the West, the risk is highly localized. We’ve learned that preparing transmission and distribution lines for wildfire risk must be targeted and not across the whole system. Our teams support California utilities with covered conductor and undergrounding programs specifically in the highest-risk areas.
In the East, we are hardening for survivability, not avoidance. Utilities know outages will occur during major storms. So, the focus shifts to faster restoration and limiting the impact from hurricanes.
Following Superstorm Sandy, our work with PSE&G showed the value of elevating substations, building system redundancy, and protecting critical infrastructure from flooding. More recently, grid modernization efforts in Puerto Rico have focused on replacing existing poles with stronger structures and elevating substations above flood-prone areas. It helps them to better withstand hurricanes.
This reinforces a key lesson for utilities nationwide: resilience investments are most effective when they are targeted to the highest-risk assets and locations. Improving reliability makes the best use of limited funding.
The challenges facing the US electric grid are not the result of a single issue. We know reliable power is essential. But at the same time, we’re facing:
The question for utilities is no longer whether modernization is needed. It is now how to prioritize investments that deliver the greatest benefits.
The most effective modernization strategies will not be defined by the amount of infrastructure replaced. It will be defined by how strategically investments are made. By focusing on the highest-risk assets, adapting to local hazards, and leveraging new technologies alongside engineering skills, utilities can build a grid that is more reliable, resilient, and prepared for decades of growth.
Electric grid modernization in the US is not only an investment in the energy transition but in the communities, economies, and critical services that depend on it every day. The path requires both vision and action. While long-term investments are essential, resilience cannot wait. As we plan for the future, let us commit to the immediate actions and resilience advancements we can incorporate while laying the foundation for a renewed energy system.
" }