Navigating Utility Challenges in the Era of Digital Transformation - Conversation with Jeff Casey of Burns & McDonnell at DistribuTECH 2025

As digital tools continue to redefine what’s possible in the world of energy, leaders and stakeholders are managing a consistent stream of grid challenges while keeping an eye on the concurrent opportunities and new challenges tools like artificial intelligence (AI), private LTE, and the broad trends of digitalization bring to the utility sector.

At this year’s DistribuTECH 2025 Conference, Burns & McDonnell was one of the numerous names seeking to learn from the discussions and share their best practices for these opportunities built over the past year.

Jeff Casey, Director of Digital Strategy & Corporate Development at Burns & McDonnell, was especially eager to share a message with utilities at a critical inflection point: As data centers, onshoring of manufacturing, and electrification bring rapid load growth, digitalization is reshaping the grid seemingly faster than we can adapt, and commercial customers are demanding more from the power sector while retail customers need protected from cost pressures. So what should utilities prioritize?

Learning from Load Growth Leaps of the Past

The impact AI will have on power demand was a constant in conversation at DistribuTECH. As Casey told Energy Central, a useful heuristic is that projected annual load growth of 2% will lead to a doubling in demand in just a few decades. And with AI tools, electrification of entire industries, and a growing population all playing a role, that forecast may even seem conservative. The pace and veracity of what load needs are and where they impact the grid is the most challenging.

“Utilities are at 100% capacity just to meet business-as-usual needs,” Casey said. “Meeting future growth inherently requires additional demand.” Enter: utility executives quietly wringing their hands. But as Casey noted, this type of spike in demand is actually not unprecedented.

If you consider examples of building out the rural power grid or previous periods of electrification, this level of proportional load growth has been achieved by the utility sector multiple times, Casey said. The industry can and will rise to the occasion again. The real factor we must consider, Casey said, is “when that happens, who pays? How do you protect the most vulnerable?”

The Role of Data Centers: Burden or Opportunity?

Simply put, data centers are driving up demand, and fast. With many of the data centers being built in more rural areas, that introduces higher stakes to the challenge of meeting power demands while protecting the consumer.

But: “Data centers could actually become a grid resource via dynamic or dispatchable compute, load shifting and batch processing, rather than simply a grid tension,” Casey said. In a grid environment where virtual power plants and microgrids have elevated the potential of aggregating load management practices, Casey sees a future where data centers can not only shift power demand but also work in tandem to pool computing resources in a way that benefits the grid. And, Casey said, it could happen in the near future.

Grid Modernization: If You Build It, They Will Come

Another major tech development Casey is eyeing: opportunities available to the transmission & distribution (T&D) sector. He noted that T&D are the last frontiers to complete digital transformation, but he sees it catching up quickly.

One compelling example of that catch-up playing out today: private LTE and the impact of 4G and 5G technologies on communications used by grid equipment. This tech presents transformative opportunities as it will serve as a platform to unlock the next generation of grid applications, but Casey admits what those opportunities are isn’t exactly clear yet. He compared this situation to the pre-smart phone era: “Before smartphones and the app store, Uber couldn’t exist and you didn’t know that you wanted something like Uber. 4G/5G could be the utility’s smartphone moment—implement it, and we’ll soon find out what we’ve been missing.”

Advice for Utilities: Embrace New Thinking

As our conversation wound down, Casey highlighted a few key pieces of advice for those in leadership positions at utilities:

Think differently and empower the right people to challenge the status quo
Move beyond traditional planning and embrace bold, innovative strategies
Be proactive, collaborative, and forward-looking

The opportunities and challenges utilities face are unprecedented, but they can learn from transformative times in the past. By emphasizing proactive strategy, leaning into regulatory collaboration, and embracing digital transformation, the future is bright.

As Casey noted, “Somehow, as exciting as the past 20 years have been in utilities, the next 20 will be even more thrilling.”

All week, Energy Central is publishing our series of conversations from DistribuTECH 2025. You can see them all as they go live at this landing page.

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