2023 Electric Report from Black & Veatch Reveals Top Utility Risks

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Black & Veatch’s 2023 Electric Report is now available.  The report, which aims to take a pulse on so-called megatrends within the power industry, is published annually – the very first issue was published in 2006.

It features a plethora of insights from a survey completed by over 650 power industry stakeholders.  The report aims to measure awareness of reliability and infrastructure issues in a decarbonizing world, reveal utility strategies for dealing with these issues, and identify how utilities are handling digitization and modernization activities.

Highlights from Black & Veatch?s 2023 Electric Report

Check out this article for a detailed overview of the report’s findings.  Or you can download a free copy of the report here.  What follows are a few bullet points around the insights that I found most interesting:

• 83% of respondents said that resiliency is being given more consideration in investment decisions, but only 48% have included long-term climate risk analyses into resilience planning efforts. The good news is that there is a 13% increase in respondents planning to address climate risk compared to the 2022 report.
• 70% indicated that utility supply chain issues are still impacting the availability of components and equipment, up from 66% in 2022. Because of this, 30% of respondents indicated that their company is delaying reliability investments, which certainly won’t help from an emergency preparedness perspective.
• 83% indicated that load growth is significant, potentially negatively impacting reliability.
• 33% indicated that the integration of renewable energy sources into their grid is their biggest challenge, 6% more than indicated aging infrastructure.
• Only 12% expressed confidence that the recent queue reform being contemplated by the FERC will actually improve the velocity and efficacy of renewable interconnections – not exactly a vote of confidence!

Overall, the 2023 Electric Report shows that the majority of industry stakeholders are faced with similar challenges.  These include severe weather events, supply chain challenges, load growth, and inefficient interconnection mechanisms, to name just a few.