Every conversation about the grid right now sounds like a crisis report.
Blackouts, overloaded infrastructure, skyrocketing rates, AI data centers draining the system. If you’re a business leader, what you hear is that the power is running out, and there's nothing you can do but wait for someone else to fix it.
In other words, you're powerless.
That diagnosis is wrong. And believing it is costing you more than you think.
At a recent presentation during CERAWeek by S&P Global, a conference addressing global energy issues, CEO James Richmond reframed the conversation with this observation:
"Energy is abundant and power is not. We're not out of power. We're out of producing power in the right spot when we need it."
The United States has 1,250 gigawatts of generation capacity, he said, numbers supported by analyst reports. Average hourly consumption sits at about 470 gigawatts. Peak demand last summer hit 759 gigawatts, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Our country isn’t running out of electricity.
What's broken is the system for distributing it to consumers when they need it.
Understanding the issue reframes how commercial and industrial facilities should be thinking about energy reliability, cost exposure, and operational risk.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the presentation and what they mean for you.
Watch the full presentation here.
The core problem is a fundamental mismatch between a 20th century transmission and distribution system and 21st century power demands.
"That grid was built for incandescent light bulbs and light duty,” Richmond said. “We are beyond light duty and incandescent light bulbs."
Today's loads, including AI data centers, EV charging, advanced manufacturing, and robotics, draw huge amounts of power in short bursts the grid was never designed to handle.
In an AI data center, a 25x power spike from GPU chips can occur in as little as 10 milliseconds. That’s a fraction of the time it takes to blink your eyes.
And that’s all it takes for a huge portion of the grid to go down, as we saw with the massive blackout that impacted Spain and Portugal last year.
The safety nets that once stabilized the grid are eroding. Every coal plant that closes and every generation asset that’s retired removes inertia from the system, making it more difficult to "ride through" grid disturbances. Renewable energy has many benefits for society but contributes to the lack of inertia rather than solving the problem.
While we’ve made significant investments into the grid over the past 25 years, Richmond said they haven’t solved the core problems of making power more available and affordable.
Utility rates are still rising. The rate increases businesses are paying today were locked in before the AI data center boom.
"You haven't seen that price yet," Richmond said. "It's coming."
A big part of the issue is that by design, utilities have limited liability and reach behind the meter.
"If the problem is behind the meter and the utility can't go behind the meter, how does the utility fix the problem?” he said. “They just keep piling more on the same crap they have been doing for a hundred years, but it doesn't fix the problem."
The EIA projects grid reliability will deteriorate significantly, with outages increasing one hundred-fold by 2030.
The current national average is roughly 1.5 outages per year at two hours each. A 100x increase would mean over 100 hours of outages annually.
Instead of waiting for the grid to catch up, a better approach is to build power independence behind the meter — what Richmond calls energy sovereignty.
"You need to make sure you have power regardless of what the utility is doing," he said. "And you don't have the choice any longer to wait on the utility to figure out your problem and how you keep your business running."
This means using distributed or on-site generation that operates in parallel with the grid rather than as a standby backup. It’s drawing from whatever power source is available at the best price and efficiency, and managing fluctuating loads without depending on utility response times.
This is why we developed Virtual Utility®, which was recently recognized for its innovation on a global stage at the Edison Awards.
This is a next-generation microgrid powered by the R3Di® System, a self-contained natural gas generator paired with a lithium-iron phosphate battery energy storage system that can run in sync with the grid or fully independent of it to deliver clean, conditioned power 24 hours a day.
It’s supported by Grove365®, an AI-powered energy management platform backed by a network operations team that monitors grid conditions, weather, energy pricing, and asset performance in real time. Together, AI and human oversight guide how the R3Di System is deployed—helping business leaders avoid downtime and reduce the cost of utility power during peak demand.
In addition to avoiding significant charges, they can also take advantage of utility incentives, such as demand response programs.
If you're a CFO or operations leader, this presentation raises several important questions:
Richmond's core argument is that the power problem is solvable, and the solution starts at your facility. The question for most business leaders is where to start.
A good first step is understanding what your current energy profile actually costs you, and what a different approach could save.
Use our Virtual Utility® ROI Calculator to see what energy sovereignty could look like for your facility, and how it could increase your bottom line.