2021 Black & Veatch

Strategic Directions
 F
20 The unpredictability of the past year continues to

20
reshape long-held conventions about the importance of
infrastructure. The immense challenges we face from
climate change, global pandemics and aging infrastructure
systems have amplified the need for more reliability and
resilience in our critical systems.

About COVID-19 has made power, water, natural gas and

telecommunications more essential than ever. The ability of

This countless businesses, municipalities, schools, healthcare facilities

and more to continue to operate in the face of lockdowns and

Report social distancing demonstrated the flexibility found in these

infrastructure systems.

However, the recent proliferation of catastrophic wildfires

across much of the American West, devastating hurricanes that
wreaked havoc across the South, and late season storms in the
Northeast underscored the growing impacts of climate change
and the fragility of many infrastructure systems.

Perhaps nothing illustrated the devastating impact extreme

weather can have on utilities more than the failure of the
Texas electricity grid in early February 2021. The largest forced
power outage in U.S. history left millions without electricity
and millions more unable to access clean water as systems
across the state ceased to function. The crisis shocked and
reverberated throughout the nation, begging questions around
why the grid failed, and how water service could be disrupted
by these conditions.

Nationwide, utilities are working overtime to adjust operations

to not only adhere to COVID-19 health and safety restrictions,
but to continue to maintain uninterrupted service. At the
same time, the global outbreak has highlighted the urgency of
transitioning to new technologies and data-driven approaches
that will enable more efficient management of critical systems
and aging assets. This is occurring even as the economic
impact of COVID-19 reduces utility revenue that is critical to
meeting both these goals, adding tension and complexity to
the prioritization of investments.

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 2

 Besides addressing a global pandemic and a rise in extreme
weather events, utilities also face pressure to help municipalities
and commercial and industrial (C&I) customers meet their
environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) goals.

As Fortune 500 companies commit to 100-percent renewable

energy and decarbonization targets, utilities have had to ratchet

4
up their own ambitions to keep pace — or risk losing business to
unregulated competitors.

But this comes even as new technologies such as green

hydrogen, which saw major advancement in 2020, play a growing
Customers Driving role across transport, power generation and storage, providing
Sustainability in the new opportunities for utilities when it comes to tightening its
C-Suite embrace of sustainability.

For many utilities, sustainability is centered on resilience and

decarbonization. In the utility C-suite today, this means rethinking
the use of every resource with a laser focus on ESG goals while
ensuring the overall health of the business. At the operational
level, sustainability comes down to the long-held goals of
reliability and resiliency, which are elevated even more in the face

10
Next-Level Reliability
of extreme weather events, and increasingly distributed assets.
Additionally, digitalization and analytics will play a critical role
in providing the insights necessary to reimagine the future and
ensure secure, reliable long-term service.

Through Resilience This year, we identified three megatrends that build on the
themes of recent years — but throughout this epochal year,
our professionals’ market insights and client interactions have
revealed notable shifts in their trajectories and focus, examined
closely in these sections:

1. Customers Driving Sustainability in the C-Suite

2. Next-Level Reliability Through Resilience

15
Turning Data into Action
3. Turning Data into Action

To learn more, visit bv.com, where you can view and download
our entire series of Strategic Directions reports at bv.com/reports.

THE BLACK & VEATCH INSIGHTS GROUP

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 3

Customers Driving Sustainability
in the C-Suite

M
ore efficient and sustainable operations changing market dynamics. While utilities and
have long been goals for utilities, but many of their customers have varying ESG goals,
this has only become more challenging decarbonization has emerged as a primary
in the era of climate change. Utilities are being effort for many. In just the past two years, major
tasked with adapting faster than ever while also decarbonization announcements — many
addressing more frequent extreme weather pledged outside of regulatory mandates — have
events, natural disasters and regulatory become the norm among the world’s largest
structures that often do not keep pace with utilities.

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 4

 Highlighting this point, more than half of respondents to our
2020 Strategic Directions: Electric Report survey said they have
decarbonization goals apart from regulatory directives, illustrating
the importance of market drivers in this transition (Figure 1).

While Xcel Energy was an early mover in 2018 with its own net-
zero carbon plans, zero-carbon plans have been announced
by many of the biggest U.S. utilities, including Duke Energy,
Dominion, Southern Company and Ameren; at the end of 2020,
70 percent of the largest U.S. electric and gas utilities had
disclosed net-zero emission or equivalent targets1. Companies
of all sizes are embracing sustainability not only in the face of
climate change but also as the workforce of the future demands
Figure 1
to know what their employers are doing about these issues.
Does your organization have
either carbon reduction, The key driver for utility decarbonization pledges is that
greenhouse gas emissions sustainability has rapidly ascended as a priority for large
reduction, or renewables corporate customers and other stakeholders, intensifying market
goals? (Select all that apply). drivers for decarbonization. Besides 100-percent renewable and
Source: Black & Veatch net-zero commitments from Fortune 100 companies such as
Amazon, Google, Maersk, Nestle Global and Dell — all part of the

53.3% Yes, RE100 initiative — net-zero goals from telecom providers such
as T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T, along with the departure of major
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) from the coal power
separate from any
regulatory mandate sector, like General Electric, Siemens and Toshiba, reflect the
impact of sustainability among corporate leaders. Black & Veatch
recently released its 2020-2023 Sustainability Strategy, which
40.5% Yes, outlines the company’s path towards a more sustainable future.
state regulatory mandate
On the municipal front, cities large and small around the globe
have net-zero goals. 2020 also saw a marked uptick in action
15.2% Yes, from shareholders as well as from financial giants such as
Blackrock, which declared climate risk as a financial risk in an
local regulatory mandate
open letter from its CEO, Larry Fink. Approximately US$500 billion
was committed to decarbonization efforts in 2020, up 9 percent
15.2% No from 20192. Additionally, an increasing number of financial
regulators are exploring ways to address the systemic risk of
climate change in financial markets. These trends are driving
action from both forward-looking utilities and even the sector’s
most recalcitrant actors.

The newfound willingness by utilities to address deep

decarbonization is attributable to the fast-expanding toolkit
at their disposal, as well as collective understanding of market
players that inaction also creates great risks to business as usual.
It was only a few years ago that utilities saw “zero emissions” as
an unrealistic or even impossible goal. But today, the continued
cost declines of wind, solar and battery energy storage, along
1
According to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
2
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 5

with fluctuating resources at scale, have could also provide an alternative to electric
made high penetrations of renewables a battery technologies. In turn, 15 governments
possibility without sacrificing grid reliability. launched major hydrogen plans and policies.
Emerging technologies for dispatchable zero- These early and significant movements set the
carbon generation — including hydrogen, and stage for hydrogen, directly or stored in the
carbon capture sequestration and utilization form of ammonia, to emerge in the mid-term
technologies — also are drawing growing interest as a zero-carbon fuel for heating, commercial
from utilities, as well as from oil and gas and and passenger transport, storage of renewable
other industrial sectors, seeking a broader low- energy and electricity generation.
carbon resource base.
Given the internal and external drivers, most
Developments in 2020 have raised expectations utilities — no matter their size — are moving
on the role of hydrogen as a gateway to towards more sustainable operations. Survey
decarbonizing the world’s energy systems, results show that a combined 83 percent of
supply chains and heavy industries. For critical, large utilities (those serving at least 2 million
energy-intensive industries, hydrogen provides customers) and 62 percent of smaller utilities
a clear pathway to cost-competitive carbon (with fewer than 500,000 customers) “somewhat”
emission reductions where reliability, resilience or “strongly” agree that “we are pushing our
and performance cannot be compromised and capital towards clean energy” (Figure 2).

Figure 2
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement:
We are pushing our capital towards clean energy.
Source: Black & Veatch

Strongly Somewhat Neither agree

By population served agree agree nor disagree Disagree

Less than 500,000 29.2% 33.0% 28.3% 9.4%

500,000-1,999,999 37.0% 35.4% 22.0% 5.5%

2,000,000 or more 42.0% 37.6% 14.8% 2.4%

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 6

 It is not just the electric sector that has embraced sustainability
at the highest levels of the organization, with hydrogen
particularly emerging as the hot energy topic in the past
year. Both oil and gas interests and electric and natural gas
utilities have focused on hydrogen as a unique opportunity to
leverage their expertise and capital to fill gaps in the existing
decarbonization solution set.

The gas industry notably is keenly interested in the ability of

“blue hydrogen” produced from natural gas, with the carbon
dioxide captured during the production process, to accelerate
the deployment of hydrogen at scale. Eventually the industry
hopes to move towards zero-emission “green hydrogen”
produced from excess renewable energy. With its ability to mix
with existing natural gas fuels (to a point), expect the debate
over the net-carbon benefits of blue hydrogen to be weighed
against its rapid deployment and its rapid impact on power
sector emissions.

Additionally, development of lower-emission materials such as

carbon-sequestering cement and engineered wood is attracting
interest in the construction sector. Renewable natural gas
also can offer an opportunity for both wastewater utilities
Utilities Take Action and natural gas providers to substantially reduce their carbon
with Decarbonization footprints. While many water utilities have traditionally been
and Hydrogen technologically conservative, many are now embracing

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 7

Figure 3
Please indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements as they relate to
your organization and local economy. (Select one for each row).
Source: Black & Veatch

Top-level management in our organization The use of resources within the water cycle is
demonstrates commitment to innovation and clearly mapped and documented to provide
a culture of innovation is fostered at all levels transparency in relation to the efficient use of
79.6% water, nutrients, organics and energy
64.1%
70.3%
32.7%
Our organization has a clear vision and goals
established for more sustainable modes of We maximize the value of nutrients and organics
operation in the future in the water cycle by promoting the production
87.5% of products with a high value to society
46.2%
68.8%
38.9%
We collaborate with other organizations,
including those outside of the water industry, Water, nutrients, organics and energy are
to explore opportunities for improving the efficiently cycled within our local economy
efficient management of resources to maximize the inherent value of these
components within the water cycle
62.2%
45.5%
55.0%
35.6%
We maximize the value of water in the water
cycle by promoting re-use and cycling of water
at it’s highest value Percent selecting strongly or somewhat agree
54.4 %
● Less than 500,000 ● 500,000 or more

39.3%

innovation to meet environmental challenges, choose between decarbonization and financial

with nearly 70 percent of survey respondents performance. Instead, savvy utilities are seeing that
claiming to be “leading innovation” or an “early sustainability is opening doors to new types of
adopter of innovative ideas” for environmental service such as green tariff and battery storage,
stewardship (Figure 3). which offer zero emissions and more reliable
service to better serve tomorrow’s customers. 
Given the increased focus on climate risk and
sustainability in the private and public sectors,
utilities are embracing their own sustainability
goals, knowing that they no longer need to

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 8

Next-Level Reliability
Through Resilience

R
eliable service always has been core to every utility’s mandate, but achieving
this is becoming more complex in the face of aging infrastructure and
increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events. As this report
was being drafted, the second major hurricane of November (Category 3 or
higher) made landfall in Central America as a Category 5 storm, with wind speeds
accelerating from Category 1 to Category 4 in just 24 hours over abnormally warm
seas. Similarly, wildfires continued to burn in parts of Colorado, months after the
historic end to fire season.

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 9

 It is with these varied factors in mind that in order to sustain
reliability, utilities across the board recognize the need to be
more resilient than ever. Starting nearly a decade ago, resiliency
became the battle cry for utilities after the extensive damage of
Superstorm Sandy, while Hurricane Harvey in 2017 was a wakeup
call for the Gulf Coast.

Figure 4 Today, that battle has intensified. For example, despite

maintaining reliability through the unprecedented conditions
What are the major
of the pandemic, electric utilities still struggled with extended
challenges your team is
outages in the wake of historic wildfires in California, storms in
facing with your current
the Northeast and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. Customers
electric distribution system?
and regulators are not just asking but are demanding to know the
(Select up to three choices).
return on investment of utility investments for ratepayers when
Source: Black & Veatch
extended outages remain a reality after weather events.

72.5% Improving reliability

Unsurprisingly, when asked about the top challenges facing
today’s electric utility industry, the majority of respondents
cited improving reliability, followed by asset management and,
almost equally, improving resilience (Figure 4).

49.5%
Asset management

48.6%
Improving resilience

37.2%
Integrating distributed
energy resources (DERs)

34.4%
Physical security and
cybersecurity

24.8%
Common distribution
automation plan

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 10

Figure 5
Which of the following
elements are included in your
water supply plan? (Select all
that apply).
Source: Black & Veatch
According to our research, water utilities face the most aggressive

85.1%
resilience challenge from climate change, as more frequent
droughts and unpredictable patterns of intense precipitation
affect their ability to rely on reservoirs and other surface water
resources while they also have to tackle aging infrastructure and
Water conservation and/
or drought management the need to manage aging workforce. Whether it’s less rain in
increasingly populous regions or inundations from increasingly

68.1%
Scenario planning
powerful storms, more than half of respondents to our 2020
water industry survey are actively planning for climate change
(Figure 5), employing strategies to bolster resilience that include
seeking new groundwater sources — including investigating

55.3%
Climate change/variability
technologies for groundwater
recharging — and adding
reuse capabilities to help
Figure 6
diversify supply (Figure 6).
31.9%
New surface water supplies
One resilience strategy that
What steps are you taking
to bolster water supply
is becoming increasingly resiliency? (Select all that
important for both electric apply).
31.9% and water utilities is the
pursuit of expanded and
Source: Black & Veatch

42.9%
New reservoir storage
more integrated planning

8.5%
We do not have a water
across their business silos.
Water utilities are embracing
programmatic solutions Seeking new
supply plan to mapping out resilience, groundwater sources
including the popular One
Water approach advocated
by the U.S. Water Alliance, as
38.8%
Adding reuse capabilities
well as the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency’s (EPA)
integrated planning process. 26.5%
Seeking new surface water
Electric utilities are broadening
sources
their planning lens to look at

12.2%
integrated resource blueprints
that include supply and
demand across central and Seeking new desalination/
distributed assets. Further still, brackish sources
many utilities are expediently
revisiting winterization and
climate adaptation programs 20.4%
We are not taking any steps
as the impacts of the grid
collapse in Texas reverberates

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 11

Figure 7
Is regulatory uncertainty
at the federal or state level
having an impact on your
utility? (Select all that apply).
Source: Black & Veatch

Regulatory uncertainty
impacts our ability to...

40.2% Recover infrastructure

across the industry. Taking direct action to boost resilience
through physical grid-hardening strategies and exploring non-
investments to wires alternatives are also being reconsidered. They also are
modernize the grid reconsidering physical grid-hardening strategies and exploring
non-wires alternatives to boost resilience.

39.2%
Recover operating costs and
The clear growing threat — and cost — of prolonged outages,
experienced in Texas, California, New York and other storm-
provide satisfactory earnings prone areas, is prompting policymakers and regulators to
consider rate-basing expensive hardening investments. As

26.8%
Accurately predict
with utilities across all sectors, the ability to embrace emerging
opportunities to build resilience will be largely determined by
regulators. At the time of publication, reform of ERCOT is an
electricity prices emergency item for Texas lawmakers while the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) has also launched an investigation
24.7%
Recover large one-time costs
into the rolling blackouts in Texas and elsewhere. The message to
the industry in 2021: Expect regulatory change ahead.
(e.g. storm restoration) in a
Amid rapid climate and technological change, electric utilities
timely fashion
fear that regulators will not be able to keep pace with their

16.5%
need to invest in grid modernization approaches — and, in turn,
cause them to lose customers to third-party competitors such
No, regulatory uncertainty as distributed solar providers, which offer the resilience and
does not have and impact sustainability benefits they seek (Figure 7).

The growing mismatch between customers’ expectations of the

benefits of technology adoption, such as advanced meters, and
regulatory incentives to adopt those technologies, can lead to
negative publicity when outages occur, leaving customersto
wonder, “What have you been doing with my money if you
can’t keep the lights on in a storm?” Utilities in our survey cited
customer expectations as the second-greatest risk they face —

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 12

behind regulatory risk but ahead of the interrelated risks of
climate change, technological change and environmental
compliance (Figure 8). For example, some utilities still message
Figure 8
their customers to contact the utility if the power goes out,
despite the fact that they’ve deployed smart meters that What are the risks that your
automatically provide that information to the utility. organization must manage?
(Select up to three choices).
Some regulators are adapting, especially in hard-hit areas such Source: Black & Veatch

as Florida, which is battered by more hurricanes annually than

60.2%
any other state. In 2019, the Florida Public Service Commission
adopted new rules that would allow utilities to recover costs of
system-hardening investments. Senate Bill 796, signed into law
by Gov. Ron DeSantis in June 2019, enables the state’s investor- Regulatory
owned utilities to levy a separate charge — outside of its base
rates — to pay for undergrounding vulnerable power lines and
other equipment to make them more resilient to hurricanes. 37.1%
Customer expectations
But reliability and sustainability do remain in conflict. In some
regions, particularly in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic and
California, utilities increasingly are limited by growing opposition 34.0%
Environmental compliance
to natural gas, highlighting a potential tension between
sustainability and resilience objectives in the near term. This
conflict was on display this year in California, where Pacific
Gas & Electric lacked sufficient gas resources and secondary
33.2%
Technological change
power supply sources to meet the demands of heat waves and
wildfires; and in the Northeast, where the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
was cancelled despite aging existing pipeline infrastructure and
repeated gas price spikes during winter months. But technology
29.0%
Nature (storms, climate
could render this sustainability-versus-resiliency issue moot in change, etc.)
coming years, as demand-side resources and new technologies
such as green hydrogen are brought into more comprehensive
utility planning.  23.9%
Political

21.2%
Market competition

20.8%
Labor

13.5%
Shareholder

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 13

Turning Data into Action

L
everaging smart infrastructure to enable data-driven
utility operations has long been a work in progress, and
advancement has been uneven. While many utilities
have access to vast amounts of data thanks to deployment of
advanced metering infrastructure and sensors across new and
legacy assets, only a few early adopters have operationalized
the data in a significant way.

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 14

 37.6% 19.5%
Figure 9
What are the barriers
your utility is facing to Other competing priorities Gaining stakeholder support
enable smart distribution
infrastructure? (Select up
to three choices).
36.6%
Regulatory hurdles
18.0%
Ownership across
Source: Black & Veatch
departments

35.1%
54.1% Budget constraints
Lack of resources
or expertise
12.7%
Availability of technology

23.9% 10.7%
Waiting for others to
Communication
network capabilities pave the way

22.9% 5.4%
Unwillingness to look
Data quality or issues
at opportunities in
unregulated arena

For example, the New York Power Authority (NYPA), the largest
state public power utility in the U.S., is actively working to
transform itself into a true “digital utility.” The utility is “one of
the key creators and implementers” of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s
Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative, which aims to
transform how electricity is produced, bought and sold in New
York state. Recognizing the need to gain comprehensive insight
into the systems within their jurisdiction, the NYPA has invested
in creating digital twins of all their assets, deploying technology
capable of modeling how their systems might react to major
storms, cyberattacks and other risks.

Similar to the NYPA, a growing number of large investor-owned

utilities are making major commitments to using data to truly
transform their operations. These utilities are enabled by the
availability of software as a service and cloud-based solutions
from third-party vendors, making it easier to close the digital
divide. Even so, more than half of utilities said budget constraints,
followed by competing priorities and regulatory hurdles, are
impeding their ability to have smart distribution infrastructure
that gathers data from sensors that can be used for a range of
decision-making activities (Figure 9).

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 15

Figure 10
How is your organization viewing the importance of integrating
its planning functions (e.g. transmission, distribution, and
resource planning)? (Select one).
Source: Black & Veatch

34.6%
Extremely important

45.7%
Very important

14.2%
Moderately important

5.6%
Slightly/not important

Artificial Intelligence and Analytics

Given these constraints, the use of data for asset management

has seen perhaps the greatest amount of interest, given that the
ability to anticipate equipment failures and avoid costly outages
presents a straightforward case for regulatory approval. This is
particularly important for gas utilities, which are under greater
scrutiny over risk-management practices after a series of high-
profile safety incidents in recent years. The emergence of tools
enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) to provide predictive analytics
is especially important for all utility sectors, as the aging assets
most likely to fail are less likely to be equipped with sensors.
Better system intelligence and analytics also facilitate better and
more reliable operation of utility systems and facilities.

Beyond enhancing reliability, early movers also seek to leverage

data analytics and AI capabilities to build resilience. Many of
these early movers have been collecting terabytes of data yet
doing little with it so far. Data-driven modeling is a key for power
utilities to anticipate and control the behavior of distributed

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 16

 energy resources (DER), improve distribution
grid resilience and enable more granular
pricing. Sophisticated data analytics also are key
to making the regulatory case for sustainable
investments that take into consideration the
benefits for the utility, the customer and the
environment.

To this point, the data-driven integration of

utility planning is emerging as a fast-growing use
case, with 80 percent of respondents ranking
planning integration as “very” or “extremely”
important (Figure 10). For water utilities, digital
tools are being used to dynamically plan and
prioritize capital improvement plans based on
scenarios of severe storms, financial events and
more. Similarly, more than three-quarters of
power utilities either “somewhat” or “strongly”
agree that integrated IT/OT planning will deliver
significant benefits. (Figure 11).

Figure 11
Statement agreement: there will be meaningful benefits if
we integrate the planning of all our operational (OT) and
information technology (IT) systems.
Source: Black & Veatch

41.6%
Somewhat agree

25.2%
Neither agree
nor disagree

26.1%
Strongly agree

7.1%
Somewhat/
strongly disagree

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 17

Figure 12
When thinking about the qualities your organization looks for in a new hire,
how have those qualities changed from five years ago? (Select one for each row).
Source: Black & Veatch

Digital savvyness Experience in the industry

48.3% 11.6% 50.0%

31.0% 20.7% 34.9% 3.5%

Communications skills College degree

54.0% 10.6% 56.5%

19.5% 26.4% 22.4% 10.6%

Analytical skills Ability to work odd hours

54.0% 3.4% 4.6% 64.4%

18.4% 24.1% 18.4% 12.6%

Engineering background
10.3% 46.0% ● Much more ● Same importance today
important today
● Somewhat/much less
● Somewhat more important today
36.8% 6.9% important today

Opportunities, Challenges of Digitization

The pandemic has proven data and IT solutions Because data analytics is becoming core
are valuable for operations planning, work to utility operations, it has heightened the
prioritization and personnel management. challenges they face in replacing an aging
Digitization has helped facilitate rapid changes workforce. Eight out of 10 utilities see digital
to asset maintenance and incident response savviness as “somewhat more” or “much more”
protocols, including a move to one-person important for new hires today than it was five
crews, different work-staging processes and years ago (Figure 12). But that means utilities are
even quarantining on-site staff at critical competing with the likes of Amazon and Google,
facilities. As in other areas of the economy, it as well as the financial sector, for the latest crop
also has made it possible for large swaths of of data scientists that may not see the utility
utility personnel to work remotely. While some sector as cutting edge.
of these changes may be temporary, the cost
savings and efficiency improvements are likely
to make them permanent in many cases.

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 18

Finally, any discussion of digitization must As uncertainty enveloped the globe due to
include the evolving cybersecurity environment. COVID-19 this year, utilities have proven capable
Attempted cyberattacks have risen in recent of taking a long-term view, especially when it
years, and this trend has accelerated since the comes to climate change and sustainability.
pandemic’s outset. But there has been growing With technology and data at their fingertips,
utility collaboration and coordination with the utilities are poised to execute on increasingly
federal government to share knowledge and aggressive decarbonization plans and respond
protect against these threats, fueling hope to emergencies quicker and better. The details
they can continue to avoid major cybersecurity of these plans vary widely, but the ability of
breaches — or, at the very least, avoid the first movers to execute will bring confidence to
liabilities by following established best practices. historically cautious service providers who must
However, when best cybersecurity practices are transform their operations while providing even
followed, embracing data is an opportunity for more reliable, resilient service to customers of
utilities to truly transform their operations while all sizes. 
also building a new paradigm to offer best-in-
class customer experiences.

2021 STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS: MEGATRENDS | 19

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