Leadership predictions for your utility: What’s coming in 2025

Our team recently sat down to discuss our planning approach for the coming year, and, as always, it turned into a chat about predictions and how our group sees developments and changes in the industry itself—to plan for change, you have to first know what change is coming.

I thought this chat might be highly valuable to our ESC Partners community as well. After all, we’re all in this industry and this time of change together. So, here are a few bits of insight into 2025 from our team to yours.

From RJ Kumar, CEO:  Electric utilities, especially, need to keep an eye on renewable energy integration in 2025. Will it continue to be fostered in by a combined government-positive plus industry-adaptive approach, or will it get sidelined with a new focus on consistency & stability? Are there ways they can keep that sustainability plan they have in hand without hardware investment?

Given the historical investment in both wind and solar, there will continue to be positives in those areas this year, but, even in that spot there are hurdles: Can we make the grid upgrades needed happen in a timely manner? How much grid modernization planning will be completed in time to help with that? How much investment in smart grid automation and software will utilities feel comfortable making in 2025? And how will customer-owned renewables fit into all of this?

Of course, the easiest way to keep that sustainability plan and adapt quickly to industry and regulatory changes revolves around shifting the investment itself from in-house to outsourced—namely SaaS resources. While SaaS may have been born from necessity—most smaller utilities didn’t have the capability or the budget to take on the hardware, software, and manpower of these builds—I think the entire industry is starting to see just how SaaS plus AI can help shorten the planning cycles for things they had never thought it applied to before, like sustainability initiatives.

From Travis Murray, COO:  I think utilities of all sorts—from electric to water to natural gas and even wastewater—should be laser-focused on cybersecurity in 2025. And, if they are, they’re going to notice that they don’t have the real power to do most of that in house, just as they saw when SaaS started to really push through. And they’re going to need to outsource that to vendors and partners with the ability to build in checks and balances. Like what you were saying about sustainability, RJ, this is a way to get to the end result so much faster.

As a community—utilities, partners, vendors—we have to work cybersecurity collaboratively. It cannot be tackled alone, or we’re all siloed and in danger. While it may seem counterintuitive, the more we’re connected to each other and supporting each other with these projects, the safer we all are—and the safer the communities we live in are as well.

From Valerie Ross, SVP:  The component to this entire discussion that will be key is really what does the regulatory landscape look like. That impacts what RJ was talking about with sustainability, as well as Travis’ cybersecurity take. Pretty much any initiative in 2025 that wants funding and to clear the way forward has to sell itself to a regulatory body that is both constantly evolving and traditionally a tad behind the innovation curve (because their main goal is, understandably, getting proven results from proven tech for their consumers).

Circling back to RJ’s note, I think renewables will have a harder time being sold to regulatory entities this year with the incoming administration being one with a more conservative agenda. Carbon emission reduction targets may be on the chopping block. Will grid investments make it through? Perhaps if tied to reliability and customer need. Regulatory will always be tied to the consumer this way.

From Ruby Irigoyen, VP:  2025 is going to look a lot like 2024 in one particular way—a push to put the customer at the center of all decisions. We’ve said that for years. It’s been the focus for years, and that will not change in 2025. Customer satisfaction will still be the biggest focus, and that could mean—to Valerie’s point—a significant focus on reliability-based investments versus new or untried options. Two ways that can really help moving forward—demand-side management programs and time-of-use programs—are, luckily, already available, tested, and proven options. So, I think we’ll see a bigger build around those this year.

And we’re finally seeing shifts in customer sets: more proactive consumers, more desire for numbers and knowledge along with choice, and more requests for support in digital channels versus the classic call center. Don’t get me wrong: The call center will still reign in 2025, but those digital channels are really making in-roads. The time is now, though, for utilities to set up omnichannel/cross-channel and interconnected data options for their customers.

From Rakesh Babu, VP:  Water utilities globally will combine that sustainability factor RJ mentioned and the reliability focus from Val’s point with Ruby’s customer concept—with both hardware and software in play. They’re still facing a real need to replace lead lines and elements that are old and unsound. Reliability is the foundation there, and sustainability the bonus.

And around the world, water utilities have been pushing drought resilience planning for years. I see that increasing significantly this year as we see more and more weather-related issues impacting them. So, conservation programs, smart water sensors and tech, rainwater harvesting, and wastewater reuse are all on the table. Getting the customer educated and on board will be part of the customer-focus approach of Ruby’s. It all—by necessity—works together.

From Luis Carli, VP:  I really want to talk about what’s coming for gas utilities in South America this year, as it looks to be one of change and integration more than ever before. Especially regionally, utilities are looking to work together, cooperate, and integrate for better supply security and efficiency. I suspect we’ll even see spike growth in cross-country-lines projects from pipelines to LNG terminals.

And, of course, 2025 will see a spike in digital choices: smart grid tech, automation, data analytics, AI, smarter meters, and smarter monitoring, too. The digital transformation of this industry is on-going.

Got feedback for the team on their 2025 predictions for gas, water, and electric utilities? We’d love to hear your insights and what you see happening in your community. Send us a quick note to info@esc-partners.com with the subject line 2025 predictions.

ABOUT ESC PARTNERS:

ESC Partners is building smarter communities from utilities work to public works with solutions in the Oracle Cloud. Let us help you take full advantage of all the Oracle SaaS options available or walk you through our personalized Care-as-a-Service (CaaS) solutions. Just send us a note via the contact form, and we'll circle back within 48 hours.