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How utilities can scale low-carbon energy by orchestrating change
3-minute read
December 19, 2025
Utilities know what’s at stake in the global energy transition. The opportunity to decarbonize is clear, and the technologies are proven. What matters now is moving from operator to orchestrator, shifting from commodity providers to catalysts of cross-industry electrification and growth.
Accenture's Powered for Change 2025 report* shows that a multigenerational approach—moving from bespoke projects to repeatable, scalable systems—can redefine the economics of transformation.
And as data centers drive growth in energy demand, capital efficiency will be all the more essential; to build out the grid rapidly and sustainably without compromising financial discipline or consumer affordability.
From projects to platforms: A multigenerational approach to energy transition
The game changer is artificial intelligence. AI can help utilities to institutionalize knowledge, distill lessons from one project to the next and embed repeatability into the fabric of capital delivery. Instead of reinventing the wheel, utilities can create a living system where each new deployment is faster, more efficient and delivered with greater impact.
Utilities have long approached transformation through isolated initiatives—a smart meter rollout here, a substation upgrade there. Each project delivers value on its own, but too often insights stay siloed, designs are bespoke and work is repeated from scratch the next time. The result is fragmentation, higher costs and slower progress.
In utilities specifically, our research shows that three out of four utilities’ decarbonization plans still emphasize short-term, isolated projects.
By contrast, utilities that adopt a multigenerational model can achieve compounding efficiency gains and faster time to value.
This approach means thinking beyond projects as endpoints and instead treating them as platforms for scalable decarbonization and electrification. For example:
- Grid modernization programs that use standardized, modular components, so every substation upgrade reduces the cost of the next.
- Electric vehicle (EV) charging networks that scale from pilots into utility-owned ecosystems, with tariffs, data flows and grid services designed for repeatability.
- Distributed energy integration where each solar-plus-storage interconnection can help teach the system how to process the next one with greater speed, lower cost and higher reliability.
The evidence is compelling: Our analysis shows that applying a structured, repeatable approach to green hydrogen production could create up to $60 billion in additional value by 2050 and cut costs by as much as 35%.
How do utilities clear the path for scaling a low-carbon energy system that delivers on both decarbonization and growing energy needs?
01
Scale resilient supply chains
Utilities face the same constraints as heavy industry: long lead times, transformer bottlenecks, volatile battery costs and fragmented supplier bases. Our Powered for Change 2025 report notes that 74% of executives expect supply chain volatility to negatively affect capital projects over the next three years.
In utilities, transformer and grid component lead times have doubled since 2022, making capital planning increasingly fragile. Nearly 80% of utility executives expect these constraints to worsen over the next three years.
Utilities can seize the opportunity to shift from procurement to partnership:
- Building long-term supplier relationships to stabilize inputs.
- Driving industry-wide standardization, reducing costs through modularization.
- Regionalizing supply chains to hedge geopolitical risk and secure “local-for-local” advantages.
02
Foster community support and customer demand
Grid expansion rarely fails because of engineering—it fails because of permitting delays, local resistance or a lack of visible community benefit. Powered for Change 2025 highlights that 51% of executives expected stakeholder engagement to make or break capital projects in the period between 2024–2028.
Leading utilities are transforming community and customer engagement:
- Partnering with municipalities to build resilience hubs that combine distributed storage with public services.
- Using AI-enabled storytelling to show local benefits such as jobs, cleaner air and resilience against outages.
- Treating approval processes as collaborative steps rather than late-stage compliance.
Real-world examples show the power of this strategy. In the United States, a “Come Clean for Nuclear” campaign drove a 50% increase in public support for nuclear energy in nine weeks.
The takeaway: early, transparent engagement converts resistance into momentum—and utilities can harness this approach to accelerate grid and renewable investments at scale.
03
Reinvent talent and workflows
Utilities are asset-heavy and talent-intensive, so they rely on traditional ways of working—built for stability and risk reduction—which slows reinvention. According to Powered for Change 2025, less than half of companies believe they can implement new ways of working within 12 months.
Utilities report that the scarcity of specialized grid talent ranks as a top three barrier to decarbonization progress. Fewer than 35% of utilities are confident they can reskill fast enough to support next-generation grid technologies.
The utilities that succeed will build a talent engine:
- Codifying learnings across projects through AI-powered knowledge hubs.
- Blending physical and digital training to build fluency in new processes.
- Empowering field teams with decision rights supported by real-time data.
TenneT, the European transmission operator, is proof of what's possible. TenneT co-developed immersive, behavior-driven training to elevate safety and accelerate skills transfer. With more than 3,000 workers trained and satisfaction above 90%, TenneT created a repeatable reskilling model aligned with decarbonization goals.
04
Build a digital core for continuous learning
Many utilities have digitized—but in silos. Metering, outage management and planning systems remain fragmented, limiting the ability to capture cross-project learnings.
Utilities-specific findings show that while more than 70% of utilities have begun digital initiatives, fewer than 30% have a fully integrated digital backbone. This gap means valuable learnings from one project rarely translate directly into the next, slowing down the compounding benefits of transformation.
Powered for Change 2025 stresses that organizations require a digital backbone for decarbonization to scale at speed. The upside is significant: organizations with an integrated digital core see up to a 40% higher success rate on major projects.
Hinkley Point C—a pioneering nuclear power project in the United Kingdom, majority owned and operated by EDF Energy—demonstrates this shift. By integrating a nuclear-secure cloud, digital twins and AI-driven analytics, EDF Energy cut errors, reduced regulatory friction and accelerated timelines. Every project now informs the next—delivering compounding performance gains.
What only utilities can do
Unlike other industries pursuing decarbonization, utilities hold a unique vantage point:
- Control of physical infrastructure essential for electrification.
- Trusted relationships with customers, regulators and communities.
- Ability to wield vast, underutilized datasets covering demand, load and distributed resources.
Powered for Change 2025 argues that the future belongs to those who orchestrate ecosystems in combination with strong asset operations. Utilities are positioned to be that orchestrator—designing demand, convening cross-industry partnerships and monetizing data in ways only they can do.
*All data points and examples in this blog post are drawn from Accenture’s Powered for Change 2025 report.
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