We know grid modernization
Major advances in electricity generation, storage and control are transforming the global electricity marketplace. Electric grid operators are challenged with rising demand for reliability and resilience in the face of climate change, aging infrastructure and shifting customer load. They must balance the deployment of smart devices and distributed energy resources that make managing the grid more complex than ever before while ensuring always on reliability.
Accomplishing this balancing act will require more than just new distribution equipment, but a holistic approach to grid design, finance, management and security. Today’s grid must carry, control and monitor the bi-directional flow of electric power more safely, reliably and efficiently than ever before. Communications infrastructure must be deployed to enable more effective asset management programs and shift operations and maintenance into a proactive approach to ensure customers experience new levels of service.
From technical advisory and planning to engineering, and program construction management and deployment, Black & Veatch’s full range of grid modernization solutions help operators accelerate a more reliable, more distributed grid of the future.
One Partner
We guide you through every stage of grid modernization from master planning to operational analytics, integrating genuine expertise to solve both telecommunications and electrical grid challenges together.
Efficient Delivery
With an informed view of the entire lifecycle and focus on delivering value to you, we integrate the latest innovations and expertise at the right time to improve schedule and cost efficiency.
Our Insights. Your Success.
Our team’s complementary experience working with and for utilities brings a hands-on perspective to help you focus on your business and make better technical, operational and financial decisions at every step of your journey.
A full suite of grid modernization services
Distribution networks are the frontlines of the electric grid, and no two are the same. Weather, population density, geography and a range of other factors require tailored solutions to ensure optimal performance flexibility. Our experience working with utilities brings a hands-on perspective to the distribution networks we’ve helped plan, design, construct, optimize and modernize.
Realizing the benefits of advanced energy infrastructure requires vision and pragmatism. As leaders in power, telecommunications, asset management and program execution, we guide our clients through the rapidly evolving infrastructure lifecycle to deliver the quality program outcomes you need.
From renewable integration, energy storage and decarbonization programs to enhanced reliability for customers, we offer the right blend of expertise and hands-on experience, delivered by industry-leading engineering, construction, communications, and program management teams. This collaboration enables you to navigate the changing electricity market and evolving stakeholder expectations with the confidence and expertise necessary to keep projects on time and budget.
Advanced Metering & Smart Grid Infrastructure
Realizing the benefit of a more reliable, more sustainable energy infrastructure requires vision and know-how. The success of the modern electric grid relies on combining a high level of digitalization with a greater diversity of infrastructure assets that must be actively managed.
We help our clients put in place the advanced metering, monitoring and diagnostic systems, and other smart grid infrastructure that will position them to embrace the modern grid and realize its economic and reliability benefits.
Customer Experience
Rising service expectations and the regulatory frameworks governing utility engagement with customers are reshaping long-standing engagement practices. Driven by technology and today’s on-demand economy, providers are under pressure to modernize and provide more information and cleaner, greener energy.
From individual homeowners to large commercial customers, utilities must meet the needs of an evolving market while still achieving their own goals of reliability, sustainability and resilience.
Distributed Energy Resource Management
Distributed energy resources are transforming the distribution grid as the cost of renewable technologies and storage continues to decline, making these systems more attractive to government, commercial, industrial and residential customers.
But, increasing demand for local, clean-energy technologies – offering lower costs and enhanced energy security – presents new opportunities and challenges at the distribution level. We partner with our clients to help them manage the new energy landscape – in-front-of and behind-the-meter.
Grid Operations & Management
Operational intelligence is a critical component of enabling the modern grid, by providing insights that optimize improvement and management. We guide our clients through the rapidly evolving infrastructure lifecycle, seeking out advanced, sustainable opportunities whenever possible as the rise of distributed infrastructure reshapes the energy landscape.
Our full suite of services in technical advisory and planning, communications network development, engineering, program and construction management, and data-driven monitoring and maintenance allows us to deliver the innovative solutions our clients need.
Strategy & Regulatory Support
Strategic planning is a critical first step in answering key questions on what the future grid needs to be able to do, what changes and investments are needed and when, what benefits they can bring to customers and how these investments can be justified to stakeholders.
We bring an integrated approach to strategic planning and regulatory strategy combining industry insight, sophisticated market models, innovative regulatory strategy and stakeholder engagement to help our clients design successful roadmaps and programs that are embraced across their broad stakeholders.
We understand your challenges
Utility planners know that improving the reliability of the grid, enhancing operational efficiency and addressing aging infrastructure are the top three drivers for grid modernization programs. The benefits of programmatic approaches across the entire distribution system go beyond efforts to integrate smart metering. The grid of the future must be more – it must accommodate an unprecedented wave of digital devices, and be more reliable, resilient and sustainable while supporting the advancement of distributed energy resources.
Delivering the grid of the future will require integrating new technology and software — representing a sweeping shift toward digitalization and data. Embracing and investing in organizational transformation, large-scale integrated communications networks and an array of always-on, always-connected devices will manage and enable new levels of system automation and flexibility.
Black & Veatch’s approach to successful grid modernization programs starts with understanding the fully integrated communications infrastructure required to support utilities’ demands for reliability and efficiency, and customers’ expectations for greater energy flexibility. Highly secure, highly reliable, private fiber and wireless networks enable value creation from system data, enhanced asset management functionality and the capacity to operationalizing every asset in front of- and behind-the-meter.
The grid of the future must take into consideration all the necessary applications — the automation, analytics, asset management and security — that will enable a robust utility operation. The utility landscape is changing, and we help electricity service providers define, develop and deliver the outcomes they need to succeed in this rapidly modernizing world.
