Insights and Resources

Black & Veatch’s 2020 Strategic Directions: Smart Utilities survey polled more than 625 qualified utility, municipal, commercial and community stakeholders to investigate the issues and complexities of the changing utility landscape. Now, this survey data is being made available to the public.

The 2020 Strategic Directions: Electric Report – melding analyses by leading experts and a survey of more than 600 stakeholders – examines the complex issues and trends impacting today’s power sector waging a sweeping transformation. The surge in renewable energy – and the pressing needs by utilities to effectively integrate it onto the grid – is driving much of the discussion as the energy ecosystem evolves, including the growing use of microgrids. Hydrogen and its pairing with battery storage is attracting more attention. The quest for sustainability, reliability and resiliency continues to push utilities and power developers toward broader investments in decarbonization as more states, counties and countries impose mandates that power sources become cleaner and greener.

Black & Veatch’s 2020 Strategic Directions: Smart Utilities survey polled more than 625 qualified utility, municipal, commercial and community stakeholders to investigate the issues and complexities of the changing utility landscape. Now, this survey data is being made available to the public.

With its survey of nearly 300 water industry stakeholders as its backbone, Black & Veatch’s 2020 Strategic Directions: Water Report comprehensively analyzes the sector’s complex landscape of challenges and opportunities. The leveraging of data in driving decision-making and optimizing efficiencies in water and wastewater systems is widening even as infrastructure continues to age, climate change strains assets, and the COVID-19 pandemic’s financial havoc pressures the bottom lines of many utilities through lost revenues. We look at all of that and more.

The 2020 Strategic Directions: Smart Utilities Report explores the issues and complexities of the changing utility landscape. Based on expansive industry data collected through our annual survey of electric, water, and natural gas utilities, this year’s report looks beyond individual efforts to take a more holistic view of what it means to deliver the promised grid of the future.

The Black & Veatch 2019 Strategic Directions: Water Report examines the issues and trends impacting the water industry today. From the troublesome scenario of Day Zero in South Africa’s Cape Town to heartbreaking images of Midwestern towns dealing with extreme flooding, water remains a challenge for far too many communities around the globe.

The Black & Veatch 2018 Strategic Directions: Water Report addresses contemporary issues affecting water service providers around the globe. In light of climate change, resilience, regulatory and sustainability challenges, utilities are tackling regional issues with innovative water solutions.

For the first time, we asked water providers exactly how aging infrastructure was affecting their operations. Capital costs, unbudgeted emergency work and operational costs predictably came out on top. The report examines how data analytics, consumer education on infrastructure modernization and a more comprehensive view of sustainability are helping water utilities gain ground on these challenges.

As their infrastructure continues to gray with age and customers demand doing more with less, utilities and their business models are being tested by evolving technology that’s prodding them to modernize. After all, adding next-generation advances can enhance operational efficiencies, customer engagement and network resilience in a constantly changing energy ecosystem.

The Black & Veatch 2018 Strategic Directions: Smart Cities & Utilities Report dives deeply into the current landscape of smart city efforts unfolding around the globe. With high-profile, ambitious projects in such cities as Kansas City, Seattle and San Diego, we see the evolution toward smarter infrastructure is possible and that obstacles — no matter how daunting — can be conquered.

The 2019 Strategic Directions: Natural Gas Report explores these dynamics and how upstream, midstream and downstream enterprises are managing operations. Regardless of their roles in the supply chain or geographic location, organizations are adapting to the global forces shaping the natural gas industry.

The sweeping survey that underpins Black & Veatch's 2019 Strategic Directions: Electric Report sharpens the focus on a power industry at a pivotal time of change punctuated by increasingly popular, clean renewable energy sources and a murky regulatory climate.

It is hard to believe it’s been 27 years since we launched our first biennial survey of stormwater utilities in the U.S., when the concept of stormwater user fee funding was a nascent phenomenon. Since then, the awareness regarding stormwater related issues including water quality, flooding, habitat development, land use management, and regulatory requirements has been gradually increasing in urban, suburban, and rural communities. Amidst the evolving dynamics of stormwater management, Black & Veatch has remained a stable voice in continuing to capture and reflect enhanced stormwater management planning, best practices, and funding.

Weather-wise, 2018 was another year for the history books. As a nation, we faced severe weather conditions ranging from extreme winter weather, to record-breaking heat, to Hurricanes Florence and Michael. Too much water; too little water; too hot; too cold - for those of us in the water industry, these events impacted not only our ability to provide services to our customers, but also taxed our resiliency.

Last year, the annual Black & Veatch Strategic Directions: Electric Report addressed how the electric industry is adapting to change in the face of growing renewable energy, an uncertain regulatory environment and a pressing need to invest in aging infrastructure. This year, the report takes a step further. It investigates the progress made by the industry as it continues to evolve into its future self, but it also addresses new areas: a rapidly changing customer base, commercial defection from the grid, advanced technologies and a changing regulatory landscape, to name but a few.

From power generation and delivery to water and telecommunications, the systems that manage and deliver our world’s most critical resources are undergoing a stark transformation. Led by growth in renewable energy, the global push toward sustainability is disrupting outdated business models. High-speed networks are moving staggering amounts of information that simultaneously create opportunity and vulnerability. Meanwhile, enterprise and utility leaders are thinking holistically to manage and integrate once disparate infrastructure silos that must now work together to achieve real sustainability.

The 2017 Strategic Directions: Natural Gas Industry Report continues the discussion of how sustained low commodity prices are affecting all elements of the natural gas value chain. With current forecasts indicating prices will remain flat for an extended period, sector leaders are adjusting with many taking a proactive, longer-term approach to planning as projections push a market rebound further into the next decade.

The annual Black & Veatch Strategic Directions: Electric Industry Report explores progress made across the power generation and delivery sectors, with an eye toward their evolving landscapes. Over the last year, the sector has adapted to ongoing changes — the proliferation of renewable energy, a changing regulatory outlook and heightened focus on investment, infrastructure and regulation — all while navigating familiar but pressing challenges related to reliability and resilience.