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.

Download our first-ever Strategic Directions: Electric Industry Asia 2021. Based on insights from senior Black & Veatch clients and partners across the region, the special report looks at how the industry can enable an affordable and resilient energy transition as emerge from the uncertainty caused by COVID-19.

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.