Nearly 80 percent of all U.S. electricity customers are served by a utility that has a goal to eliminate 100 percent of their carbon emissions. That shared objective, however, obscures how varied the strategies and technologies are that utilities will use to drive the energy transition. For example, rural cooperatives in the northeast will inevitably use different tools than investor-owned utilities in the west. Flexibility is the foundation of success, particularly since the increasingly distributed and interdependent nature of the power system is both driving the energy transition and introducing complexity that utilities and smart cities must manage.

This infographic demonstrates the three common steps on a utility’s energy transition journey:

• Step One: Decentralization of the power system
• Step Two: Digitalization for better control, optimization, and reliability
• Step Three: Implementation of a device-independent communications platform that provides choice and flexibility

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