September 12
GridX Acquires Innowatts to Expand Its Enterprise Rate Platform
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GridX, the leading Enterprise Rate Platform provider to utilities, recently announced the acquisition of Innowatts, a specialized provider of advanced load forecasting and utility planning analytics. The strategic acquisition strengthens GridX’s market-leading position by adding sophisticated meter-level forecasting capabilities that directly inform rate design and analysis, enabling more nuanced pricing strategies that align costs and behavior.
Talia Boyd was spending over $300 a month to keep her home just outside Asheville, North Carolina, cool this summer. It was an enormous sum for the single-wide trailer she shares with her baby daughter and teenage son. “We constantly kept ceiling fans going, and I had to get AC units,” she said – multiple ones that ran 24/7 to replace the cold air seeping out from gaps around the windows.
Open any article about the electric industry, and you’ll read immediately that energy demand is on the rise. But that point bears repeating, if only to emphasize that the energy landscape is changing. These increases in demand challenge grid capacity and are driven by energy-hungry AI and data center projects, supply chain and tariff issues, and intensifying extreme and volatile weather patterns.
Ameren Missouri is seeking approval from state regulators to build a new solar facility in central Missouri that could power tens of thousands of homes and create hundreds of jobs. The utility said that it filed a proposal with the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) to construct the 250-MW Reform Renewable Energy Center, which would be located next to its Callaway Energy Center nuclear plant.
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Michael Gillogly, manager of the Pepperwood Preserve, understands the wildfire risk that power lines pose firsthand. The 3,200-acre nature reserve in Sonoma County, California, burned in 2017 when a privately owned electrical system sparked a fire. It burned again in 2019 during a conflagration started by power lines operated by utility Pacific Gas & Electric. So when PG&E approached Gillogly about installing a solar- and battery-powered microgrid to replace the single power line serving a guest house on the property, he was relieved.
Despite federal policy that has sought to hamper the growth of renewables, solar and energy storage resources made up 82 percent of new U.S. grid capacity added in the first six months of this year, according to a report from SEIA and Wood Mackenzie. Beyond the solid top-line numbers, however, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and recent Trump administration actions targeting solar “have significantly reduced deployment forecasts,” SEIA said this week.
U.S. utilities are planning for significant large load capacity growth, according to a new Wood Mackenzie study of major investor-owned utilities. The study, called “No turning back, an analysis of utility large load pipelines,” indicates that 116 GW of large load capacity has either been committed or is under construction. This is equivalent to 15.5 percent of current US peak demand.
On Monday night in a subterranean hall under the Las Vegas Convention Center, Tesla released an upgraded version of its grid-battery product that will allow developers to build bigger energy-storage projects faster. That kind of acceleration is sorely needed as the storage industry positions itself to meet historic grid demand in the next few years. While better known for its pioneering EV business and the polarizing antics of CEO Elon Musk, the company is also a pacesetter in the fast-growing U.S. energy storage industry.
