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Meeting the Moment: Modern Energy Systems for an Electrified Economy

At a glance

  • Electricity demand is set to increase 34% in the next 10 years and 75% by 2050, driven by electric vehicles, cooling and data centers.
  • Data and digital strategy are critical components of demand-side solutions, yet are met with challenges amongst legacy utilities, as well as infrastructure and building firms.
  • Executives should reassess their concept of ROI in order to future-proof their business for the coming electrification surge.
  • Upskilling the broader energy ecosystem, not just internal teams, is key to delivering the change necessary at scale.

The electrification supercycle is here; how do we meet the moment?

At a roundtable during Bloomberg’s 2025 Sustainable Business Summit in London, titled “Meeting the Moment: Modern Energy Systems for an Electrified Economy,” participants met under Chatham House Rule to discuss current surging energy demand and how technology, innovation and policy will play a role in meeting that need. A range of industries were represented, including technology, energy, infrastructure, finance, and professional services, ensuring the discussion was holistic and encompassed various regional perspectives.

Electricity demand will experience huge growth, 34% in the next 10 years, 75% by 2050, driven by electric vehicles, cooling and data centers.

In an opening presentation by David Hostert on key takeaways from the New Energy Outlook 2025, BloombergNEF’s Chief Economist made the case that EVs, air conditioners and data centers will drive the majority of the growth in electricity demand by 2050. While headlines have focused on how data centers are straining energy grids writ large, BNEF modeling finds the impact is local and potentially dirty, as modeling shows the buildout of gas and deferred coal closures are favored sources in the short-term to feed power-hungry data centers.

“Digital and data strategies are critical to success.”

In analyzing the current electrification challenge, Schneider Electric’s Chief Sustainability Officer and roundtable host Esther Finidori introduced her three largest learnings, which grounded the discussion around solutions:

  • Digital and data strategies underpin all transition projects that optimize energy use.
  • Identifying steps that can be taken with economic rationality can unlock long-term value.
  • In order to facilitate a more comprehensive definition of ROI, we need to collectively change the ability to measure the cost of inaction.

Today, very few energy consumers consider the importance of data architecture and the role it plays in optimizing for demand flexibility and driving efficiency. Take the example of electrifying a building: the ability for data to flow in and out of the building is what will enable it to respond to external signals as well as internal needs. In doing so, the building could effectively double its return on investment, earning additional value by shifting its consumption patterns and interacting dynamically with the grid. Yet this kind of data-enabled flexibility remains largely absent from most energy transition projects today or is limited to an individual building.

Nevertheless, such experiments with new digital and data strategies are playing out at the national levels in real time, from India to Australia to Europe, as some roundtable participants highlighted.

Challenging widespread adoption of digital and data strategies, however, are legacy utilities and the built environment (infrastructure and buildings). The business models of legacy utilities are a primary barrier given they traditionally have a “cost-of-service” model where utilities make a return on investment by expanding infrastructure and increasing the volume of energy delivered to customers, putting it in tension with lowering demand.

Policy challenges are also prevalent when operating in diverse geographies, given regulatory inconsistencies. Participants said they were frustrated by what they described as “less maturity” in certain markets when it comes to the regulatory environment, but cited the Australian government’s work with Southeast Asian economies to support policy development and reduce uncertainty so that companies have the confidence to initiate projects and the regulatory stability to complete them. Private sector representatives also lamented the missed opportunity of embedding new energy technologies—such as heat pumps—when public infrastructure and services (including prisons, noted one executive) are updated, due to a disconnect between government and the private sector.

Participants also discussed financing as a barrier to energy technology solutions, particularly how we define ROI and the need to secure buy-in from the C-suite in order to make strategic plans for the future. Though ROI is strong for conventional energy technology associated with oil and gas, and less so for renewable energy technology, it was argued that executives will have to accept that ROI may be lower for a time in order to future-proof the business and position it well for the medium- and long-term.

“Though oil and gas infrastructure assets may have amortized in 5 years, in 15 years if you need to replace the assets, you will still need to advocate for capex that could have been used for something else,” said Finidori, who recounted her success in convincing Schneider Electric to stop capital expenditure investments that would result in stranded assets. This potential cost of inaction (i.e., the tendency to kick investment in clean technologies down the road) can lead to more stranded assets, which is not usually effectively measured in balance sheets.

Esther Finidori, Chief Sustainability Officer, Schneider Electric.

There are immediate cost benefits to be gained as well from demand-side tools. “What really gets demand side flexibility going is the price of energy,” said Cate Hight, a Partner in Bain and Company’s Energy Transition practice, in an interview following the roundtable. “So I think that as we see continued constraints on how many electrons can be delivered…we’re going to see more and more of that demand-side flexibility coming into play simply out of cost.”

“Companies should not just think about the skills they’ll need internally, but how to upskill the entire ecosystem.”

The conversation concluded with thoughts around the importance of bridging the gap between deploying available technology and a limited labor market. When trying to deliver the scale of change necessary to upgrade our energy systems, companies also need to consider the people (like electricians and other specialized technical professionals) necessary to carry out this change. To do so, companies should think beyond just internal programs to the upskilling of the entire ecosystem, as participants flagged that the majority of these workers are part of diffused partner channel contracts that they operate with. Having a program to skill the ecosystem can help companies scale their own workforce, maximizing their impact.

Schneider Electric, who was a sponsor of Bloomberg Live’s Sustainable Business Summit London, is the founding Co-chair of the Bloomberg New Economy Energy Technology Coalition, a private-sector–driven initiative helmed by a collective of forward-thinking global leaders across industry and infrastructure accelerating the deployment of demand-side technologies. Learn more at bloombergneweconomy.com/EnTech