Electricity grids historically have been relatively predictable systems. Power flowed in one direction, from centralized generation facilities through transmission and distribution networks to homes and businesses. Utilities owned the assets, controlled the flow, and could largely manage the system through centralized planning and human oversight. That model is no longer fit for purpose. Utilities face a whole new set of emerging and worsening threats—rising electricity demand from power-hungry data centers, infrastructure that continues to outlive intended lifecycles, sustainability targets, and retiring workforces taking years of tacit knowledge with them. The result is the emergence of intelligent smart grids. Defined by the International Energy Agency, “Smart grids are an electricity network that uses digital and other advanced technologies to monitor and manage the transport of electricity from all generation sources to meet the varying electricity demands of end users. It uses all parts of the system as efficiently as possible, minimizing costs and environmental impacts while maximizing system reliability, resilience, flexibility, and stability.” Utility Preferences Are Evolving Previously, energy pressures have often skewed toward a specific goal. In recent years, sustainability has dominated company agendas as governments and regulators pushed utilities to reduce emissions and accelerate decarbonization efforts. Today, utilities must balance multiple priorities simultaneously. Alongside decarbonization goals, they have rising energy costs, growing electricity demand from artificial intelligence (AI)-driven data centers, increasing climate-related weather events, and heightened concerns around energy security have elevated the importance of grid reliability, affordability, resilience, and safety. There are just too many pressing needs for utilities to juggle, and it’s only getting more complex. They must start to offload some intelligence into the grid. DERs Are Increasing Operational Complexity The rapid rise of distributed energy resources (DERs)—rooftop solar, battery storage, electric vehicle charging, microgrids, and decentralized generation—has transformed the grid into a far more dynamic