The Grid: 2025 Year in Energy
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A Letter From We Stand For Energy
Dear Friends,
As we close out 2025, we want to personally thank you for being part of the We Stand For Energy community. Every time you read our updates or share our resources you help strengthen the national conversation around something so foundational we often forget it’s there: electricity.
This year ushered extraordinary change across America’s energy landscape. Demand grew faster than anyone expected, new energy and grid projects broke ground across the country, and electric companies made record investments to strengthen reliability and affordability for the families and communities they serve.
Through all the complexity, one truth remained constant: your voice matters. When everyday families speak about the importance of reliability, affordability, and smart energy solutions, policymakers listen. And your engagement helped keep those priorities front-and-center throughout 2025.
2026 is shaping up to be even more pivotal. Rising electricity demand from electrifications, data centers, and rapidly growing communities mean the grid must evolve, quickly. We’ll continue working to ensure that the decisions made in statehouses and in Washington truly reflect the needs and realities of households like yours.
Thank you for standing with us, for staying informed, and for helping shape a stronger, smarter, more resilient energy future.
Warmly,
We Stand For Energy
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Amplifying the Voice of Everyday Families
Throughout 2025, WSFE continued to elevate a core message: Electricity isn’t just a commodity, it’s the backbone of modern life.
Record Investments in America’s Grid
Investor-owned electric companies provided nearly $208 billion in 2025 to modernize and strengthen America’s energy grid. These investments are making the energy grid smarter, stronger, more efficient, and more secure for all.
Surge in Electricity Demand Driven by AI, Data Centers + Electrification
U.S. electricity demand accelerated sharply this year, driven in large part by growth in data centers, AI workloads, and the electrification of transportation and industry. Data center power demand alone rose more than 20% in 2025 and is now on track to nearly triple by 2030, reshaping load forecasts across the country.
Helping Families Stay Connected
This year, as energy demand and costs climbed, programs like LIHEAP delivered real relief for families across America.
Even amid political headwinds and a delay at the start of winter, the U.S. federal government released $3.6 billion in delayed LIHEAP funding, a major infusion for states and tribes just as cold weather returned.
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What’s on the Horizon for 2026
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2026 will be a defining year for America’s energy future.
The Future of the Energy Grid
Datacenter and AI growth is driving load increases that require significant investment in generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure. In the next five years, America’s electric companies will invest more than $1.1 trillion so that American families and businesses have the electricity they need to power their daily lives.
These investments will support the construction of more energy- and cost-efficient infrastructure while driving down the costs of transmission congestion for independent system operators. As the economy electrifies and more electrons flow through the grid, capital expenditures will be distributed across a larger base, driving down costs for everyone.
Permitting Reform Remains Front and Center
Electric companies and policymakers agree: faster permitting is essential to keeping project timelines, and customer bills, manageable. WSFE will continue championing reforms that protect families and avoid unnecessary bottlenecks.
In September 2025, EEI urged Congress to overhaul the nation’s permitting process, calling current rules “roadblocks” that slow transmission and generation projects and prevent electric companies from responding quickly to mounting demand.
The appeal for reform has even crossed party and regional lines. Recently, a bipartisan coalition of governors from states across the country signed on to the call for “commonsense permitting reform” to modernize the grid, create clean-energy jobs, and speed up deployment of critical infrastructure.
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🙌 Thank-You to the Workers Who Keep the Lights On
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This year put unprecedented pressure on the grid, from violent storms and extreme weather to record-high demand and rapidly growing communities. Yet through it all, lineworkers, engineers, customer-service teams, and grid operators put themselves on the line to keep families safe and connected.
When wildfires swept through California, crews battled raging fires, shut off at-risk circuits, and worked tirelessly to bring electricity back, restoring power for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses under hazardous conditions.
When storms hit Minnesota and Wisconsin, over 2,000 personnel were mobilized to restore power overnight to tens of thousands of homes.
When storms tore through New York’s Mohawk Valley, toppling trees, sweeping away power lines, and snapping over 200 poles, crews worked tirelessly, night and day, to bring power back to nearly 128,000 customers across remote and hard-to-reach communities.
To every energy worker: thank you. Your skill, dedication, and resilience make modern life possible, even when conditions are harsh, the stakes are high, and the work is dangerous.
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🎧 Passing the Mic: The Current’s Next Chapter
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After a wonderful run, The Current is taking a well-earned bow and passing the mic to a bigger stage.
As we sunset new episodes, we’re inviting listeners to join us over at EEI’s flagship podcast, Electric Perspectives, the place where the energy conversation gets even wider, deeper, and more future-focused.
Electric Perspectives offers more voices, more experts, more behind-the-scenes stories about the policies, technology, and people powering your community.
This isn’t goodbye, it’s a transition to a broader, stronger platform for the conversations that matter.
If you’ve enjoyed listening with us, you’ll feel right at home in our new audio home:
Subscribe to Electric Perspectives for your weekly energy insights.
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Company Inc, 3 Abbey Road, San Francisco CA 94102
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