The Gist

The grid is reaching a breaking point. Utilities say they need a trillion dollars for upgrades by 2030. Regulators say: prove it. Somewhere between California’s wildfire zones and Florida’s hurricane corridors, we’re entering a period where every investment decision carries real political and economic consequences.

The core question is no longer whether we need a more resilient grid. It’s how much resilience is enough and who pays?

On last week’s Open Circuit podcast, my partner Julia Hamm joined hosts Stephen Lacey, Katherine Hamilton and Jigar Shah to cut through the noise and explain what’s happening behind the scenes. Julia and Jigar also went at it a bit, which I always find entertaining! Read this month’s Gist for the key takeaways.

Itron recently announced its $325 million acquisition of Urbint, marking a significant exit in the climate resilience software space. The deal comes at an interesting time. Climate tech M&A exits are down 25% year over year, yet acquisitions now represent 92% of all exits in the sector.

We sat down with Urbint founder and CEO, Corey Capasso, one of AHG’s first clients, to discuss what this exit signals for founders selling to utilities and how the utility market has transformed from a graveyard for startups into fertile ground.

Weather forecasting is undergoing a period of rapid transformation driven by AI and surging demand for more precise, local, and actionable information. In an age of increasingly destructive extreme weather, the right weather intelligence can be the difference between safety and calamity.

In this month’s Gist, we spoke with meteorologist Sunny Wescott and Matt Stein, CEO of Salient Predictions, about why utilities still get caught off-guard by predictable storms, how AI is reshaping risk assessment and complementing physics-based models, and what it really takes to embed weather intelligence into daily operations.

Data centers. They are the inescapable energy topic of the moment. Can we build them fast enough to meet surging AI demand? Do we have the power and grid infrastructure to support them? What will they do to customer bills?

In this month’s Gist, my colleague Matt Anderson explains why some of the assumptions around data center demand are likely wrong and how a combination of new technology and creative regulation could make data center demand more flexible and drive down costs significantly.

Now that Congress has gutted much of the Inflation Reduction Act, attention turns back to the states that have historically provided a “climate firewall” when the federal government backslides.

In 2016 when Trump was first elected, climate-forward states united in common cause to flex the power that the federalist system gave them to continue to drive the energy transition forward.

In this month’s Gist, we interview Will Toor, who leads Colorado Governor Polis’ energy office, to find out if states will step up again and what’s different about 2025.

Utilities have struggled to adopt new technologies quickly and are known to pilot tech startups out of business. As a result, investors often avoid investing in startups that sell to utilities.

But utilities need to innovate now more than ever. There is no way to achieve the goals of the energy transition, meet rising electricity demand from AI, and address the threats posed by climate change without significant innovation in the utility sector.

In this month’s Gist, we interviewed Larry Bekkedahl, senior vice president of advanced energy delivery at Portland General Electric (PGE), Oregon’s largest utility, which has gone from last to first in utility innovation. We discussed how PGE did it, and why it has been an imperative for the company.

Carbon removal is in temporary panic mode as the Trump administration injects uncertainty into this nascent market. It doesn’t need to be this way.

In this month’s Gist, my colleagues Annie Gilleo and Myron Lam argue why America should continue to “dominate” this market and not cede its jobs and technological advancements to Asia and Europe, and how states can step up to fill the temporary gap.

While it’s been a minute since I worked in the Pentagon, I still consider myself a national security professional. After all, energy is the national security issue to which I’ve committed the better part of my career.

In this month’s Gist, my colleague Joshua Grelle and I write about how the energy transition — particularly the growing demand for electricity at home and globally — is transforming our military.

In big AHG news, in partnership with our friends at Latitude Media, we announced the launch of the Power Resilience Forum, a new industry event focused on managing threats to our electric grid. Save the date and come join us in Houston on January 22-23, 2026.

What a difference a few months can make. We take a break from the tumult of the moment, and look back on the last four years with Andrew Mayock, President Biden’s Chief Sustainability Officer. Mayock, who left his post on January 20th, reflects on what they achieved, what might have been, and where we go from here.

In AHG news, we’re thrilled that Michael Kormos has joined us as a Senior Advisor, and Hannah McGrath and Max Davidson have joined as Associates.

While the Trump team has frozen federal climate spending and is purging federal employees working on climate policy, calling it “wasteful,” we expect that they will likely come to terms with reality on at least some key issues — even if they use different language to describe it.

That’s because the electric grid is undeniably under attack from wildfires and other forms of extreme weather. Yes, some companies and investors are backtracking from their climate commitments. But when it comes to climate risk and resilience, utilities and their rating agencies are not.

In this month’s Gist, AHG partner Julia Hamm shares how a new class of startups is emerging to help utilities prevent wildfires from taking down the grid. Without a reliable and resilient grid, the Trumpian goals of energy dominance and winning the AI race will prove out of reach.