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New Year’s Eve is an ideal time for reflection, be that in assessing the successes or challenges of a year, or in simply taking a moment to appreciate the efforts taken to get you here today. As such, 2025 has been challenging from the rapidly spiking electric demand attributable to AI and data center developments, supply chain delays and costly tariffs, and the erratic weather and temperature extremes exacerbated by climate change. Those concerns played a significant role in our top five blogs of 2025: grid operators and program managers alike are leveraging both utility-held and behind-the-meter distributed energy resources (DERs) through distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS), exploring the costs of grid modernization, and working to transparently navigate energy markets by using demand flexibility programs for strategic energy arbitrage.
Without further ado, here are our top five blogs of 2025.
1. Transparency is Key: Utility Customers Want To Know
Electric demand continues to rise, causing higher operational costs and customer rates, leading to community concerns and greater credit risks for utilities. At the beginning of October, our article Transparency is Key: Utility Customers Want To Know examined transparency in data and marketing as a means of building rapport: customers are more likely to enroll and participate in the demand flexibility initiatives needed to meet rising demand if they are educated on their opportunities to contribute to defraying higher utility bills and strengthening grid resiliency.
2. The Difference Between Grid DERMS & Grid-Edge DERMS
As noted above, demand flexibility initiatives like demand response, virtual power plants, and EV charging are essential load management strategies designed to shift load to where and when it’s needed. These programs are realized by leveraging distributed energy resources like solar, battery energy storage systems (BESS), electric vehicles (EVs), EVSE chargers, and smart devices like thermostats or water heaters. These devices are managed and aggregated through the use of a distributed energy resource management system (DERMS).
But not all DERMS are created the same, as our August 2024 blog explored. Grid operators often employ Grid DERMS, which manage utility-owned DER assets like solar or battery installations. By contrast, Grid-Edge DERMS manage behind-the-meter DER assets found in places like residential, commercial, and industrial properties.
3. Why Is Grid Modernization so Expensive?
Because of explosive load growth in 2025, utilities are scrambling to keep up with rising demand. In many instances, this has resulted in developing more generation and transmission capacity, which greatly adds to operational costs. It’s no wonder then that our blog, updated in January 2024, has continued to resonate with our audience as a helpful guide to defining the types of costs that come with grid modernization.
– Syd Bishop, Sr. Content Specialist, Virtual Peaker
These costs are high, with some analysts estimating more than $5 trillion in costs to upgrade the aging U.S. grid, which the American Society of Civil Engineers has given a C grade to on its annual infrastructure report card. Fortunately, demand flexibility programs represent a cheaper non-wires alternative that sidesteps supply chain delays and challenging tariffs. In fact, virtual power plants are 40-60% cheaper than building new power plants.
4. Buy Low, Use High: Energy Arbitrage Explained
The energy market is a complicated landscape of miscellaneous rules and regulations that fluctuate regionally. One commonality between all energy markets, though, is that peak energy costs represent a very clear relationship between supply and demand: peak energy costs are far more expensive as demand increases. Strategies like energy arbitrage, which we wrote about in 2022 and updated in 2024, can help mitigate this problem by leveraging demand flexibility initiatives to shift load to off-peak hours of usage, minimizing peak energy market costs. Likewise, through battery programs, cheaper energy can be stored for later use when electricity costs are at a premium.
5. Energy Terms 101: Glossary of Utility Company Phrases and Acronyms
The electric utility industry is more than a century old. As you might expect, during that time, a lot has changed, meaning a lot of new energy terms have come and gone. This trend has seemingly escalated during the energy transition, as utilities endeavor to meet rising demand affordably, while maintaining grid resiliency. Our Energy Terms 101: Glossary of Utility Company Phrases and Acronyms blog from 2021 was written as a living glossary of terms to explicitly help industrial professionals or newcomers understand the complex morass of existing, incoming, and shifting terms.
Top 5 Blogs of 2025: Grid-Edge DERMS, Demand Flexibility, & Energy Arbitrage: Conclusion
Analysts have found that electric demand is anticipated to increase by 25% by 2030. Meeting future demand has never been easier, but with AI and data center growth, and continued challenges from supply chains and tariffs, utilities face an uncertain future. Fortunately, demand flexibility initiatives provide a non-wires alternative to meeting demand without breaking the bank, lowering operational costs, and increasing grid resiliency.
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