In the water sector, I’ve seen the crisis cycle repeat itself countless times: a major failure leads to public outrage, which prompts a short-term, reactive fix, only for the cycle to begin again with the next outage. The power sector is at risk of falling into the same trap with the explosion in demand from data centers and industrial electrification.

The demand from AI, reshoring, and electrification is a vertical line on a chart. The grid, however, is a horizontal line—slow-moving, bound by regulation, and facing a decade-long backlog of interconnection requests. The collision of these two realities doesn’t have to lead to a crisis. It can be an opportunity.

Breaking the Cycle with a Marketplace

If you’re a power offtaker, you can’t wait five to ten years for a new transmission line. If you’re a power provider with an underutilized asset, you can’t afford to let it sit idle. The solution is to create a transparent, efficient marketplace that connects this supply and demand directly.

This isn’t just about listing assets. It’s about providing the critical data—on location, capacity, emissions, and interconnection status—that allows for rapid, informed decision-making. It’s about offering standardized contract templates that reduce friction. And it’s about using technology to match the unique needs of a buyer with the specific capabilities of a seller.

By building this marketplace, we can move from a cycle of outrage and reaction to a proactive system of resource allocation. We can ensure that as power demand grows, the immense capacity already sitting on the grid is put to its highest and best use, fueling innovation and economic growth.