As electricity demand rises, retirements accelerate and reliability margins tighten, resource and capacity planning has become more complex and more consequential. This topic covers the modeling assumptions, portfolio strategies, market signals and operational constraints shaping generation decisions, from new builds and life extensions to hybrid resources, firm capacity needs, reserve margins and the practical challenge of building financeable, deliverable supply.

Resource & Capacity Planning Educational Opportunities 

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8:30 AM
  1. Grand Ballroom
    90 mins
    All badge holders are eligible to attend. Join us as we kick off POWERGEN 2027 with our keynote sponsor, ANA. Following the opening, we’ll transition into a panel discussion exploring Supply, Demand a …
10:15 AM
  1. 250A
    50 mins
    Battery storage at four hours dominated the last build cycle. The next reliability gap requires eight hours and beyond, and a range of technologies — liquid CO₂ systems, pumped thermal storage, solid …
  2. Exhibit Hall - Thermal & Nuclear Zone Booth #1238
    50 mins
    Pipeline curtailments during extreme weather events have made on-site fuel back-up a reliability requirement, not just a contingency plan. For plant managers and directors of generation operating gas …
11:15 AM
  1. 251B
    50 mins
    With new combined-cycle lead times stretching to 2029 and beyond, the strategic value of optimizing existing gas turbine assets has never been more direct. This session presents an updated fleet-wide …
  2. Exhibit Hall - Center Stage Booth #3535
    50 mins
    Natural gas generation is growing faster than at any point in recent memory, and the decisions made in the next few years will shape the power sector’s emissions profile for decades. Building plants t …
2:30 PM
  1. 251B
    50 mins
    As inverter-based resources displace synchronous generation, the inertia and reactive power that large rotating machines provided are declining faster than most grid operators planned for. Synchronous …
11:15 AM
  1. 251A
    50 mins
    In high-resource solar areas, co-locating oversized solar arrays with long-duration battery storage can produce firm capacity factors that rival geothermal or nuclear, at substantially lower cost. A 1 …
  2. 250D
    50 mins
    Rapid load growth from data centers and industrial expansion is exposing the seams between transmission planning, distribution coordination, control-room operations and the analytics teams that sit be …
  3. Exhibit Hall - Center Stage Booth #3535
    50 mins
    They didn't plan it this way. But a group of executives who once walked the same halls at PacifiCorp went on to lead across the full spectrum of the power industry, from federal power administration a …
1:30 PM
  1. 250C
    50 mins
    Hyperscale data center load is arriving on timelines that conventional interconnection and transmission development cannot match. The structural mismatch between when capacity is needed and when it ca …
  2. Exhibit Hall - Data Center & New Demand Zone Booth #5004
    50 mins
    Load growth from data centers and AI infrastructure is compressing the timeline between resource planning decisions and the capacity the grid actually needs. For generation owner-operators managing ex …
2:30 PM
  1. 250F
    50 mins
    Most megaproject cost overruns and schedule failures originate not in construction but in front-end decisions made under incomplete information, scope that was not fully defined, delivery strategies t …
  2. Exhibit Hall - Center Stage Booth #3535
    50 mins
    The electrical power system is stressed by recent and expected load growth due to computational loads/inverter-based loads (IBL) (e.g., large data center growth) and electrification of transportation, …
8:00 AM
  1. Exhibit Hall - Center Stage Booth #3535
    50 mins
    All badge holders are eligible to attend. U.S. electricity demand is rising at a pace the sector has not seen in decades, and the planning assumptions that governed resource adequacy decisions five ye …
9:30 AM
  1. Exhibit Hall - Data Center & New Demand Zone Booth #5004
    50 mins
    Data centers require 99.999% reliability, roughly five minutes of downtime per year. Achieving that with a fleet of reciprocating gensets means procuring more units than the load requires, and knowing …
  2. Exhibit Hall - Center Stage Booth #3535
    50 mins
    Data center power strategies do not develop in a vacuum. Utilities are being asked to serve extremely large loads on accelerated timelines while managing reserve margins, transmission constraints, int …
10:30 AM
  1. 250A
    50 mins
    How a battery storage system is accredited in a capacity market, whether under an effective load-carrying capability framework or a unforced capacity construct, directly affects project economics and …
  2. 250F
    50 mins
    The United States sits on an enormous, largely untapped resource: 90,000 unpowered dams, including 30,000 pairs located within a mile of each other along the same waterway. These existing structures r …
  3. Exhibit Hall - Data Center & New Demand Zone Booth #5004
    50 mins
    AI is driving the largest load growth the grid has seen in decades, and data centers are often cast as the problem. This panel argues that they can also be part of the solution. Panelists will discuss …
  4. Exhibit Hall - Thermal & Nuclear Zone Booth #1238
    50 mins
    Designing flexible power plants for today and tomorrow presents both challenges and compelling opportunities as the energy sector and their customers continue to evolve.  Modern generating facilities …
11:30 AM
  1. Exhibit Hall - Data Center & New Demand Zone Booth #5004
    50 mins
    Interconnection queues in many regions now run five to eight years. Data center campuses are arriving in 50 to 300 MW blocks on 12 to 24 month timelines. The mismatch is a system planning problem that …

Other Resource & Capacity Planning News

Visit Our Official Media Partner, Factor This Power Engineering, for more Resource & Capacity Planning News

Gas turbines and batteries are cashing in as AI data centers can’t wait for the grid

Grid delays and surging AI demand are fueling a behind-the-meter power boom as data centers turn to gas turbines, natural gas engines and battery storage to bring projects online faster.
November 04, 2026

Alliant Energy secures $5.1B federal loan package for Iowa, Wisconsin natural gas, storage projects

Alliant Energy secured $5.1 billion in federal loans to expand natural gas generation and energy storage in Iowa and Wisconsin, potentially saving customers $1.2 billion.
November 02, 2026

Xcel Energy eyes the largest battery portfolio in the Upper Midwest

Xcel Energy announced battery units at its Blue Lake site in Minnesota, aiming for the largest battery portfolio in the Upper Midwest by 2027.
October 28, 2026

Battery storage failure rates plunge 98% as global deployment soars

According to EPRI's white paper, Risk Factors and Failure Statistics of Lithium-Ion BESS, the annual failure rate for lithium-ion BESS plunged 98% between 2018 and 2025, even as global deployment skyrocketed.
October 23, 2026

 

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