Building the Energy Internet: De-Risking Innovation in a Complex, Connected Grid 

By Ken Boyce

We're in the midst of one of the most significant transformations the energy sector has ever seen. What was once a centralized, one-way system is becoming a dynamic, distributed and deeply connected digital network, something I often describe as building the “energy internet.” With millions of interconnected nodes — solar, wind, storage, electric vehicles (EVs), smart buildings and more — all exchanging data and power in real time across the grid, the level of complexity presents significant engineering opportunities, along with new risks and responsibilities to manage. 

Global demand for energy is surging. Utilities, grid operators and energy producers are working under intensifying pressure to increase affordability and resilience. Executives are juggling geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain volatility and near-term profitability, while navigating long-term decarbonization goals. It’s a moment that demands technical clarity and coordinated action — not oversimplification. 

But what gives me confidence, as I look at UL Solutions’ work around the energy transition, is that many of the tools the sector needs to accelerate development toward a low-carbon energy future already exist and are ready to be applied. Technology is evolving quickly. We need confidence and trust that those innovations meet safety requirements and are reliable and ready for the real world. The word "safety" here is key. It’s not just a box to check along the way. Instead, safety needs to be embedded as the foundation that enables innovation to flourish.  

This article offers a perspective grounded in a deep understanding of what’s at stake: the reliability of our energy infrastructure, the safety of communities and the speed of innovation in the global energy transition.  

At UL Solutions, more than a century of experience has shown us how uncertainty can slow progress. At the same time, trust, built on proactive safety science, can accelerate it. What follows are insights into where the energy transition is headed — five critical fronts that are shaping its trajectory — and why a more integrated, anticipatory approach to safety is essential to unlocking its full potential. 

 Here’s how I see the path forward and the areas we must focus on.

What's at stake?

We’re standing at a crossroads: investments in clean energy continue to grow worldwide, and technologies are advancing faster than regulations can keep up, sometimes even faster than energy and business leaders can confidently navigate. And yet, the transition isn’t happening fast enough. 

Why? Because while the opportunities are massive, the complexities are even greater. 

The current electrical infrastructure is under stress. Power producers and grid operators are juggling extreme weather events, rapidly rising demand and evolving cyber threats simultaneously. Executives at utilities and energy companies are under intense pressure to deliver quarter-over-quarter results while building resilience for a future that’s changing in real time. The regulations and requirements guiding all of this are fragmented and often a step behind technological advancement. 

Make no mistake: we’re navigating a complex and shifting landscape. In times like this, business leaders' instinct can be to pause and wait for greater clarity. 

But the truth is that clarity won’t come from waiting — it comes from leading. And there’s simply no more time to waste. It’s about solving for today while also building the capability, trust, systems and ecosystems that will let us keep solving what comes next. 

Five engineering priorities for safer, sustainable progress

When we talk about energy transition, it’s easy to think in silos, with power generation, grid infrastructure and electrified transportation as separate from one another. In reality, these domains are deeply interconnected, and a change in one directly affects the others. This is why safety and sustainability need to be applied systematically, not selectively.  

From my vantage point, five key areas are shaping the future of energy. These are the pressure and the progress points where innovation and disciplined safety must work together:

1. Decarbonizing power generation

   Renewables, especially solar and wind, have moved from “emerging” to “essential.” They make up the backbone of most decarbonization strategies. And while hydropower is an established solution in many geographies, global conditions can challenge renewables’ ability to remain viable and reliable sources. 

   One of the greatest opportunities is to diversify and localize energy sources in ways that can help improve access. But this decentralization also complicates how we plan, operate and maintain interconnected systems.  

   We’re seeing new challenges emerge, like harsher installation environments, grid instability and increasing consequences such as equipment damage and cascading outages, reduced generation during peak demand, safety hazards for operations and communities from extreme weather. Predictive maintenance and validation under real-world conditions are no longer nice to have; they’re imperatives. 

   Meanwhile, interest in hydrogen and small modular reactors (SMRs) is growing. These energy technologies have significant potential but also introduce new layers of complexity, including economic considerations. Other approaches, such as geothermal, are still being explored.  

   Scaling is still a challenge. Integrating new technologies safely into legacy systems and surrounding communities takes more than technical specs — it takes tremendous trust.  

   Our role is to help these systems and their components meet the demands of reality with stress testing, advanced modeling and advisory services that connect innovation to operational durability.

2. Safer, more sustainable battery storage 

   Battery systems are the connective tissue of the modern energy ecosystem, but batteries come with risks related to evolving chemistries, accelerated deployment and second-life applications. 

   Energy storage is now a strategic asset and introduces new operating flexibility and grid stability in ways that didn’t exist even a few years ago. However, new-generation batteries behave differently under pressure, and aging or repurposed batteries bring unknowns around thermal behavior, long-term degradation and potential fire risks that can undermine safety, performance and reliability.  

   We’re now seeing large volumes of EV batteries reaching end-of-life and being repurposed for infrastructure storage. This shift offers new use cases but also introduces safety and performance variables we’re still working on to define and manage. Fire risks, circularity and long-term performance are more than theoretical concerns. These are real engineering and safety challenges for manufacturers and the grid operators they serve. 

   At UL Solutions, we examine battery systems holistically throughout their entire life cycle, from advanced chemistries to second-life use cases. We evaluate performance under pressure and develop safety frameworks that support both sustainability and reliability. Because circularity doesn’t just reduce waste — it builds resilience.

3. Strengthening grid resilience 

   This is a moment of reinvention for grid operators — the grid is no longer a one-way street. A smarter, adaptive grid that can flex with changing demand, distributed energy resources (DERs), and high-frequency data is possible. But growing complexity creates a fragile balance. Cyber risks, regional disparities and aging infrastructure all strain a system that wasn’t designed for this level of sophistication.  

   Resilience must evolve to match. It cannot rely on patchwork upgrades. The opportunity is to build a smarter, more sophisticated grid, but doing so requires coordinated planning across utilities, energy technology developers, equipment manufacturers, cybersecurity providers and public infrastructure agencies. This level of integration also demands alignment across local, regional and national jurisdictions. It means thinking beyond capacity and redundancy, toward a future where physical safety, technological integrity and regulatory compliance are tightly interwoven.  

   Our work with utilities, manufacturers and regulators is focused on futureproofing. That means validating new technologies, stress-testing grid interactions and advising on resilient design assessment and technical guidance. This is critical because, in a distributed world, resilience is only as strong as its weakest connection — and the number of connections keeps growing.

4. Building smarter, safer built environments 

   Buildings are active players in the grid, with rooftop solar, EV charging and on-site storage turning them into power contributors.  

   This creates an enormous opportunity to improve efficiency, lower greenhouse gas emissions and enable more localized energy resilience. Buildings can act as flexible grid assets, storing and returning power on demand. 

   But this transformation also introduces new complexity. Buildings’ structural systems and electrical infrastructure were never designed to handle this level of demand. Fire safety, load balancing and emergency coordination all must be reimagined to reflect a more dynamic electrified space that includes elements like EV chargers and energy storage. Design and planning must now account for risks that emerge from how technologies interact, not just how they perform in isolation. 

   It’s about enabling buildings to operate safely and reliably as dynamic assets within the energy systems. 

   That’s why we work with property developers and planners to bring safety into the design phase of the building life cycle, including validating the integration of high-density charging, resilience in mixed-use environments and supporting emergency response planning. It’s about protecting buildings while enabling them to safely participate in the energy transition.

5. Electrifying transportation safely 

   Transportation is a major pressure point in the energy transition with significant infrastructure implications. EVs are rapidly reshaping not only personal and commercial mobility, but also the future of battery storage and the grid at large. The electrification of vehicles presents an extraordinary opportunity to reduce emissions, lower fuel costs and turn vehicles into active participants in a more flexible energy system. But it only works if every step of the EV experience is seen as safe.  

   High-speed charging, vehicle-charger compatibility, and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration are both engineering and trust challenges. Consumers need to trust that their vehicle will arrive at their destination, charge properly when plugged into a charging station along their route and not compromise their safety when plugged into their home to charge. And the emerging promise of V2G usage can provide energy consumers with powerful new options that simply didn’t exist in the past. All this requires thoughtful coordination across supply chains, jurisdictions and digital platforms. 

   Without a consistent experience, user confidence can erode, slowing adoption and placing strain on already-pressured infrastructure systems. Our job is to support interoperability across platforms, validate battery systems under real-world conditions and support infrastructure deployment that keeps pace with demand. From megawatt charging to smart power control, we’re helping build the backbone of an electric mobility system that helps advance safety, reliability and scalability. 

Building a safer, stronger energy future together 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years working alongside innovators, regulators and industry leaders responsible for grid, transportation and built-environment infrastructure, it’s that resilience isn’t static — it’s a living system that must evolve with the challenges it’s built to withstand. 

Safety done right allows us to move faster, build better and scale sustainably. But to truly work, safety has to be proactive. It has to start early, well ahead of the procurement cycle and before any technology is installed into the grid, a vehicle, a building or a critical facility. There are too many examples where small oversights in the design phase turn into costly failures. In interconnected systems, there’s no such thing as an isolated problem. Testing for safety only at the end of the production process just isn’t worth the risk. 

Safety is a strategic enabler, so we at UL Solutions combine technical rigor with collaborative foresight. This allows manufacturers, utilities and technology developers to think ahead, test early and move forward with confidence. In practice, that means: 

• Using real-world performance data to guide decision-making 
• Applying analytical tools such as hazard-based safety engineering to drive practical approaches
• Stress-testing technologies under extreme, variable conditions 
• Supporting systemwide resilience from physical assets to cyber infrastructure through testing, risk assessment and technical guidance.
• Collaborating with industry bodies to harmonize safety frameworks globally 

We’re not doing this alone. With coordinated safety frameworks and a shared commitment to risk-informed decision-making, we help build a more functional, energy ecosystem — one that connects power generation, storage, distribution, transportation and the built environment with safety and resilience. 

Looking ahead, the energy transition will be defined by our ability to work together to embed trust into every layer of this ecosystem and every step of the journey. In the end, safety and sustainability aren’t trade-offs. Together, they turn ambition into accountability. 

At UL Solutions, that’s the sustainable energy future we’re committed to. 

Find out more about UL Solutions' contribution to building a safer, more sustainable energy transition.