My first job in the energy sector wasn’t in policy or planning. It was taking customer payments.

Every winter, I saw the same thing. Cold weather drove bills up, and customers would come in worried—sometimes embarrassed—because they simply couldn’t afford what they owed. For them, energy wasn’t an abstract system or a long-term planning exercise. It was a monthly reality that shaped their daily lives.

That experience has stayed with me. It’s why affordability has always been central to how I think about energy—and why it matters so much in today’s public conversation.

Right now, that conversation is increasingly focused on data centers and other large electricity users. Headlines highlight speed-to-power, infrastructure backlogs, and reliability concerns as load growth accelerates faster than the grid can respond. What’s often missing is a serious discussion of affordability—specifically, how we support that growth without shifting costs onto customers who are already struggling with energy bills.

At the Alliance to Save Energy, we’ve been spending a lot of time on that question. In many ways, this work began with our Demand Is the New Supply report, which explored how energy efficiency, demand response, and other flexible resources can function as system assets—helping meet demand more affordably and often more quickly than traditional infrastructure alone.

Since then, the question has only become more urgent. That’s why we issued a new report called Bridging the Load Gap: A Collaborative Path for Utilities, Hyperscalers and Customers. The report explores with these parties whether a collaborative model – one in which a large load funds incremental, utility-directed demand-side management investments that include both demand response and energy efficiency programs – could unlock new capacity, reduce pressure on infrastructure timelines, and support improved affordability and resilience for customers.

Utilities across the country are facing real, near-term decisions about how to serve rapidly growing loads while maintaining reliability and managing costs. At the same time, large load customers are looking for ways to connect quickly and responsibly. Somewhere between those pressures lies an opportunity to think differently about how we plan for growth—and how we use the tools already available to us.

One idea we’re actively pursuing builds directly on that foundation: demand-side resources—energy efficiency and demand response—can play a larger role in managing load growth, especially in the near term. When deployed strategically, these resources can create real, verifiable capacity, easing system constraints while longer-term infrastructure is planned and built.

That thinking has led us to explore whether large load customers, such as data centers, could help fund incremental, utility-directed investments in energy efficiency and demand response. The goal is straightforward: support growth while protecting customers from unnecessary cost impacts, with utilities retaining oversight and accountability from the start.

Energy efficiency is not a new concept. But in a moment defined by speed, scale, and uncertainty, it remains one of the fastest and most affordable ways to strengthen the grid. As we outlined in Demand Is the New Supply, efficiency and flexibility work best when they are treated as core system resources—not add-ons deployed after infrastructure decisions are already made.

Of course, this approach will not look the same everywhere. Different markets face different system constraints, regulatory frameworks, and customer needs. The questions raised by this idea—around verification, governance, equity, and regulatory fit—are real and deserve careful consideration.

That’s why we’re opening this conversation more broadly.

Over the coming months, the Alliance will convene utilities, regulators, large customers, grid operators, and implementers to test these ideas, stress the assumptions, and better understand where—and under what conditions—this approach could make sense. What we learn will help shape the next phase of this work.

The public narrative around data centers and grid growth is still being written. Energy efficiency should be part of that story—not as an afterthought, but as a core strategy for balancing growth, reliability, and affordability.

I learned early in my career that how we meet energy demand matters just as much as how much energy we produce. In this moment of rapid change, energy efficiency matters more than ever.

Read the report: Bridging the Load Gap: A Collaborative Path for Utilities, Hyperscalers and Customers