Distributed Energy’s Big Chance to Capture a New Kind of Capital: Attention
Source: Elisa Wood | · ENERGY CHANGEMAKERS · | November 16, 2025
With the electorate worried about electricity prices for the first time in decades, distributed energy has a unique opportunity to show its worth.
AI is being credited (or blamed) for what’s soon to be a changed world. But even before your computer becomes your doctor or large language models put writers out of work (gulp), AI is changing how the public perceives electricity.
Data centers built to serve AI are increasing demand for power and driving up electricity prices. And the public is taking notice. For the first time, since the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, electricity is a bread-and-butter issue.
Last week’s elections made clear that electricity is now on the ballot. Energy costs are “moving the political needle in ways that other issues, like climate change, have not,” wrote Grist’s Tik Root.
That moving needle was seen in Georgia, where the turnover of two seats on the state Public Service Commission marked the first time Democrats won a statewide election there since 2006. The two Democrats, Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson, both campaigned against recent utility rate hikes.
Change was also afoot in New Jersey, where newly elected Governor Mikie Sherrill vowed to freeze utility rates and ease permitting for clean energy. Sixty percent of the state’s voters said electricity rates are a major concern in a CNN exit poll.
Distributed energy in Virginia
Abigail Spanberger, gubernatorial victor in Virginia, offers an even more intriguing agenda. Hers includes distributed energy to drive down costs. She’s calling for more local energy production and solar “in commonsense locations such as abandoned mine sites, former industrial sites, rooftops, and parking lots, and locations where the reduction in energy costs would have an impact on the local community, such as schools and public buildings.”
She says she’ll also push for more energy storage, demand response, energy efficiency, and clean on-site and off-site energy at data centers.