Speed to Power

I spent part of this week at the NPM U.S. Power & Data Center Development Forum 2026 in New York, and one theme kept coming up in every conversation: power.  Not climate goals. Not long-term strategy. Just, where is the power going to come from and how fast can we get it?!

Data centers have quickly become the demand driver and nobody wants to miss out on their shot at serving that market. The combination of load growth and urgency feels different this time. It’s bigger, faster, and a lot more immediate than anything we’ve seen before. Developers are racing to get projects financed and interconnected. Utilities are trying to keep up. And right in the middle of all of it is energy storage. Because storage isn’t a “nice to have” anymore. In a lot of these conversations, it’s a requirement for reliability, for load balancing, and sometimes just to get projects approved.

Speed to Hire

This shift is showing up directly in hiring.

We’re seeing a real uptick in demand for roles tied to storage deployment and integration, especially in markets with heavy data center activity. Data center operators are building internal energy teams. Utilities and grid operators are looking for people who understand both infrastructure and flexibility. One stat that stuck with me: during the “Unlocking Storage Solutions” panel, every speaker said their teams have grown 40–100% over the past year. That’s not speculative hiring. That’s “we need people now because projects are moving” hiring.

At the same time, the skill set is evolving—and the talent pool hasn’t quite caught up. Running a thermal plant doesn’t fully translate to integrating distributed renewables or deploying battery storage. The people in highest demand right now are the ones who understand how load, generation, and grid constraints all fit together. Data centers aren’t just influencing the energy market—they’re reshaping hiring within it.

Speed matters. For power, and for talent. And the companies that can move quickly are the ones winning right now.