Modernizing the utility duty to serve in an era of electrification

Electric utilities have a well-established legal obligation to provide safe, reliable and reasonably priced electricity to customers in their service territories. That ‘duty to serve’ has long adapted to changing system conditions. Today, rapid electrification – driven by electric vehicles, building electrification, manufacturing and data center growth – is testing whether utilities are fully meeting that duty under modern circumstances.

Our recent Energy Law Journal article, Utilities’ Duty to Serve in an Era of End-Use Electrification, examines how traditional duty-to-serve principles apply to distribution systems experiencing renewed and uneven load growth. The article reaches a clear conclusion: many actions now framed as policy reforms are better understood as applications of utilities’ existing legal obligations to new factual realities.

Why the duty to serve matters now

For decades, electricity demand grew slowly, and utilities planned accordingly. That era has ended. Electrification of transportation, buildings and industry is driving significant new demand – often in large, concentrated increments that develop faster than traditional planning cycles.

These changes raise a core legal question: what does the duty to serve require when future demand is reasonably foreseeable, even if customers have not yet submitted formal service requests?

Anticipatory planning is part of the duty

Utilities have never planned the grid solely in response to customer requests. Load forecasting has always been a core utility function, and regulators have consistently expected utilities to anticipate demand to maintain system adequacy and reliability. What has changed is the pace and scale of electrification.

Under these conditions, the duty to serve already includes an obligation to plan for foreseeable changes in customers’ energy needs. Waiting to act until customers arrive can lead to unreasonable delays and inequitable outcomes. Where electrification trends are well documented, failure to plan for them may itself fall short of the duty to serve.

This is not a shift in the law. It is an application of settled legal principles to changing facts.

Adequacy and timeliness remain central

The duty to serve requires more than eventual service – it requires service that is adequate and timely. Lengthy delays in connecting EV chargers, heat pumps or electrified industrial facilities increasingly impede climate goals, economic development and equitable access to clean energy.

Utilities must ensure that forecasting translates into operational readiness. Regulators, in turn, should assess utility performance against these legal standards, ensuring utilities prepare their systems to meet foreseeable demand without compromising affordability or reliability for current customers.

Applying existing law to the energy transition

Interpreting the duty to serve in light of today’s electrification supports faster infrastructure deployment, more equitable access to clean energy, lower emissions and sustained economic growth. Several state commissions have already begun moving in this direction through proactive planning and interconnection reforms – efforts that reflect enforcement of existing obligations, not expansion of regulatory authority.

As electrification reshapes energy use nationwide, the duty to serve does not need to be reinvented. It needs to be applied. Anticipatory planning, timely investment and high-quality service are already core legal requirements – and they are essential to building a reliable, affordable and equitable electric grid for the future.