Transmission & Distribution

We help electric- and gas-network owners and operators achieve world-class operating- and capital-expenditure performance, create value from emerging technologies, and meet the growing need for reliable, affordable energy.

Over the next 20 years, emerging countries will need to expand their power networks rapidly to serve growing populations. Meanwhile, developed economies will need to upgrade aging infrastructure, implement smart grids, and respond to mounting regulatory, customer, and technological pressures. To meet demand, the world’s transmission and distribution lines will need to increase by more than a third to an estimated 94 million kilometers by 2035, with an estimated cost of more than $310 billion per year.

What we do

We help gas and electric utilities develop and execute critical strategic decisions, from prioritizing asset-management investments to applying the latest digital and advanced-analytics thinking to energy delivery. In addition, we advise utility-service providers and technology manufacturers on strategy, serve financial investors through evaluations and due diligence, and support public-sector institutions and their partners with policy design.

Developing safe, reliable, and affordable frontline operations. We use proprietary tools and lean methods to help clients reduce operating expenditures while improving safety, reliability, and customer service. Grid operators can capture savings of 10 to 25 percent in frontline operations, engineering planning, work scheduling, and supply-chain optimization.
Realizing digitally enabled effectiveness and efficiency. We help clients develop and implement cutting-edge digital and analytics tools to transform consumer and supplier journeys, enable their distributed workforce digitally, automate manual work processes, improve maintenance and inspections planning and execution, and introduce real-time outage tracking and incident reporting.
Leading innovation and the grid of the future. We help operators manage evolving layers of devices and services in grid networks and move from one-way to more variable two-way electricity flow, which requires more advanced scenario-based planning combined with real-time data management and cyberrisk mitigation.
Achieving continuous improvement through capability building. We work with clients to develop training programs and academies that nurture high-performing leaders and establish best practices that are sustained and embedded throughout the organization.

Examples of our work

In the past four years, we have undertaken more than 400 client projects in transmission and distribution, including the following:

Implementing a Digital Transformation

We assisted a state-owned US utility in developing a mobile app to make task management transparent and escalate critical issues automatically, with a predicted impact of $40 million to $80 million in savings and a 4 percent reduction in outage days per year.

Improving Operations at a Southeast Asia State Enterprise

For a state-run generation and transmission entity, we developed a growth strategy and operational-improvement plan using lean tools that led to double-digit savings in capital and expense across the enterprise’s transmission network.

Optimizing Asset Management at a European Utility

With our help, a major European utility reduced operating cash per kilowatt-hour by 25 percent and cut minutes lost per customer by 20 percent.

Building a Digital, Agile Design Hub

We helped a utility develop in-house organization and capabilities across design thinking and agile development for creating digital solutions (such as mobile and advanced analytics) to drive safety and efficiency throughout its operations, starting with field-force productivity and quickly pivoting to asset risk management. The utility has created 12 apps in two years, contributing to 15 to 20 percent productivity improvements in field operations and maintenance costs.

Creating a Disruption Strategy for an Australian Energy Grid Operator

By creating a strategy for coping with sector disruption, we helped an Australian grid operator ensure safety and reliability amid rapid change.

Transforming a Utility’s Cost Structure

We enabled a utility to cut costs by 20 percent in the first year by rethinking procurement and contractor management, deploying lean methods across field operations, and redesigning its organization, which saved $600 million in capital expenditures over a three-year period.

Reengineering Operations at a US Utility

By overhauling core processes using lean tools, we transformed a utility’s distribution organization and reduced operational expenses by 20 percent while improving reliability and safety.

Featured capabilities

We have developed a range of proprietary tools to help clients understand their performance and identify gaps:

Benchmarking tools for distribution. Data from a growing sample of more than 45 companies provides insight into how to optimize capital and operating expenditures as well as where to employ outsourcing strategies.
Utilityx. Our advanced-analytics tool helps electric-power utilities improve network performance and reduce costs by using predictive asset management.
TETRIS for regulatory and financial modeling. The TETRIS tool helps investor-owned North American utilities maximize value by identifying capital opportunities in traditional grid assets, grid modernization, and unregulated assets; forecasting load loss and grid defection; assessing customer affordability; and evaluating the impact on earnings of different regulatory scenarios.
Lean frontline operations playbooks. These playbooks combine lean management with digital operations to drive improvement in all major parts of transmission and distribution operations and include tailored analyses, ideas registers, and a wide array of function-specific case examples.