The Industry Is Very Hungry for Ideas | Ben Lanz, Osmose

The US power grid needs $6.5 trillion to replace — but utilities are investing just $63 billion a year, replacing less than 1% of aging infrastructure. At that rate, grid assets must survive 100 years. Osmose says it can double their life at five times lower cost — and five times faster — than traditional replacement.

At the 2026 IEEE PES T&D Show in Chicago, Ben Lanz, External & Government Affairs at Osmose, sits down with APC Media’s Alan Ross to unpack the numbers behind America’s aging grid and the multi-trillion-dollar replacement crisis. The conversation spans grid resilience, the regulatory bottleneck, DER energy waste, procurement culture, and the launch of a new APC Media podcast connecting utility practitioners with the vendors solving their problems.

Ben brings a unique perspective: he sits at the intersection of utility operations, regulatory engagement, and vendor innovation. His role at Osmose gives him a ground-level view of how decisions get made — and where the system breaks down.

Key Takeaways:

• The US grid replacement value is estimated at $6.5 trillion; annual investment is ~$63 billion — a replacement rate of less than 1%
• Osmose’s life-extension model: double asset life at 5x lower cost and 5x faster than replacement, across seven major asset classes (overhead T&D, underground cables, vaults, padmount equipment, networks, substations)
• Kevin Geraghty, COO of San Diego Gas and Electric, confirmed that investor-owned utilities won’t accelerate replacement without regulatory mandates
• ComEd and National Grid panelists acknowledged the gap between aging infrastructure and replacement pace, compounded by rising weather-related events
• The US faces ~20 billion-dollar weather events per year — each one draining state GDP (Florida alone: $3–4B/day)
• The current CAPEX-driven regulatory model is broken: utilities earn returns on capital spending but have no incentive to extend asset life through OPEX
• 37% of DER (distributed energy resources) power is actually used — 63% is generated and wasted, making the case for battery storage
• Procurement-driven RFP processes shut out vendor collaboration; by the time an RFP drops, it’s too late for innovation to influence the spec
• APC Media’s new podcast will feature utility practitioners at the management and director level — “the doers who get it done”
• ESARA (Electrical Safety and Reliability Association) brings together industrial, data center, and vendor experts to deliver practical standards faster than IEEE’s decade-long cycle
• Transformer scarcity hit industrial plants hardest: steel companies with 20 plants couldn’t buy slots the way utilities did, exposing the gap in industrial electrical preparedness
• Data center giants like CBRE and NTT manage more facilities than any other organizations — their participation in ESARA signals the convergence of utility and industrial reliability

Guest: Ben Lanz — External & Government Affairs, Osmose
Member, APC Media Executive Editorial Board
Founding Board Member, ESARA (Electrical Safety and Reliability Association)