March 2, 2026 — As businesses face growing pressure to secure reliable, resilient power, POWER magazine examines how commercial and industrial (C&I) enterprises are rethinking their relationship with the grid — and what it means to build smarter energy systems from the ground up.
Budderfly's Beth Crouchet, Director of Energy Markets and Resource Planning, and Vishal Patwari, Senior Manager of Energy Engineering, both contributed to the piece, offering perspective on the unique challenges facing small and mid-sized businesses managing large portfolios of similar sites.
Crouchet noted, “It’s realistic to acknowledge that thermal resources, particularly natural gas, will remain part of the broader U.S. power mix for some time. The grid was built around centralized, dispatchable generation, and fully replacing that overnight isn’t feasible. For C&I customers, especially those operating mission-critical facilities, maintaining reliability today still depends in part on how the grid as a whole is balanced.
“That said, the most effective lever C&I customers have is not deciding which generation assets the grid keeps; it’s reducing and reshaping the demand they place on the system,” said Crouchet. “Energy efficiency, intelligent controls, and flexible load management immediately lower exposure to grid volatility, peak pricing, and outages, regardless of whether the marginal kilowatt-hour comes from gas or renewables. Cutting demand by 20–30% across portfolios materially improves reliability and affordability without waiting on new generation to come online.”
Read the full article here.