Optimizing beyond the grid

The pressure is on for utility companies to reduce operating costs while addressing surging power demand. Rapidly growing U.S. electricity use is placing unprecedented stress on an aging grid, prompting massive spending by utilities to modernize their energy infrastructure. While most AI initiatives focus on grid operations and customer service, many utilities are overlooking a major opportunity: using AI to optimize their own real estate facilities.

Leveraging AI in their real estate functions can help utilities cut costs, advance sustainability and attract and retain talent. By harnessing the capabilities of generative AI, utilities can transform their owned and leased real estate into self-optimizing assets that drive business performance.

“Utilities are leveraging AI to eliminate fragmentation and turn their facilities into intelligent portfolios that can optimize for things like operational sustainability and workplace experience,” says Emily Roman, Executive Director, Technology Advisory—Industrials at JLL. “Data and insights build a strong foundation that allows utilities to understand all of these different pieces of their portfolio.”

One important way that AI can transform energy facilities is by providing utilities with visibility and insight into their sprawling real estate portfolios. Utilities have large, complex collections of owned and leased properties, including office buildings, substations, operations centers, warehouses and sheds, many of them located in remote areas.

Facilities management (FM) teams need to gather data on all of these buildings and the equipment they contain. Once this data is collected and entered into a centralized platform, AI-driven solutions can turn the data into insights that enable smarter decisions and more efficient operations. For example, AI can automate processes from repair scheduling to vendor selection through a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) such as JLL’s Corrigo.

AI can prevent equipment failures before they occur using predictive maintenance. This strategy combines wireless sensors with advanced analytics to gather performance data on assets and predict when maintenance is needed. By enabling facilities teams to proactively intervene before failures occur, predictive maintenance extends equipment life and reduces unplanned breakdowns and outages.

While rolling out a predictive maintenance program can require a significant upfront investment, this strategy can reduce capital expenditures and capital replacement costs over the long term. Predictive maintenance can also deliver energy savings, because well-maintained assets tend to operate more efficiently. JLL analysis shows that predictive maintenance strategies can deliver up to a 545% return on investment over time. By extending the lifespan of key assets, predictive maintenance optimizes a facility’s total cost of ownership (TCO), a major focal point for utility companies. 

AI can also help utilities plan scenarios and stress-test portfolio strategies far faster than before—a key advantage in an industry that sees constant lease activity, from land to laydown yards. Agentic AI tools can vastly accelerate speed-to-insight, compressing the time to process information and model different scenarios from weeks or months to mere minutes.

“Most energy companies are asking how they can be more agile in their scenario planning,” notes Robert Patterson, Technology Advisor at JLL. “Using AI agents, we can take all the data that’s available and create faster speed to insight. We might say, ‘Here's all the leases that you have, here’s a strategy to take that lease out and put something else in.’ That is a missed opportunity for many companies that are not leveraging data.”

Utilities can also use AI tools to model occupancy across their workplaces and make smarter decisions about their office footprint. An AI-powered real estate data and insights platform like JLL’s Azara can analyze real-time utilization data from sensors, room reservation systems and security badge swipes to predict occupancy levels and flag underutilized space. Some companies are triangulating weather data, sensor data and badge data to project building occupancy with up to 95% accuracy.

In turn, these AI-enabled insights can inform decisions about a utility’s workplace design and office space needs. Utilization insights can guide actions including selling an office floor, moving employees into flexible spaces, redesigning an underutilized campus or building an amenity floor. Energy companies, many of which are facing significant talent shortages, can use AI-powered analysis to create attractive, modern workplaces that meet the expectations of today’s employees.

In addition to boosting utilization, AI tools can find opportunities for curbing energy consumption and operating costs by adjusting lighting, thermostat settings and the frequency of janitorial services based on office usage patterns—for example, keeping several office floors dark on a Friday.

“The vast majority of a utility’s real estate footprint is in operations centers,” says Edward Connolly, Managing Director, Integrated Portfolio Services at JLL. “Corporate offices and headquarters are often captured in selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses, which are not covered by the rate payer. So, there's a big incentive to optimize their energy spend.”

The convergence of burgeoning electricity demand—much of it fueled by AI data centers—with a power grid that’s struggling to keep pace has prompted utilities to experiment with AI to unlock efficiencies and cost savings. According to a Gartner forecast, for example, 40% of power and utilities organizations will deploy AI-driven operators in control rooms by 2027.

As AI evolves from chatbots to purpose-built agents, utility companies have an underexplored opportunity to deploy AI solutions across their real estate assets. Utilities that make the most of AI in their facilities and workplaces can transform their properties into intelligent, optimized portfolios, creating a powerful competitive advantage.

Ready to use AI to cut costs and optimize your facilities? Reach out to learn more.