A roadmap for strengthening energy resilience, reducing risk and accelerating the energy transition
Today's businesses face mounting pressure from rising energy demand, volatile energy costs, aging infrastructure, workforce shortages and increasing regulatory expectations. At the same time, the rapid growth of electrification, digitalization and AI is placing new demands on energy systems and the companies that depend on them.
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Today's businesses face mounting pressure from rising energy demand, volatile energy costs, aging infrastructure, workforce shortages and increasing regulatory expectations. At the same time, the rapid growth of electrification, digitalization and AI is placing new demands on energy systems and the companies that depend on them.
At the center of these challenges sits the energy trilemma: the need to provide resilient, affordable and clean energy simultaneously. Achieving one objective without compromising the others is becoming increasingly difficult, yet business success depends on getting the balance right.
Energy resilience, the ability to anticipate, withstand and recover from disruptions while maintaining reliable operations, is becoming a critical foundation for addressing the energy trilemma. Companies that can strengthen energy resilience are better placed to maintain performance, manage risk and respond to uncertainty, while supporting both affordability and sustainability goals.
This is why mastering operational certainty requires more than keeping the lights on. As businesses look beyond today's operational pressures, the challenge extends beyond technology alone. It requires a long-term approach to building the energy resilience, operational resilience and service capabilities needed to support reliable performance over the short, medium and long term.
This is where the future of service becomes critical. The traditional approach to service, responding to failures, performing routine maintenance and managing assets in isolation, was developed for a different era. Increasingly, service is becoming a strategic enabler of operational certainty, helping organizations strengthen resilience, optimize asset performance and navigate a more complex energy landscape.
The next generation of service will be defined by predictive insights, digital technologies, AI-enabled decision-making, asset lifecycle optimization and long-term strategic partnerships focused on outcomes rather than interventions.
In ABB's latest whitepaper, The Future of Electrification Service: 2026-2035+, we explore how service is evolving from a maintenance function into a strategic enabler of operational certainty and a critical capability for businesses focused on mastering operational certainty. Through a practical four-horizon roadmap, the report examines how businesses can strengthen energy resilience, improve asset performance, address workforce shortages and prepare for a more electrified, interconnected and dynamic energy ecosystem.
Whether your goal is to increase reliability, control costs, modernize ageing infrastructure, reduce emissions or improve energy security, this whitepaper provides a framework for mastering operational certainty today while preparing for the challenges of tomorrow.
PRACTICAL PATHWAYS TOWARDS 2035
01 Strategic asset management
<p>Running critical equipment to failure costs up to 10 times more than proactive maintenance; every unplanned outage adds to a bill that compounds until it becomes a full-blown and costly crisis</p>02 AI and digital solutions
<p><p>Without condition-based monitoring and augmented by AI, maintenance remains calendar-driven and reactive – faults develop undetected, failures arrive without warning and the cost of fixing them is always higher than the cost of preventing them.</p> </p>03 Energy storage
<p>In the absence of storage, punishingly expensive peak demand costs are tacitly absorbed, on-site renewable investment underperforms, while carbon-heavy fossil-fueled backup remains the default.</p>04 Energy & Carbon
<p>Industries that cannot quantify their emissions and reductions risk losing ground in supply chain qualification processes as customer sustainability requirements become more exacting, especially around <a rtestyle="none" href="https://www.carbontrust.com/our-work-and-impact/guides-reports-and-tools/what-are-scope-3-emissions-and-why-do-they-matter" target="_blank">Scope 3</a>.</p>05 Advisory services
<p>Tactical decisions made in the absence of a full assessment of current and future energy needs, may result in wasted capital expenditure on expensive replacement of equipment where modernization would have delivered more value.</p>THE FUTURE OF ELECTRIFICATION SERVICE: 2026–2035+
A roadmap for achieving operational certainty, energy resilience and business continuity in an increasingly complex energy landscape.
Why the future of service matters
The future of electrical service is about far more than maintaining equipment. Historically, service focused on fixing failures, performing scheduled maintenance and keeping assets operational. While these activities remain important, they are no longer enough to address the challenges businesses face today.
As businesses navigate the energy trilemma and build plans for the short, medium and long term, service is evolving into a strategic enabler of operational certainty.
Increasingly, service plays a central role in helping businesses:
Strengthen energy resilience and energy security
Reduce operational risk
Improve asset performance and reliability
Extend asset life and maximize existing investments
Address workforce and skills shortages
Accelerate progress towards resilient, affordable and clean energy
Make better decisions using data, analytics and AI
In the future, service will no longer be measured only by the work performed. It will be measured by the outcomes it helps businesses achieve.
A roadmap to mastering operational certainty
The journey to mastering operational certainty cannot be achieved through short-term thinking alone.
Businesses must balance today's operational pressures while preparing for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. This requires a long-term view of energy resilience, infrastructure modernization and service transformation.
In The Future of Electrification Service: 2026-2035+, ABB explores this journey through four horizons, outlining how service will evolve over the next decade and beyond.
Horizon 1: Managing today's reality (2026)
Explore the pressures shaping today's operating environment:
Energy security concerns
Rising energy costs
Infrastructure ageing
Skills shortages
Regulatory acceleration
Increasing operational complexity
The challenge for businesses is maintaining reliable operations while laying the foundations for future resilience.
Horizon 2: 2026-2030
The next phase focuses on adopting technologies and service models that improve visibility, reliability and decision-making.
Key developments include:
Condition-based maintenance
Asset health monitoring
AI-assisted diagnostics
Digital asset management
Augmented and virtual reality support
Automated inspection technologies
These capabilities help businesses move from reactive maintenance towards predictive and proactive operations.
Horizon 3: 2030-2035
As electrification accelerates, energy systems become increasingly interconnected. Data centers, industrial facilities, utilities and distributed energy resources will play a more active role in balancing energy demand and supporting grid stability.
Service evolves beyond individual assets to help businesses manage increasingly complex energy ecosystems.
Horizon 4: 2035 and beyond
By 2035, service becomes predictive, intelligent and outcome focused. AI, automation, digital twins and advanced asset management will help businesses identify and address issues before they impact operations.
The focus shifts from maintaining equipment to delivering measurable business outcomes including resilience, reliability, energy performance and operational certainty.
FIVE CAPABILITIES SHAPING THE FUTURE OF SERVICE
To support businesses on this journey, five service capabilities are emerging as critical enablers of operational certainty. Together, these capabilities help businesses strengthen energy resilience, improve energy security and navigate the energy trilemma with greater confidence.
01 Asset lifecycle management
<p>Understanding the true condition of electrical assets enables businesses to make smarter investment decisions, reduce risk and maximize asset value over time.</p>02 Predictive and condition-based maintenance
<p>Monitoring technology, diagnostics and analytics enable maintenance strategies based on actual asset condition rather than fixed schedules.</p>03 Digitalization and AI
<p>AI-assisted diagnostics, digital twins, remote monitoring and intelligent asset management systems provide the insights needed to improve decision-making and operational performance.</p>04 Workforce resilience
<p>As experienced engineers retire and skills shortages grow, technologies such as remote expert support, digital training tools and AI-enabled knowledge systems help businesses capture expertise and improve workforce productivity.</p>05 Outcome-based service models
<p>The future of service is shifting towards performance-based partnerships that align service delivery with customer outcomes such as uptime, resilience, efficiency and sustainability.</p>MASTERING OPERATIONAL CERTAINTY STARTS TODAY - DOWNLOAD THE WHITEPAPER
Operational certainty is not achieved through a single technology, project or investment. It is built over time through the decisions businesses make about their infrastructure, their workforce, their energy strategy and their approach to service.
The best positioned businesses will be those that act now to strengthen energy resilience, address operational risk and prepare for the future of service.
The Future of Electrification Service: 2026-2035+ provides a practical roadmap for navigating the energy trilemma, strengthening operational performance and building the resilience needed for the decade ahead.