Building Futures (BF) is about identifying projects, ideas, and innovations that create lasting positive change within the building community and the communities it serves.
Throughout my professional career, most building projects have relied on the assumption that a functioning “grid” of power, water, sewer, telecommunications, transportation, and internet systems was readily available. Yet, for far too long, these essential networks have been neglected, undermaintained, and rarely replaced when they’ve exceeded their design life. Driving through Chicago in recent years has been both frustrating—because of congestion—and exciting, as major infrastructure renewal is finally visible across highways, rail lines, bridges, and data centers.
This BF explores how the energy grid is being refurbished and rebuilt in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Rebuilding the Energy Grid
Creating a modern, future-ready energy grid will require multiple incremental phases. The goal is to deliver clean, safe, reliable energy in sufficient quantity to meet commercial, residential and governmental needs.
During research for this BF, it became clear that the U.S. energy grid is not a single, unified system. Rather, it is a network of interconnected regional grids spanning the United States and Canada. The Chicago area, for example, lies within the Reliability First Corporation (RFC) region, which includes parts of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Kentucky, Virginia, and Washington D.C. Surprisingly, it is not connected to much with the rest of Illinois.
This fragmented structure reflects the grid’s history—built primarily by private enterprise to meet specific local market needs, responding to population growth and rising energy demand. Today, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recognizes ten major power markets across the country, each with its own authorities and interconnections.
In researching the Chicago metro grid specifically, I realized that understanding the national grid’s structure and management is essential before examining local upgrades and their impact.
Photo 1: Shows the different energy grids that serve the US and Canada