Jeff Stake
Midstream Engineering Leader
Large-load customers increasingly require capacity, reliability, and speed to market that conventional utility development timelines cannot always accommodate. The challenge is not simply generating additional electricity, but coordinating the fuel supply, generation, and infrastructure necessary to deliver it. Historically, utility customers have relied on grid connections that spread infrastructure investments across long-term service arrangements. As demand accelerates, more customers are evaluating alternatives that require greater involvement in infrastructure development and the associated commercial commitments.
Under the utility model, customers generally had limited involvement in developing the infrastructure required to serve them. This approach is becoming more difficult to accommodate as large-load demand outpaces infrastructure development in many markets. When customers look beyond conventional grid service, the requirements for generation, fuel supply, electrical infrastructure, and long-term operating commitments become much more visible. These are familiar challenges for midstream operators, who routinely develop infrastructure around defined service requirements, manage complex supply networks, and align capital investment with long-term commercial obligations.
Reliability is another critical consideration, as different power applications have distinct operational requirements and tolerances for interruption. Understanding these differences is essential to defining the required level of reliability and determining what a power provider can credibly commit to delivering. These requirements may be difficult to accommodate within standardized utility service agreements, creating opportunities for independent power producers to offer tailored performance commitments that align with each customer’s operational needs.
Integrating Behind-the-Meter Power with Existing Infrastructure
We start by understanding what drives the success of the project and design backward from it. Behind-the-meter power applications have distinct reliability requirements, including tolerances for the frequency and duration of interruptions in addition to acceptable recovery times. These requirements determine system architecture and the appropriate levels of redundancy across generation, fuel supply, electrical distribution, and controls. The energy industry has managed similar tradeoffs for decades, incorporating equipment redundancy and supply contingencies to meet defined service commitments. Reliable fuel delivery, particularly from multiple sources, requires specialized expertise and an understanding of the operating requirements of both upstream and downstream counterparties.
Reliable power generation depends on consistent fuel delivery at the required pressure, temperature, composition, and flow rate, with contaminants maintained within equipment specifications. These conditions must be sustained as generation equipment starts, ramps, trips, and recovers. Designing fuel infrastructure around these operating requirements, rather than steady-state demand alone, is essential to meeting the project’s reliability commitments.
Planning Infrastructure for Rising Power Demand
The demand is evident, capital is available, and the technology is proven. A viable site, available generation, or nearby infrastructure may establish an opportunity, but these elements alone do not make a project executable. What turns an opportunity into a project is a credible path to execution.
When evaluating an opportunity, we look for an identifiable customer, a credible capital source, defined reliability requirements, available generation equipment, viable fuel infrastructure, clear responsibility for project integration, and an evidence-based execution schedule. Establishing these fundamentals early helps distinguish projects ready for development from concepts that still require significant qualification. Engineering, estimating, permitting, and development resources are finite. Directing them toward welldefined opportunities improves execution efficiency and gives capital providers greater confidence in the path forward.
Coordinating Disciplines for Successful Project Delivery
Individual systems can be engineered correctly and still fail to deliver the intended project outcome if fuel supply, generation, electrical infrastructure, permitting, and construction are not coordinated through a unified execution plan. Each discipline should have the authority and accountability to make decisions within its expertise, while overall project leadership remains responsible for integration, cross-functional dependencies, and the critical path.
Successful execution requires identifying and resolving those dependencies before they constrain progress. Empowering experienced technical leaders to own their respective scopes allows project leadership to focus on coordination, timely decisions, and issues that extend beyond any single discipline. When responsibilities are clearly defined and decisions are made at the appropriate level, complexity can be resolved during development rather than becoming a bottleneck during execution. The result is safer projects, more predictable schedules, and infrastructure that performs as intended.
Advice for Future Engineers and Energy Professionals
Build deep expertise in your discipline while making a deliberate effort to understand the disciplines around you. Learn how these disciplines connect, where they depend on one another, and how their combined efforts influence project outcomes. That broader understanding will make you more effective in your role and better equipped to help solve complex challenges throughout your career.
“The challenge is not simply generating additional electricity, but coordinating the fuel supply, generation, and infrastructure necessary to deliver it.”
I graduated with a degree in civil engineering, quickly developed a passion for process engineering, and later earned my P.E. license in chemical engineering. Over the past 20 years, I’ve learned from exceptional professionals throughout the energy industry. One of the most valuable decisions I made early in my career was getting involved in GPA Midstream’s technical committees. That involvement eventually led to serving as president of the GPSA Midstream Suppliers Association, but its greatest value has been the knowledge, relationships, and broader industry perspective I’ve gained along the way. Those experiences continue to shape how I approach complex energy infrastructure challenges.
Sound technical fundamentals, personal accountability, and the ability to translate a concept into an executable plan will always matter. The next generation of energy professionals will need to build on those fundamentals, working across disciplines to develop infrastructure that is safe, efficient, reliable, and sustainable over its operating life. I believe this is the most rewarding period I’ve experienced in my career for engineers and energy professionals with a passion for building great things. Realizing this opportunity will require us to collaborate across disciplines, take ownership of outcomes, and turn sound ideas into projects that deliver lasting value to our communities.
