Beyond the Plug: ChargedUp!’s Next Chapter in Intelligent Electrification

As demand, data centers, and tariffs reshape the grid, ChargedUp! is shifting from EV-only coverage to the full stack of power, connectivity, and AI that runs modern properties.

When I sat down with Rich Berliner following The In-Building Wireless Association conference in Texas last month, we talked about ChargedUp!’s next chapter, and how we both came to the same realization this summer: EV charging is no longer a standalone story.

The grid is tight. Buildings are electrifying. AI is turning “energy” from a line item into a strategic function. The organizations who read ChargedUp!—owners, operators, planners, integrators, and investors—need a view that goes well beyond where the next port gets installed.

That’s why, with ChargedUp!’s acquisition by PublioSTUDIO™, we’re deliberately widening the lens: from EV charging to the full stack of power, connectivity, and intelligence that defines the operating system of modern properties.

The Demand Story Changed—So We Did Too

After a flat 2010s, U.S. demand load set a record in 2024 and is projected to climb again through 2035. Building electrification is adding a steady pull on the grid at the same time that data centers, factories, and logistics hubs are coming online with enormous new loads.

Property owners, investors, and managers now see both opportunity and constraint:

• Higher utilization and new revenue streams from EV charging, electrified fleets, and all-electric systems

• Higher rates and demand charges that punish unmanaged peaks

• More scrutiny of how every kilowatt is scheduled, reported, and monetized

Fortunately, there are financially beneficial solutions—from managed charging and battery storage that shave peaks, to demand-response revenues and AI-driven microgrid controls that squeeze more value from the same service capacity.

ChargedUp! exists to help the market make sense of those options, not in theory, but at the site and portfolio level.

The AI Era Made Electricity a Strategy, Not a Bill

AI-heavy data centers now consume electricity on the scale of small cities, with global demand measured in the hundreds of terawatt-hours and U.S. draw expected to double again later this decade. Furthermore:

• New semiconductor, battery, and advanced manufacturing plants are creating large, concentrated loads

• Industrial heat pumps, electric boilers, and other electric technologies are replacing fuel-based systems for processes like drying, curing, and distillation

• Campuses, hospitals, and mixed-use districts are tightening comfort and resilience standards while trying to decarbonize

The buildout is outpacing the wires. More than two thousand gigawatts of generation and storage sit in interconnection queues, and average timelines have stretched toward five years.

In practice, that pushes both responsibility and opportunity behind the meter. Owners are turning to batteries, solar, load controls, and microgrids not as “nice to have” features, but as the only realistic way to add load without waiting on the substation.

Our job at ChargedUp! is to show how those moves pencil—what it takes to plan, finance, and operate that infrastructure in a way lenders, regulators, and tenants can live with.

Ending EV Incentives Didn’t Shrink the Story—It Broadened It

When the U.S. federal $7,500 clean-vehicle credit expired for most purchases after September 30, 2025, it cooled national demand for new EVs—just as global adoption kept rising. Detroit adjusted quickly:

• General Motors trimmed output and took a charge to resize EV capacity

• Ford leaned harder on profitable hybrids and its commercial unit to fund Model e losses

• Stellantis canceled a headline BEV pickup and shifted toward hybrids and range-extended models in North America

Despite this decline in domestic EV production, infrastructure kept marching forward. Public charging ports continued to grow. States pressed ahead with federally backed highway corridors. Fleets—from school districts to parcel operators—kept wiring depots and yards.

The lesson for site hosts is clear: EV load matters less as a standalone business than as one element in a larger power strategy.

That’s the context for ChargedUp!’s expansion. We’ll still cover EV charging in depth—but always in relation to the broader electrification and resilience play.

Power + Connectivity + AI: The New Operating System for Properties

Owners don’t need another point solution. They need a coordinated stack that can see, decide, and act in real time. We think about it as three layers:

• Power assets – Switchgear, transformers, solar, batteries, generators, and EV chargers that create and move capacity

• Connectivity – Private 5G, Wi-Fi 6, fiber, DAS and campus networks that move the data

• AI and software – the orchestration layer that forecasts load and renewables, schedules fleet charging around tariffs, shifts HVAC and lighting with occupancy, and spots failures before they become downtime

Without bandwidth, AI is blind. Without AI, networks don’t monetize. Without reliable power, neither works. Together, power + connectivity + AI turn static equipment into an adaptive operating system for buildings, campuses, logistics yards, and districts. That’s the infrastructure stack ChargedUp! will track—across technologies, vendors, and financing models.

Where the Money Is for Owners

Electrification economics are increasingly decided by peaks, not kWh. On many commercial tariffs, demand charges dominate the bill. That’s where the new toolkit comes in:

• Batteries shave peaks and arbitrage time-of-use windows

• Managed charging avoids transformer upgrades and keeps fleets within contracted capacity

• Microgrids layer resilience revenue and outage protection on top of daily savings

• Flexible load earns demand-response and ancillary revenues in markets that pay for it

With smart-meter penetration above 80 percent and building automation systems widely deployed, the pipes for optimization already exist in most portfolios. Compliance adds urgency. Carbon caps, performance standards, and disclosure rules are turning emissions into line items. Automation, telemetry, and data quality are increasingly part of financial reporting, not just facilities management. Our coverage will follow the money: what projects clear investment committees, why lenders approve certain structures, and how owners measure return on these systems in practice.

What Changes on the Ground

Consider a hospital, office complex, distribution campus, or mixed-use district.

In the old model, adding EV chargers meant:

• Requesting a bigger service

• Hoping utilization and pricing would justify the capital

• Treating the chargers as a separate “project” at the edge of the portfolio

In the new model, chargers plug into the property’s control loop:

• An edge controller allocates power between fleet bays, public fast chargers, and building loads, keeping the site under its peak threshold

• AI agents learn seasonal patterns, shift charging to lower-carbon or off-peak hours, and adjust curbside pricing when stalls are scarce

• The same controller can island with a battery during an outage, protecting revenue and tenant experience, then rejoin the grid for demand response

It’s one system, not a collection of projects.

That’s the world we’re writing for.

Why ChargedUp! Is Expanding Now

The market has moved from a phase-one, subsidy-shaped EV story to a phase-two, intelligence-driven infrastructure story.

Capital is already following that shift:

• Investors are underwriting resilience and flexibility, not just square footage

• Utilities are rewarding flexible load and local capacity

• Lenders are asking how assets perform when the grid is tight, not just when times are normal

Our readers—owners, operators, engineers, and the capital stack around them—need a neutral, financially literate guide that connects technology with ROI.

ChargedUp! will cover the tools and players that matter:

• Batteries, microgrids, and advanced switchgear

• Fleet and public charging, including highway corridors and depot strategies

• Heat pumps, building automation, and electrified process loads

• Private wireless, in-building networks, digital twins, and AI analytics

Always through the same lens: what pencils, what clears interconnection, and what scales beyond a pilot.

What We’ll Deliver

Going forward, ChargedUp! will publish:

• Reporting and analysis that connects policy and regulation to site-level decisions

• Playbooks for tariff-aware charging and load management in office, retail, hospitality, entertainment, healthcare, and logistics

• CAPEX and LCOE comparisons—diesel gensets vs BESS-plus-solar, utility upgrades vs managed load

• Connectivity and controls strategies for campuses, districts, and portfolios

• “Finance-ready” checklists aligning incentives, metering, service contracts, and risk allocation so projects can close

• Case studies of projects that worked—and those that didn’t—with numbers wherever possible

We’ll profile integrators, manufacturers and advisors who make these systems cohere, and the financiers—C-PACE programs, green banks, infrastructure funds, and private credit—who move them from drawings to balance sheets.

You’ll also see that work show up in person. At the ChargedUp! Pavilion at APA’s National Planning Conference (NPC26) in Detroit this April, we’ll bring solution providers face-to-face with planners, public agencies, and developers who are wrestling with these questions on the ground.

The Bottom Line

The next wave of value goes beyond more chargers. It’s about a meter-wide strategy that turns power constraints into advantage. Properties that can shape their load, store energy, and keep serving customers when the macro grid blinks will win the tenant, the guest, and the banker. That’s where ChargedUp! is headed: Beyond the plug, into the operating system of the built environment—so you can plan, finance, and run assets that are not just electrified, but intelligent.