70%
Large power transformers
are over 25 years old.[2]
04 · Time invisibility
Aging in the Dark.
The grid is not just old. It is blind to how it is failing. The degradation signatures that predict transformer failure operate at timescales SCADA was never built to capture.
D+
ASCE grade for U.S. energy infrastructure, 2025. Down from C− in 2021.
ASCE · 2025
70%
of large power transformers are over 25 years old
DOE
$578B
investment gap to expand and repair the grid
ASCE · 2025
By the numbers
The grid was not built for this.
The 2025 ASCE Infrastructure Report Card downgraded U.S. energy infrastructure from a C− to a D+, a grade that signals a system under real stress.[1] The statistics behind that grade are stark.
60%
Circuit breakers
have been in service for more than 30 years.[2]
70%
Transmission lines
are more than 25 years old, approaching the end of their typical 50- to 80-year lifecycle.[2]
55%
Distribution transformers
are already 33+ years old and nearing the end of their roughly 40-year expected lifespan. There are between 60 and 80 million of these units in service across the country.[3]
Data centers, EV charging, heat pumps, and industrial electrification are piling new load onto infrastructure designed for a fraction of today's demand. The grid needs to roughly double its transmission capacity while simultaneously replacing its aging core.
The failure curve
Slow degradation. Sudden failure.
A transformer does not fail the way a light bulb does. It degrades. Over months and years, insulation breaks down, dissolved gas concentrations shift, partial discharge activity increases, thermal profiles change. These are all detectable, characterizable signatures.
Then, in a fraction of a second, the transformer fails catastrophically. The arc flash. The fire. The outage that cascades.
The window between developing a fault and catastrophic failure is where predictive maintenance lives. Every month of warning is a month to schedule a planned replacement instead of an emergency one. The economic difference between a planned replacement and an emergency failure can be 3 to 10 times in direct costs alone before accounting for the outage, the liability, and the regulatory exposure.
The price of failure
Failure is a measurement problem.
It is no longer a question of whether these assets will fail. It is a question of whether utilities can see the failure coming.
300million
Americans at elevated outage risk through 2028
NERC · 2024
$150billion / year
cost of power outages to the U.S. economy
DOE
$13per $1 spent
return on investment in grid resilience
ASCE · 2024
A 2025 study published in Nature Communications quantified the economic impact: a single one-day widespread power interruption reduced a utility service area's quarterly GDP by 1.3%, or roughly $1.8 billion. A 14-day interruption reduced GDP by 10.4%. The losses were driven overwhelmingly by disruption effects, the cascading consequences of lost power, rather than by price signals.[4]
The maintenance regime is broken
Fixed schedules cannot scale.
Most utilities still maintain assets on fixed schedules: inspect every N years, replace after N decades, regardless of condition. This approach made sense when the grid was overbuilt and underloaded. It no longer does.
The asset base is aging faster than it can be replaced. The workforce to perform inspections is shrinking with half the utility workforce nearing retirement.[5] The load on every asset is increasing. And the cost of failure is rising with every new megawatt of demand connected to infrastructure already past its design life.
The assets are aging.
The demand is rising.
The workforce is shrinking.
The sensors are deployed.
The architectural answer
The data to predict failure already exists at most utilities.
The sensors to detect partial discharge events, dissolved gas trends, and thermal transients are already deployed at many utilities. Most of that data is never retrieved.
PredictiveGrid is the architecture that activates it. Continuous capture from existing sensors. Full-resolution retention. Time-alignment across substations and asset classes. The query speed engineers need to spot degradation as it develops.
The same data your sensors are already producing becomes the predictive signal your maintenance program has been operating without.
Every month of warning is a month of planned replacement instead of emergency response.
The sensors are deployed. The data is not retrieved.
PingThings PredictiveGrid is the architecture that activates the sensor data your utility is already collecting. Partial discharge events, dissolved gas trends, thermal profiles. Captured at full resolution, time-aligned across substations, and queryable at the speed condition-based maintenance requires.
References
- American Society of Civil Engineers, "2025 Report Card for America's Infrastructure, Energy," March 2025. Grade: D+ (down from C− in 2021). $578B investment gap.
- U.S. Department of Energy, cited in ASCE 2025 Report Card and multiple industry assessments. 70% of large power transformers are over 25 years old, 60% of circuit breakers over 30 years old, 70% of transmission lines over 25 years old.
- ASCE 2025 Report Card; industry estimates. 55% of distribution transformers 33+ years old. 60 to 80 million units in service across the country.
- Sue Wing, I., Larsen, P., Rose, A., et al., "A method to estimate the economy-wide consequences of widespread, long duration electric power interruptions," Nature Communications 16, 3335 (2025). Study conducted in partnership with ComEd (Illinois).
- DOE Quadrennial Energy Review; Center for Energy Workforce Development (CEWD) projections.