Regulatory Consulting at Brattle Group

Overview

The Brattle Group answers complex economic, finance, and regulatory questions for corporations, law firms, and governments worldwide, with roughly 500 professionals across three continents. For AI policy, Brattle occupies a distinctive and increasingly central lane: the collision between the AI data-center boom and the electricity grid. Its Electricity Practice has for three decades been recognized in the planning, regulation, litigation, and operations of power markets, and its clients collectively serve more than 90% of North American electricity customers. As AI-driven data-center demand becomes the first major surge in U.S. electricity demand in decades — FERC’s March 2026 State of the Markets report confirmed more than 50 GW of data-center capacity operating nationwide at year-end 2025 — Brattle’s economists have become key expert voices on how regulators should price, plan for, and govern that load. Their work sits at the heart of one of the most consequential and least-understood AI-policy questions: who pays for the grid AI needs, and how utility regulation should adapt. That makes Brattle a rare economic-consulting firm whose AI relevance is not litigation-incidental but structural.

AI-Focused Regulatory Work

Brattle’s flagship AI-adjacent contribution is a March 2026 analysis, prepared for GridLab and the Utilize Coalition, finding that better utilization of the existing U.S. power grid could save consumers of vertically integrated utilities between $110 billion and $170 billion over the next decade — a striking counter-narrative to the assumption that AI-driven load growth must mean higher bills and vast new build-out. Co-authored by Brattle principal Ryan Hledik, the study models a representative mid-sized utility and shows that a 10% boost in annual system utilization translates to roughly a 3.4% decline in customer rates by 2030, even assuming electricity sales grow 20–30% over the period. The argument leans on demand flexibility — batteries, EVs, smart thermostats, and other devices that can shift power use — and on Duke University research finding the grid runs at only about 53% of capacity across 22 regional systems, implying more than 100 GW to spare. This is precisely where AI policy, energy policy, and utility regulation converge: as tens of millions of customers (especially in PJM) already see higher bills from data-center load, Brattle’s economists testify before courts and regulators on ratemaking approaches, contractual structures like data-center-specific tariffs, and reliability concerns from large computational loads. Their broader body of work — including ‘Affordability, Rates, and Clean Capital Efficiency’ and analyses of how data centers can become ‘engines of affordability’ — makes Brattle the go-to economic shop for the grid dimension of the AI build-out, a dimension that will shape AI’s physical and political feasibility as much as any governance framework.

Notable AI Policy Work

• Published ‘The Untapped Grid’ (March 2026, for GridLab and the Utilize Coalition), finding that better utilization of the existing power system could save U.S. consumers $110–170 billion over a decade as AI data-center demand surges.
• Modeled how a 10% boost in system utilization yields ~3.4% lower customer rates by 2030 even with 20–30% sales growth — reframing AI-driven load growth as a potential source of savings rather than only cost.
• Published ‘Affordability, Rates, and Clean Capital Efficiency: A Path for the Power Industry’s Turbulent Next Decade’ (Fox-Penner et al., 2025) and prior work on the value of virtual power and demand flexibility (including analysis prepared for Google).
• Provides expert testimony before courts and regulators on data-center tariffs, ratemaking, reliability of large computational loads, and transmission planning — the regulatory architecture of AI’s electricity demand.
• Serves utilities, grid operators, regulators, developers, and policymakers whose systems collectively serve 90%+ of North American electricity customers, positioning Brattle at the center of AI-load regulatory debates.

Thought Leadership

1. The Untapped Grid: Better Utilization Could Save US Consumers $100B+ (March 2026)
   Brattle’s landmark analysis for GridLab and the Utilize Coalition showing how using existing grid capacity — rather than only building new lines — can absorb AI data-center load while lowering rates.
2. New Brattle Report Finds Better Grid Utilization Could Save Consumers $100B+
   The announcement summarizing Brattle’s data-center-era grid findings, with principal Ryan Hledik on system-specific ratemaking and reliability.
3. Brattle Group — Electricity Practice & insights
   Brattle’s economic, finance, and regulatory analysis for utilities, regulators, and policymakers — the shop where AI’s grid demands meet utility economics.

Clients

Utilities, grid operators, power producers, regulators, developers, investors, law firms, and policymakers whose systems serve more than 90% of North American electricity customers. Recent AI-grid work prepared for GridLab and the Utilize Coalition; prior demand-flexibility analysis prepared for Google. ~500 professionals across three continents.