Scott Sklar On The Great Energy Convergence and Why Your Building Is a Power Plant Today
⚡️📱 The Time has Come for Distributed Power. 📱⚡️
By Keith Reynolds | Publisher & Editor, ChargedUp!
For over a century, the relationship between a building and the power grid was a monologue. The utility spoke in volts and amps, and the building passively listened. According to Scott Sklar, as we move into 2026, a "Great Convergence" is underway, transforming real estate from a static consumer into a programmable, intelligent node in a vast energy ecosystem.
This shift is not merely about sustainability; it is about survival in a market where the old "Mainframe" grid is increasingly at odds with the demands of AI data centers, EV fleets, and advanced manufacturing where the stakes are high.
The Cellular Parallel: From Copper to Cloud to Data Center
Scott’s takeaway? If you aren't planning for distributed energy, you’re planning for obsolescence. This advice applies whether you own a commercial property or a home. For Commercial Real Estate, Scott points out that every location and project are different. Their goals are different. It takes an interdisciplinary team to come up with the right solution but there is tremendous business value in deploying new edge solutions.
In our recent profile of DG Matrix and CEO Haroon Inam, Inam introduced the concept of "Cellular Power." The idea that electricity must be routed, stabilized, and "packetized" much like data to remain competitive.
It is a vision that Sklar also embraces. A 50-year veteran of the energy sector, US senate advisor, adjunct professor at The George Washington University and founder of The Stella Group, Ltd, he sees it as the inevitable conclusion of a historical arc that began with the telecommunications era in the 1800s.
Video: Cellular Economy
“We went from copper wire to fiber optics, solar satellites, and cell towers,” Sklar notes, recalling the skepticism he faced when carrying an early wine-bottle-sized cell phone. “People said, ‘Why? What are you doing with that thing?’ I said, ‘Well, when more people buy it, they’re going to miniaturize it and they’re going to put up more towers.’ They said you’re an idiot.”
Today, that "idiotic" idea is the blueprint for the energy transition. Sklar draws a direct line between the internet’s resilience and the future of power. “We lose cell towers every couple of months. Did your cell service stop? No. The other cell towers nearby triangulate around it... Energy is the last one. We are now working on ways where, yes, we’ll have a more advanced wired system, but we will have wireless systems that are close to the end users or along the grid that can sustain critical functions no matter what happens.”
This "triangulation" of energy—moving from a central "Mainframe" plant to distributed "Desktop" generation—allows edge sites to manage supply and cost in real-time, effectively creating a "foolproof web" of electricity.
The Optimized Load: The Cheapest Electron
While the excitement often centers on "cool" generation technologies like solar canopies or hydrogen fuel cells, Sklar insists that the foundation of the Great Convergence is actually much quieter: efficiency. For real estate owners, the transition to cellular power must begin with reducing the "load center" footprint.
“I teach in all my classes... it’s always less expensive to save energy than generated from resource,” Sklar says. “Why do you want to spend capital to generate electrons or store electrons that you don’t need in the first place?”
Video: The New Paradigm
In the context of the AI boom, this means that before a developer sizes a microgrid for a data center, they must first exhaust the potential of advanced cooling and thermal barrier coatings. By reducing the baseline demand, the remaining power needs can be met with smaller, more elegant onsite solutions.
Video Put Solar Panel Above Parking Lots
Sklar advocates for "dual-purpose" renewables to meet this optimized load: “I don’t believe we should cover prime farmland with solar panels... but we have what I call this ‘dead land’ of parking lots, but also flat roofs. I look at data centers. There shouldn’t be a data center without [being] covered by damn solar and reflective thermal barrier coatings.”
Video: Dual Purpose Renewables to Work Around How You Live
The Resilience Premium: Redefining ROI
For decades, real estate investors viewed energy as a background line item. Today, it is a strategic risk. Haroon Inam’s "Power is Power" thesis posits that access to energy is the new "law of gravity" for real estate. Sklar confirms this, noting that the traditional "payback period" calculation is being replaced by the "Resilience Premium."
In the modern era, we must account for the "Millions per Minute" rule. “I had huge companies hiring me because I was bringing these new technologies... They did not care what it cost. They didn’t care if it cost 20 times more,” Sklar explains. “They lost millions if their pipeline pumps... for a half a minute [stopped] with solidifying their pipelines. A flash chip growing... you interrupt that chip growing or electroplating, [it's] millions of dollars for minutes of loss of power.”
For hospitals, schools, and high-tech manufacturers, energy is no longer a utility; it is "uptime insurance." The Great Convergence means building management systems (BMS) must now interface directly with solid-state transformers and battery storage to ensure that when the grid sags, the building doesn't even blink.
Bridging the "Tower of Babel"
Perhaps the greatest hurdle to this transition isn't the hardware, but the language. Planners speak in zoning codes; IT professionals speak in latency and backhaul; finance teams speak in NOI; and engineers speak in transients and sags.
“I used to joke that the problem with energy... is they create their own vocabulary with their own words,” Sklar says. “They all have their own tire. They all have their own vocabulary. They don't understand what each other does. They don't understand what each other's saying.”
Video: A New Vocabulary is Needed
As we prepare for the NPC26 National Planning Conference in Detroit, the editorial mission of ChargedUp! is to serve as the "Universal Translator." We are convening the buy and sell sides of the market to collapse these silos.
What This Means for You
The impact of this convergence varies by sector, but the urgency is universal:
Real Estate Investors: Energy is now a capitalized asset. By eliminating peak demand charges and utilizing "energy arbitrage" (buying low, storing, and using during peaks), you are directly boosting Net Operating Income.
Urban Planners: You are no longer just zoning for height and density; you are zoning for resiliency. Sklar’s work in agrivoltaics and urban planning suggests that energy can be integrated into the community fabric without sacrificing aesthetics.
IT & Telecom: You are the new energy managers. The "last mile" of power—managing Edge AI and localized loads—requires the same skill set as managing the last mile of data.
Property Managers: The future of your site is the "Black Box." As Sklar predicts, “You’re going to see a box in the building which is going to have a big battery in it... it’s going to have your security system, your communication system, your backup energy system... these will be integrated systems.”
The Monopoly-based utility era is fading. The era of the "programmable building" has arrived. It is an exciting, complex time, and we invite you to join us in Detroit to design the solutions that will power the next century.
“What the [ChargedUp!] pavilion will do is you need to be exposed by real people doing real things. Solving real problems and focusing on real issues. And that's why this program's really important and I hope as many people can get the event or participate somehow and keep on doing these events because that's how we change our economy.”
Video: ChargedUp! Pavilion Endorsement
He goes on to discuss the benefits, “We become, we stay as leaders in the world and by doing the right thing and, making energy more reliable, buildings more comfortable. Emissions, less. Use of fresh water, less. And quality of life more.”
To explore booth, kiosk, or speaking options in the ChargedUp! Pavilion at NPC26 in Detroit, visit our Pavilion Opportunities page.
