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Speed to power is among the most pressing challenges facing the electricity sector today—an acute, near-term capacity shortfall faced by large industrial and corporate energy consumers that threatens hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue. Well beyond AI data centers, the need for power is impacting business growth across industries on both sides of the power meter. But the focus on deployment speed is obscuring a critical reality: power systems are long-term assets, built to deliver value for decades. In the new edition of First Principles, Mainspring Chairman and CEO, Tom Linebarger argues that the goal isn’t just speed to power. It is speed to the right power. The distinction matters. It shapes a project's economics, its community support or opposition, and whether assets procured today still look like a good choice five, ten, or twenty years from now.

Dispatchability has emerged as a must-have capability for utilities, data centers, and other large power users. Most of the generation technologies proliferating to meet surging demand for power claim the ability to follow a time-varying load. But not all technologies that claim dispatchability can deliver it equally. In the new edition of First Principles, we explain what dispatchability is—and isn’t—and equip you with three simple questions you can use to confidently evaluate claims and choose a technology that will provide sustainable value rather than just solve an immediate problem.

Be sure to catch the timely new Energy Capital Podcast hosted by Texas Energy & Power, “How linear generators fit the Texas grid” featuring Mainspring’s Craig Gordon in conversation with Matthew Boms. In ERCOT, Mainspring is arriving at a time when demand for power is rising among large loads and the grid operator is regulating growth. Craig doesn’t see Mainspring Linear Generators as a substitute for building the grid, instead he says the answer is both. How much ERCOT’s queued load ends up served on site rather than through the grid will shape what Texas has to build. Listen to the episode here: https://lnkd.in/gRuxpuU7