Sustainability Street: Tackling CRE’s Power Problem

October 22, 2025

Two JLL experts dive into the challenges created by soaring consumption and lagging supply with CPE's Therese Fitzgerald.

Welcome back to Sustainability Street, our podcast on the intersection of commercial real estate and the world we live in.

For this episode, I’m going inside CRE’s power predicament: The U.S. power grid is having a hard time keeping up with ever-increasing demands for power from industrial users and rapidly expanding data center providers.

My guests for this episode are Josephine Tucker, Americas head of energy and sustainability for JLL, and Meaghan Elwell, global president of JLL’s industrials business within Work Dynamics.

Tucker and Elwell break down the causes of the supply and demand imbalances and the widespread repercussions. They also highlight the innovation that this situation has sparked.

“Right now, what we see is only about 2 percent of land that is industrial zoned is actually ready—build ready with power and utilities already there,” Elwell said. “And then on top of that, if the power isn’t there, it can take up to six years.”