With Great Power - Getting innovators to 'fail fast' in the energy industry

Getting innovators to 'fail fast' in the energy industry

05/28/24 • 20 min

Kim Getgen moved to Silicon Valley from Washington D.C. in 2000, just in time for the dot com bubble burst. Despite her timing, she fell hard for the excitement and opportunity of startups and technology innovation.

Kim launched and worked at many startups, but also took roles in larger organizations where she gravitated toward “intrapreneurship.” But after suffering burnout four years ago, she started thinking about ways to encourage innovation among intrapreneurs in risk-averse sectors like utilities.

In 2021 she founded InnovationForce to guide innovators, and their teams, through a repeatable, rigorous, and democratic process for vetting and testing new technologies. Kim’s goals are to promote workplace psychological safety for intrapreneurs and to help utilities keep new decarbonization technologies out of pilot purgatory.

On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX will host a Frontier Forum to examine the importance of good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register at latitudemedia.com/events. See you there!

This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Previous Episode

Why dynamic rates are gaining momentum

Ahmad Faruqui has been researching electricity pricing since the mid 1970’s, when the cost of a kilowatt-hour was flat. But in the 80’s and 90’s, he started working on dynamic pricing – pioneering the concept of time-of-use rates.

The big breakthrough for time-of-use rates came during the fallout from the California energy crisis. Later, thanks to the rollout of smart meters, more power providers started experimenting with dynamic rates.

Now, new technology is making time-of-use rate design more transparent. This week, Ahmad talks with Brad about why dynamic pricing is gaining momentum among electric utilities – and what makes for good rate design.

On June 13th, Latitude Media and GridX will host a Frontier Forum to examine the imperative of good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong. Register at the link in the show notes, or go to latitudemdia.com/events. See you there!

This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.

Next Episode

How Avangrid built a data foundation for AI

Mark Waclawiak was tuned into energy issues at an early age. Both his parents worked in the industry: his mom designed electrical systems for buildings and his dad worked at the utility. So the importance of electricity was always apparent to him.

When he started working for a utility in 2015, he quickly identified an opportunity to use data to improve reliability, which led to running the operational performance team. The team moved data out of Access and Excel into SQL databases, which now serve as the foundation for AI applications.

This week, Mark talks with Brad about how Avangrid replaced legacy data management systems with SQL databases to support AI projects.

This podcast is produced by GridX in partnership with Latitude Studios. GridX is the Enterprise Rate Platform that modern utilities rely on to usher in our clean energy future.