Energy in 30 #1: Fail fast, succeed faster through pilot acceleration

ICF Podcast

Traditional utility pilots have delivered mixed results. They can be slow to get off the ground and take years to complete. But as utility leaders know, today’s most pressing energy challenges—meeting decarbonization goals, ensuring grid resilience, and delivering solutions that satisfy evolving customer needs—demand a faster and more effective way to test new ideas.

Innovation is essential, but it's also important to avoid “death by a thousand pilots.” How can you move beyond ad hoc piloting and learn to innovate quickly?

Tune into our inaugural episode of “Energy in 30”, hosted by Joan Collins and David Meisegeier, to hear from Kevin Duffy, an ICF energy innovations guru who leads boundary-pushing pilot programs that pave the way for the utilities of the future. The conversation covers topics such as:

• How embracing an Agile approach to pilots allows you to shorten timeframes, accelerate ideas, and capture learnings to let data drive decisions
• An overview of ICF’s Innovation Incubator, a data-driven utility pilot accelerator that contains 360 ideas and 40 in-flight projects
• Creative ways to navigate funding challenges and identify small-scale, inexpensive tests to learn from and pursue
• Examples of emerging technologies that utilities are using to innovate programs and advance their goals