In the energy sector, innovation isn’t just a buzzword, it’s essential. Whether addressing grid modernization, wildfire mitigation, or decarbonization, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Yet traditional approaches to adopting new technology often fall short, bogged down by inefficiencies, misalignment, and what we call “shiny object syndrome.”
The result? That critical grid modernization budget, meant to fund transformational ideas, gets stuck in limbo—preventing innovations from moving into production on time.
Too often, new technologies are dismissed as flashy distractions, with questions like, “Do we really need another drone project?” undermining their value. Innovation then gets relegated to a non-priority, with little engagement from stakeholders. This creates a vicious cycle, where innovation is seen as wasting resources, frustrating operational teams, and sowing skepticism about anything new. Without alignment to strategic priorities, innovation programs lose momentum and, worse, the confidence of those they aim to serve.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. In 2025, it’s easier than ever to realign your innovation program to your North Star—your organization’s strategic priorities and goals. At InnovationForce, we’ve reimagined the path to impactful innovation by helping organizations start with their grid modernization public filings, generate actionable challenges using AI, and match them with commercially available solutions to bridge the alignment gap. Our curated marketplace connects energy innovators, entrepreneurs, and established businesses, ensuring that the right ideas are ready to pilot and deliver measurable results.
Here’s how our approach can transform your innovation efforts to reduce time and costs:
Start with Your Public Filings: Your One Source of Truth
Every energy utility has a goldmine of strategic insights in their public filings. Plans for grid modernization, wildfire mitigation, and other initiatives lay out clear priorities and regulatory commitments. These filings are the ultimate North Star, offering a clear sense of direction for innovation efforts.
The challenge? These filings are often dense, technical, and difficult to translate into actionable innovation roadmaps. By using AI to extract challenge statements directly from your filings, we make it easy to align your innovation efforts with the priorities outlined in these critical documents.
Generate Challenges That Matter
Great innovation doesn’t start with ideas, it starts with problems. Using an AI tool, you can surface capability gaps to craft well-defined challenges from your filings, making them:
Aligned: Rooted in strategic priorities.
Actionable: Clearly defined for focus and clarity.
Validated: Drawn from leadership-approved documents.
This ensures every innovation effort is working on the right problems—those that align with your organization’s vision and deliver measurable value.
Matching Your Challenges to Solutions with AI and Crowd Wisdom
Once challenges are defined, the next step is finding the right solutions. This is where we all spend a lot of time in sales pitches, meetings, tradeshows and working groups. But what if AI could be harnessed to match your challenges to commercially viable solutions with the click of a mouse?
At InnovationForce, we’ve curated a marketplace for energy innovators to do just that:
AI Matching: Access industry-validated solutions tailored to your meet the needs of your North Star challenges
Crowd Wisdom: Tap into a network of startups, established companies, and domain experts being matched to your North Star challenges.
Streamlined Decisions: Adopt solutions from the marketplace into a workflow that drives decisions and alignment. SMEs can review a matched idea and score in under 30 minutes. This efficient format reduces bottlenecks and eliminates decision-making gridlock.
When your ideas are aligned with strategic initiatives and ranked and scored by your SMEs, your executives gain a clear, actionable view of your innovation portfolio’s importance. It’s no longer just a collection of ideas—it’s a strategic asset driving measurable impact.
This approach accelerates the innovation cycle, moving from challenge to pilot up to 85% faster while ensuring every effort is strategically aligned.
The Benefits: Faster Results, Bigger Impact
Aligning your innovation program to your North Star delivers measurable results:1. Faster Outcomes: Teams move from ideation to implementation without unnecessary delays.2️. Smarter Investments: Aligned challenges ensure that resources are directed where they matter most.
Ready to Align Your 2025 Innovation Program?
Imagine an innovation program where every effort is aligned with your North Star strategic goals, solvers and solutions are matched seamlessly, and results are both measurable and impactful – without all the unnecessary meeting time. This year could be the year!
Happy 2025 innovators! We wish that you have a year where you can let your challenges inspire you, AI empower you and culture grow to embrace an innovative mindset. Join the conversation below and tell us what you think.
Curious to learn more about how to use AI to strategically align your innovation approach but not ready to use our InnovationWorks platform. No problem! Schedule a consultation with us and we can share more about what we've learned and how you could repeat success at your utility.