Avangrid gathers universities, labs, and incubators for Innovation Forum on Transformative Collaboration

Eyeing ways to advance the clean energy transition, sustainable energy company Avangrid, Inc. recently gathered a mix of universities, national labs and incubators from across the country for its seventh Innovation Forum, this time with a focus on “Transformative Collaboration.”

“The Innovation Forum is an opportunity to bring together our many partners—including top universities, national labs and incubators—to drive collaboration forward,” Pedro Azagra, Avangrid CEO, said. “The innovation displayed today will help us improve reliability across our operations, expand access to renewable energy, and increase access to cost-efficient clean-energy technologies for our customers.”

Attending partners included organizations ranging from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to Yale University, MIT, SeaDeep and more. The NREL director of the Grid Planning and Analysis Center, Jaquelin Cochran, gave the keynote speech, discussing how the lab’s research is working toward increased renewable energy generation across the United States, and possible solutions for decarbonization challenges.

“Innovation is at the forefront of how we think about things at the NREL,” Cochran said. “So much of the power system is changing—the impact of weather is greater, the demand for electricity is growing, and customer expectations are transforming. We don’t want to operate in a bubble and just do research. It’s important to us to interact with industry experts like Avangrid to not only share our findings and ideas, but also learn about the challenges they’re experiencing.”

Avangrid invested more than $102 million in energy innovation projects last year. The company intends to up that investment this year.