Ten grid modernization challenges. Ten months. Built by utilities, for utilities, so the cost of finding out lands once instead of two dozen times. The cohort convenes the second Tuesday of every month at 2:00 p.m. ET, starting August 11, 2026. Join the whole run, or join the one challenge your team is living right now.
Today's grid is under extraordinary demand. The rise of AI data centers, electrification, and distributed energy resources is straining capacity, and prices have climbed since 2021. Utilities are expected to scale faster than ever. Grid modernization is no longer optional. It is an imperative.
That is where the Grid Advancement Program comes in. Run inside AEIC's Center for Operational Excellence and powered by InnovationForce, the cohort pools what it learns so the cost of solving each challenge lands once, not once per utility. The technology to modernize the grid largely exists. The hard part is balancing affordability with innovation, and doing it together.
The program works one challenge at a time, in order, one a month for ten months. Each challenge opens with a briefing and a problem brief, runs a working session with the utilities living that problem, and closes with a retrospective on what the cohort actually tried. Teams recruit per challenge, so a planner can come for load forecasting and a security lead can come for OT/IT convergence without either one sitting through the other.
Every challenge arrives with the same stack of work behind it, matched to the operating problems utilities are actually living.
Ten grid modernization challenges drawn from research of public utility filings, grouped by theme, and sharpened by the cohort that works them.
One per challenge, published here before the session: the operating problem, what is at stake, and what the cohort is being asked to solve.
A short walkthrough of the challenge and the technology landscape, so your team arrives on the same page instead of spending the session getting there.
The working document inside InnovationWorks: the pilot scaffold, the data-readiness checklist, and a labeled scan of the solution landscape.
Second Tuesday, 2:00 p.m. ET. Utility peers compare notes and move past endless pilots into real change. Recorded for members who cannot make it live.
What the cohort actually tried and what happened. The constraints hit, the tradeoffs made, what one Director would tell the next. No vendor can write this.
The cohort works the list in order, one challenge a month, starting August 11, 2026. Recruitment runs per challenge, so your team can commit to the full series or to the single problem it is living right now. Sign up for the ones you want and we will send the brief, the video, and the session invite ahead of the date.
Want the whole run? Enroll your team in the full series and we will add you to every challenge.
The Top 10 were drawn from research of public utility filings and grouped into the themes below. The cohort is what turns each one from a documented problem into a worked one. All ten Challenge Briefs are published and free to read right now, so you can go straight to the problem your team is living. Each one names the operating problem and what is genuinely hard about it. The Flight Plan waits inside InnovationWorks, so the hour in the room goes to the peers and not to the setup. The briefing videos below are early cuts recorded with InnovationForce and are being re-recorded against the current platform.
Harden the grid against weather and wildfire with covered conductor, AI risk modeling, surgical PSPS, and storm-ready transmission.
Replace aging poles, equipment, and assets to hold reliability as costs and severe weather keep rising.
Upgrade substation and infrastructure capacity to absorb new peak demand without overload or low-voltage violations.
Secure transformers, breakers, and long-lead materials to keep construction schedules and new generation on track.
Automate and streamline the DER interconnection process to clear the application backlog and cut manual processing.
Re-engineer the distribution grid for two-way power flow as distributed generation adoption scales.
Move to bottom-up, DER-aware forecasting that accounts for solar, storage, EVs, and a nonlinear demand curve.
Give customers the tools and control they expect while keeping bills affordable through the energy transition.
Harden cybersecurity standards and secure architectures as operational and IT systems converge.
Build, attract, and retain the skilled workforce to deliver electrification at the pace and scale the grid demands.
All ten Challenge Briefs are published. Each one is the operating problem, what is at stake, and what the cohort is being asked to solve. No vendors, no product recommendations. Read the one your team is fighting right now.
Each challenge is introduced and worked on camera. Monthly challenge sessions are recorded for members inside InnovationWorks, and program highlights live on AEIC's channel.
Walkthroughs of each challenge, the technology landscape, and live cohort working sessions are published to the workspace as the program runs. Sign in to watch the full library.
Member Portal AEIC on YouTubeAEIC's weekly podcast carries the same operating story to a wider audience: practical conversations on grid modernization with the utility leaders living it.
Grid Mod Pod Listen on SpotifyInnovationForce democratizes innovation with an AI-powered platform that fosters collaboration and accelerates time-to-decision. AEIC hosts the Grid Advancement Program on InnovationWorks, InnovationForce's secure collaboration space, purpose-built for the energy industry.
Backed by InnovationForce co-founder Dr. Linda A. Hill of Harvard Business School, InnovationWorks helps utility teams escape pilot purgatory and move from challenge to scaled solution faster. The partnership pairs InnovationForce's platform, led by CEO and founder Kim Getgen, with AEIC's convening power across the industry's most senior operators.
The cross-cutting operational arm the program runs inside.
The shared data foundation grid modernization decisions rest on.
The forecasting work behind Challenge 07, run as its own cohort.
Come for the full ten months, or come for the one problem your team is fighting right now. The program is open to AEIC members and to any electric utility. If you run a utility, you are welcome here, member or not.
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