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Stakeholders say clear cost limits, timelines and parameters for scaling can overcome the inertia of a traditionally risk-averse industry.

Utility use of innovations to manage challenges like load growth and affordability can be streamlined with smarter pilot project designs, new U.S. Department of Energy research found.

Today’s pilots are often redundant, inconclusive and lack clear pathways to scale, a June Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report on pilot project designs concluded.

“With safety as a top utility priority, utilities are hesitant” about new technologies or methods, but “it is critical that utilities are able to quickly test good ideas,” the LBNL report said.

Some utilities have started to move quickly, faced with the pressure of rising demand, especially from data centers, which threatens to outpace new generation and storage additions.

Salt River Project’s May 3 demonstration of data center load flexibility using Emerald AI software has already led to an announced scale deployment in the PJM Interconnection system. Many utilities are pursuing ways to achieve this type of speed-to-innovation.

“It is more imperative now to take innovative projects and pilots to scale quickly because customer adoption, expectations, and technology are evolving at an exponential pace,” said Chanel Parson, Southern California Edison’s director of clean energy and demand response.

The faster utilities scale solutions, “the faster they can keep up,” she added.

Utilities are working with their regulators to find pilot project designs that speed innovation, the LBNL study found.