e-Lab Accelerator

A bootcamp for electricity innovation

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Behind the Scenes at e^-Lab Accelerator

Each year, teams from across the U.S. and around the world join experts from RMI to develop, test, and scale solutions to meet the unprecedented challenges we face as the electricity grid transforms.

What Is e^-Lab Accelerator?

e^-Lab Accelerator is an invitation-only four-day working meeting bringing together teams throughout North America that are working on high-impact and innovative projects at the electricity system’s distribution edge.

Why It Matters

e^-Lab Accelerator helps unlock opportunities to drive projects forward more effectively and collaboratively. Trained facilitators and technical experts provide customized content, training, and tailored feedback for each team’s unique project.

Who’s Involved

Accelerator teams comprise 5–7 people representing multiple project stakeholders and partners. A team’s project must be actively under development, although it may range from an idea just brought into existence to a project well under way.

This Year's Topics

New business models for utilities and other solutions providers:
projects to advance new business models that accelerate the transformation to a low-carbon energy system.Examples: new utility programs and services; new utility revenue opportunities; performance-based regulation; securitization of aging assets, business models to aggregate DER services and participants; innovative approaches to DER financing.

Grid modernization and planning for DERs:
projects to meet emerging transmission, distribution, and generation needs through integrated planning for non-fossil resources.Examples: resource planning to replace or avoid fossil-fuel fired capacity; non-wires solutions that defer or avoid traditional grid infrastructure investment; integrated resource planning to leverage DER services and value streams; grid modernization investments that leverage new grid capabilities.

Electrification of buildings:
projects to help scale widespread transition of homes and businesses off of fossil fuels for space and water heating and other end uses, toward efficient use of low-carbon electricity.Examples: programs that support the widespread electrification of buildings; energy efficiency policies to support beneficial electrification; planning for a transition in the gas utility business model or for managing stranded costs in gas infrastructure; demand flexibility for heating loads.

DER adoption at scale:
other projects to accelerate the adoption of cost-competitive and beneficial DERs.Examples: business models that serve low- and moderate-income communities; regulatory reform and innovative stakeholder processes focused on DERs; resilience valuation and planning; EV-grid solutions; transactive energy and new market platforms.

What We’ve Accomplished

e^-Lab Accelerator 2018 brought together cutting-edge projects from across the country to catalyze real proof points of how the electricity system is rapidly evolving, and how these changes can benefit communities. Thirteen teams brought a mix of decision makers—ranging from city government officials to utility executives to technology providers—to apply their collective brainpower to solve complex problems in a high-energy, focused, and collaborative environment. Topics included mitigating against future risk, national security, and improving people’s access to clean energy.

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