To bring the benefits of emerging technologies to our customers, the GRE&T Centre Team routinely scans the market, current academic research and industry developments to understand how to integrate advanced technology into the more traditional departments of a utility.
As a forward-thinking utility, we always ask one simple question at the start of each demonstration project. That question is: What if?
What if our customers delivered a service to the community—a service that was really needed, such as curtailed energy use during peak times? And what if, in exchange, they could reduce their energy costs and build the foundation for net-zero energy communities? What if there was an energy-based “sharing platform” where energy was purchased from consumers exactly when it was needed by the local grid?
Alectra takes these simple ‘What if?’ questions very seriously. This is one reason why Alectra is not a traditional energy company, and why the GRE&T Centre is not a conventional innovation hub.
The GRE&T Centre Innovation Framework (called i4 Innovation Framework) guides projects from Ideation, to Incubation, to Investigation, and then to Integration into mainstream energy solutions.
Learn more about our Innovation Projects.