Creating space for innovation: A positive cycle

In the renewable energy sector, we work in a fast-paced, ever-evolving industry where the benefits of innovation and automation have high impacts. Years ago, at my first innovation summit, I was advised by a company leader: “don’t automate away your job”. While I understand the sentiment, nothing could have resonated with me less. Most colleagues I have in the industry are passionate about installing more renewable capacity and want to drive the industry forward. Our engineering and technical jobs should be as efficient as possible to allow us to focus our time and resources on thoughtprovoking work and problem solving. Not to mention the wellknown benefits to automated processes, such as standardizing the use of analytical decision making and reducing human error.

I am currently the Director of Meteorology and Energy Resources for the renewables business at AVANGRID and my background is in solar energy production modeling. Production modeling requires using large amounts of meteorological and equipment data along with various models to predict energy output. One of the most uncertain aspects of production modeling is determining an accurate irradiance resource for the site. Earlier in my career, I lead the creation of an online tool that ran an automatic solar resource analysis based on a specific location. This solution provided consistent, comparable results for any location in the US within a matter of seconds. It also made the analysis more accessible within the industry, as it could be obtained online and at a cheaper cost. This quality of analysis would be impossible in such a short time without digitalization.

It can feel like impactful changes aren’t possible without access to dedicated digitalization experts, which is not often the reality. There are also benefits to having a technical team lead innovation, such as considering not only if something can be automated, but whether it should be. Will something be lost from the analysis? This is often best considered and implemented by the subject matter expert.

Technical leaders are often managing overloaded teams and the thought of adding additional workload may seem impossible. Yet it’s possible to find success by taking small, incremental steps towards innovation goals, or by setting small innovation targets. Once these small achievements are made, the resulting efficiencies free-up more time for creative and innovative work. With a little more time available and confidence in its rewards, a positive cycle of innovation can begin to take hold. Even without substantial digitalization resources, it is possible to incorporate automation and digitalization into a team’s everyday workflow.

The ability to carve out time for individual interests and unique projects empowers employees to challenge themselves and derive more satisfaction from work

It’s not very glamorous, but simple organization is a good starting point. Setting a foundation with controlled processes and document management can make an immediate difference. And often no digital skills are required. With the efficiency gained from organization alone, the question is how to prioritize innovation with that time. Annual objectives can be an effective avenue to enable employees to set personal innovation goals that matter to them. It defines timelines and scopes for innovation projects. This approach also ensures commitment from you to support the initiative and carve out time in your employee’s schedule to prioritize innovation. It should also give your employee a goal that they are motivated by.

Eventually, more technical digital skills are required. You can consider incorporating digitalization in hiring or training. A technical team requires deep expertise in their area of interest and that doesn’t always coincide with digital skills. However, having even one team member with strong coding skills or providing the team with basic training can be sufficient to start a positive cycle of innovation. There are endless coding trainings available online, which are inexpensive and accessible. As this expertise broadens and deepens, innovation becomes part of the team culture. As the team learns to think digitally and feels empowered to promote new ideas, new innovation opportunities are generated.

And finally, it helps to be patient. Positive, effective change will always take time. Highlight successes from your team to influence other teams and leaders. Be open to the benefits of working with your company’s dedicated innovation team if you have one. Having the subject matter experts create a tool and then transferring ownership to a dedicated innovation or IT team can work well. In this scenario, the tool functions as intended, and there is structure for maintaining and improving the tool without requiring full time effort from your staff. As successes grow, more support is likely to follow.

While innovation for the sake of improved productivity is reason enough to invest your efforts, employees who have the opportunity to innovate are happier as well. A Harvard Business Review article reported that employees who did work they truly loved even 20% of the time felt much higher levels of job satisfaction (https://hbr.org/2022/05/designing-workthat-people-love). The ability to carve out time for individual interests and unique projects empowers employees to challenge themselves and derive more satisfaction from work. Taken together, these are simple methods any leader can implement to create space for innovation, which in turn becomes a positive cycle of improvement.