Press release
Avangrid’s Seventh Innovation Forum Brings Together Top Universities, National Labs and Incubators to Spark Collaboration
Attending partners National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Yale, Greentown Labs, SeaDeep, MIT, University of Massachusetts, and University of Connecticut join Avangrid to foster collaboration and develop the energy industry’s next big innovation
Avangrid invested more than $102 million in energy innovation projects in 2023
ORANGE, Conn. — May 8, 2024 — Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), a leading sustainable energy company and a member of the Iberdrola Group, hosted its seventh Innovation Forum today, titled “Transformative Collaboration”. The event featured some of Avangrid’s most innovative approaches to accelerating the country’s clean energy transition in both its networks and renewables businesses.
“Innovation is key to developing the solutions needed to advance the clean energy transition,” said Pedro Azagra, Avangrid CEO. “However, we know that decarbonization cannot be accomplished through our efforts alone. The Innovation Forum is an opportunity to bring together our many partners—including top universities, national labs and incubators—to drive collaboration forward. The innovation displayed today will help us improve reliability across our operations, expand access to renewable energy, and increase access to cost-efficient clean-energy technologies for our customers.”
The event was kicked off by Jaquelin Cochran, director of the Grid Planning and Analysis Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), who gave the keynote describing how NREL's research is planning for increased renewable energy generation across the United States and potential solutions for the challenges associated with decarbonization. Other partners who joined the event were Greentown Labs, SeaDeep, Yale University, MIT, University of Massachusetts, and University of Connecticut.
“Innovation is at the forefront of how we think about things at the NREL,” said Cochran. “So much of the power system is changing—the impact of weather is greater, the demand for electricity is growing, and customer expectations are transforming. We don't want to operate in a bubble and just do research. It's important to us to interact with industry experts like Avangrid to not only share our findings and ideas, but also learn about the challenges they're experiencing.”
Avangrid invested more than $102 million in energy innovation projects in 2023 and, working with Iberdrola and under the leadership of Chairman Galan, the company is planning to increase that investment this year. At the Innovation Forum, Avangrid’s network team, which serves more than 3.3 million electric and natural gas customers across the northeast, showcased the company’s Utility Thermal Energy Network pilot project in Ithaca. This innovative project is being carried out by Avangrid’s New York subsidiary New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and aims to provide an alternative to natural gas for heating without increasing demand on the electricity grid. The company’s renewables team, which operates 8.8 gigawatts of emissions-free installed capacity and is developing the country’s first large-scale offshore wind farm, showcased innovation ideas for improving offshore operation and maintenance effectiveness, such as drone inspections of turbines or subsea cables.
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About Avangrid: Avangrid, Inc. is a leading U.S. energy company investing in grid infrastructure and power generation projects to deliver reliable energy and meet growing electricity demand. With approximately $50 billion in assets and operations across 25 states, Avangrid is helping modernize the U.S. electric grid, improve system resiliency, and support economic growth for the customers and communities it serves.
Avangrid owns and operates seven electric and natural gas utilities, serving more than 3.4 million customers in New York and New England. Avangrid also has nearly 100 energy generation facilities across the United States and more than 11 gigawatts of installed capacity. Avangrid has more than 8,300 employees and was named among the World's Most Ethical Companies in 2026 for the eighth consecutive year by the Ethisphere Institute. Avangrid is a member of the Iberdrola Group.
About Iberdrola: With a market capitalization of more than €140 billion, Iberdrola is the largest electricity company in Europe and one of the two largest in the world. The Group serves more than 100 million people around the world and has a workforce of 45,400 employees and assets of €165 billion. In 2025, Iberdrola posted a record net profit of €6.3 billion. The company contributes close to €10.4 billion in taxes in the countries where it operates and supports more than 500,000 jobs throughout its supply chain, thanks to €13.2 billion in purchases from tens of thousands of suppliers.
Since 2001, Iberdrola has invested more than €175 billion in electricity networks, renewable energy and energy storage to help create an energy model based on electrification. The company has close to 1.4 million km of electricity networks in the United States (the states of New York, Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts), the United Kingdom (Scotland, England and Wales), Brazil (the states of Bahia, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul, as well as Brasilia) and Spain, as well as 57,000 MW of capacity worldwide, of which more than 46,000 MW is renewable.
