It’s no secret that regulations often fail to keep pace with technological innovation. It’s quite intuitive, given that the nature of regulation is reactionary. However, the phenomenon seems to be exaggerated in the utility sector. Our regulatory system doesn’t bear all responsibility for that nation’s lackluster adoption of clean energy, but probably most of it. Here’s how the problem is summed up in a Canary Media article on the fact book’s key takeaways:
“Clean-energy projects are struggling to connect to the power grid, with many developers facing yearslong waiting lists and high interconnection costs across many parts of the country. And similarly lengthy timelines and high costs are stymieing the expansion of transmission grids themselves. Federal regulators are in the midst of a wide-ranging review of transmission policies with the aim of reducing these costs and wait times, but any resulting reforms will likely take years to mitigate the current bottlenecks.”
The same article also highlights the difficulties of reforming the policies at fault, pointing to the permitting reform bill that was struck down last year by both Republicans and Democrats.
Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, or PURA, has recognized this problem and is trying to remedy it through their Innovative Energy Solutions, or IES. Launched earlier this year, the program is supposed to identify, pilot and scale new ideas that enable a cleaner, more affordable and more equitable electric grid for Connecticut.
IES aims to speed everything up using what they call a “regulatory sandbox.” Basically, it allows pilots to be live tested. They claim it facilitates a more collaborative approach to reaching energy-related public policy goals by bringing in stakeholders, instead of leaving it all up to the utilities. The process separates the good from the bad in a timely fashion using the “fail fast” approach.
For those who don’t know, fail fast is a concept coined in silicon valley. Originally, it was used to refer to a software development principle that emphasizes detecting and responding to errors or failures as early as possible in the software development process. The idea is that the earlier a problem is identified, the easier and cheaper it is to fix.
However, the fail-fast principle is not only applicable to software development, but it can also be applied to other areas such as project management, product development, and decision-making. The key idea is to identify potential problems and address them as early as possible to prevent them from causing larger issues later on.
There are great benefits to failing fast. It’s great for innovation, and even better for short term profits. However, the approach is not without its problems:
"Move fast and break things" was a slogan popularized by Facebook in its early days, which encapsulated the idea of prioritizing speed of innovation and experimentation over avoiding mistakes or failures. While this approach can be effective in certain contexts, it can also lead to several problems:
- User harm: Moving fast and breaking things can result in unintended consequences, such as privacy violations, misinformation, and harm to user well-being. This can damage the reputation of the company and erode user trust.
- Technical debt: Moving quickly can result in accumulating technical debt, which is the cost of maintaining and fixing poorly designed or implemented code. This can lead to longer development cycles and reduced agility in the long run.
- Lack of testing: The emphasis on speed can lead to neglecting essential testing and quality assurance, resulting in unreliable software that is prone to bugs and crashes.
- Cultural issues: The "move fast and break things" mentality can create a culture where mistakes are tolerated or even encouraged, leading to a lack of accountability and responsibility.
In the tech world, the consequences of ‘fail fast’ are all too known. Think: our social fabric, the mental health of adolescent girls, trust in our institutions, fair and free elections.
In an age when the field is bleeding talent to the technology sector, it’s easy to imagine we have to be like them in every way… but maybe utilities shouldn’t emulate big tech firms. Afterall, the goal is to provide reliable and increasingly clean power … not to make as much money as possible.