A utility innovation lab that answers its own questions in a day

Client

Date

$12B+ US electric & gas utility

08/2026

The challenge

A $12B+ US electric and gas utility runs an innovation lab that has to find, evaluate and de-risk new technology for the operating business. Every question meant weeks of an analyst's time or an external scoping call, so the lab could only carry a few at once and the rest of the business queued behind them.

The solution

FifthRow put its agent research platform directly in the lab's hands: a research question in, a sourced and structured answer out. The lab's own analysts set up and modified the systems they ran, rather than briefing an external team each time.

1 day

from brief to sourced assessment

147

research systems set up in-house

Brief to sourced assessmentOne day

Self-authored research systems147

Research on lab-built systems40%

01 — POLICY EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT

The lab's sharpest test was a regulatory question the platform had never been pointed at, submitted deliberately off-pattern to see how far it would stretch beyond the work it was bought for.

Core Activities

Broke a new regulation into timeline, sectors, considerations and roles
Mapped exposed customer segments and the alternatives that would serve them
Established what comparable operators did on the same policy
Tested how much came from public evidence alone, alongside internal records
Returned a sourced report and reusable systems, so follow-ups needed no commission

The Results

One brief produced four defined business outcomes: material to educate internal teams, a read on whether an existing product would help exposed customers, a route to giving customers visibility of their own position, and a view of what to build next. It came back inside a working day, on a question nobody had run before.

1 day

from brief to sourced assessment

02 — PROCUREMENT-GRADE TECHNOLOGY DILIGENCE

The lab's largest body of work was engineering and commercial diligence on equipment it was considering buying. Not foresight, but specification-level assessment answered from public evidence.

Core Activities

Compared equipment on output, footprint, fuel flexibility and integration
Evaluated compliance and performance against published specifications
Modelled capacity, fuel and installation cost per candidate unit
Assessed operating constraints, siting and permitting across all operating states
Identified which operators and industries already deployed each option

The Results

The lab could hold a technical conversation with a vendor on the vendor's own terms, with independent evidence already in hand. Questions that would have opened a scoping call were answered internally, in a day, with sources attached.

113

diligence questions answered in-house

03 — VENDOR LANDSCAPE MAPPING

For categories where the lab wanted to know whether new technology could change the economics of a recurring operational cost, it mapped the supplier market rather than sampling it.

Core Activities

Mapped the full vendor landscape, not just known names
Segmented each sweep by company size, incumbents down to startups
Assessed technology and cost, with a savings matrix against current practice
Benchmarked what comparable operators had already deployed
Ran product-level analysis on individual offerings

The Results

The lab moved from a generic "who does this" question to a segmented vendor map with peer deployment evidence attached, plus a cost model for where the technology would and would not pay back.

market questions, no vendor study

04 — SCOUTING & COMPETITIVE BENCHMARKING

Around the deep diligence work, the lab used the same system for the broader questions the operating business kept asking, and answered them on the business's behalf.

Core Activities

Ran assessments against the teams' own research and read both together
Scoped solutions for segments the business wanted to serve better
Assessed infrastructure options under evaluation
Compiled effective policies from comparable operators
Summarised comparable operators' products and services, plus the utility's own programmes

The Results

The lab could answer questions on behalf of other parts of the utility rather than only for itself, which is what turned it from a research consumer into an internal service.

questions answered for other teams

05 — LAB ENABLEMENT & INTERNAL ROLLOUT

The lab was not a consumer of delivered reports. Its analysts set up their own research systems, and access spread outward into the operating business.

Core Activities

Ran product training against the lab's real questions
Left authoring with the lab: analysts created and iterated their own systems
Had two new analysts running their own research within weeks
Extended access to adjacent teams off the same system
Switched on scheduled runs so repeat requests returned faster

The Results

Forty percent of all recorded research came from systems the lab set up itself rather than from anything FifthRow delivered. Access reached beyond the lab into adjacent teams, and six of its analysts became regular users running their own research.

147

research systems set up in-house

What it proved

The lab ran five workstreams off one system in parallel: policy exposure assessment, equipment diligence, vendor landscape mapping, scouting for the wider utility, and its own enablement. That came to 368 research runs, forty percent of them on systems its own analysts set up.

What the lab holds is a method and evidence: a segmented vendor map and cost model for a major category, specification-level diligence that lets it meet vendors as an informed buyer, and a policy assessment turned around in a day on a question nobody had run before. Six analysts now create and run their own research systems, one still running research sixteen months later.

Results

Metric	Benchmark	Result	Improvement
Vendor landscape coverage	The team's own manual pass	Full coverage, segmented by size band	Partial list to mapped market
Brief to sourced assessment	The lab's own manual pass	One day, off-pattern question	Measured head to head
Self-authored research systems	none	147	New capability
Research on the team's systems	none	40%	New capability

SPECIFIED COVERAGE

A vendor sweep is specified by size band, so the landscape that comes back runs from incumbents down to startups instead of the obvious names.

PROCUREMENT-GRADE DILIGENCE

Equipment specification, cost and permitting questions come back sourced from public evidence, so vendors are met with independent numbers already in hand.

PEER DEPLOYMENT EVIDENCE

Every assessment carries evidence of what comparable operators have already deployed, which is the viability proxy vendor material cannot supply.

SELF-AUTHORED SYSTEMS

The lab's own analysts set up and modify the research systems they run, so a new question does not need an external brief.

OFF-PATTERN RANGE

Questions the system was never scoped for still come back as sourced assessments, so the lab is not confined to the workstreams it bought.

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