Transforming a Region into a Clean Energy Innovation Hub

The Obstacle

The region aspired to become a national leader in advanced energy innovation—leveraging its unique assets, talent, and funding opportunities to continue its legacy of transformative adaptation amidst changing macro dynamics. The client sought to find its niche vis-à-vis other regions investing in advanced energy technology and solicited third-party support to identify:

• Strengths and gaps in the region's existing advanced energy ecosystem
• The most promising energy technologies that could be commercialized in the region
• Advantages that would differentiate from other existing and potential energy technology hubs

To line up funding, the client would need to facilitate a complex process that brought together 70+ partners across government, industry, higher education, and nonprofit sectors to align on an overarching strategy, a set of prioritized advanced energy and workforce development projects, and an operating model to deliver on the above.

Our Approach

BCG supported the client consortium at every stage of the journey—transforming a bold vision into a cohesive, actionable strategy, including:

• Hosting strategy workshops to align stakeholders on the priority components of advanced energy
• Defining the region’s overall advanced energy technology strategy:
  
  • Sourcing a long list of project ideas from regional leaders and identifying the highest potential opportunities aligned with the region’s unique assets and technology commercialization priorities
  • Securing organizational commitments to support the consortium’s strategy
  • Supporting narrative development to secure funding for projects and the consortium backbone
  • Fostering dozens of collaborations to promote integrated, cross-sector projects, addressing both technology and workforce needs
• Designing and standing up a new backbone organization and governance model for strategic and financial durability, including:
  
  • Operating model and role descriptions for staff
  • A project management office to drive ongoing progress
  • A structured governance model to ensure collaboration, decision-making, and sustained momentum
  • Communications strategies and collateral for raising awareness of the hub, generating momentum, and celebrating progress
  • A “control tower” to monitor federal and private funding opportunities

The Result

This initiative has the potential to reshape the region’s future. It has already secured ~$80 million in public funding with potential for more, and is catalyzing advanced energy innovation and transforming economic prospects.

The advanced energy hub directly supports the development of new technologies through investment in research, development, and commercialization, all of which will help reduce carbon emissions and improve the reliability of the power grid while advancing national security interests—and inject $5 billion into the economy in the next decade.

In parallel, it invests in people, ensuring that workers have access to the skills and training needed for careers in the growing advanced energy sector. Its multipronged workforce effort will equip tens of thousands of workers with specialized skills—empowering communities, especially those that have been historically underserved, with new career opportunities. These efforts are expected to create nearly 30,000 jobs and increase wages in the region by an estimated $2.8 billion over the next decade.

This effort proved the power of collaboration in tackling the world’s toughest challenges—laying the foundation for a cleaner, more resilient future.