The Journey So Far...

In 2023, PG&E opened the door to a new era of radical collaboration, one in which we shared our toughest operational and technical challenges with the broader innovation ecosystem through the publication of our first R&D Strategy Report and invited partners to co-create solutions that align with our True North Strategy.

The response was overwhelming.

Through the inaugural Innovation Summit and Pitch Fest, we surfaced over 600 transformative technologies with the potential to reshape the energy system – from EV charging to wildfire risk mitigation. These efforts reflected our belief that, in the face of accelerating change, we must look outward to drive innovation inward.

In 2024, we built on that momentum. We released our second R&D Strategy Report, hosted our second Innovation Summit, and took stock of how our needs are evolving in a rapidly shifting energy landscape.

What's New in 2025!

This year, we are excited to announce the second PG&E Pitch Fest.

With roughly $25 million in EPIC funding to allocate by year-end, this year’s Pitch Fest represents a critical opportunity for top innovators to present their solutions directly to PG&E’s key decision-makers and thought leaders. To accelerate deployment, this year’s event will emphasize co-creating solutions with vendors to establish a clear path to implementation on PG&E systems, with a stronger focus on follow-through. This way, we’ll ensure that selected ideas don’t just get recognized but are positioned for successful execution.

In preparation for this year’s Pitch Fest, we conducted a focused internal analysis to pinpoint the problem statements where we are least confident in our current ability to make meaningful progress. These are the areas where we see the greatest potential for innovation to accelerate our journey toward a safe, clean, affordable, and resilient energy future. This year’s refined list represents a targeted subset of 13 problem statements, including several newly identified challenges, that we believe require bold thinking and breakthrough solutions from our community.

We are particularly interested in solutions that address the evolving challenges of a modern electric grid, including the rising demands of data centers, the need to stabilize bills through enhanced operational efficiency, the need for visibility into customer-led appliance electrification, and the potential of AI to enhance decision-making and coordination without compromising our affordability, safety, reliability, and decarbonization goals.

We invite entrepreneurs, technologists, and solution builders to review the problem statements in this document and propose your boldest ideas to the 2025 Pitch Fest. We’re looking for partners who can help us unlock solutions to the problem statements outlined in this document –- solutions that will enable us not only to meet the moment, but also to lead the way in shaping California’s energy future.

Let’s build what’s next, together.