Deadline: July 15
Steve Mitnick has authored five books on the economics, history, and people of the utilities industries. While in the consulting practice leadership of McKinsey & Co. and Marsh & McLennan, he advised utility leaders. He led a transmission development company and was a New York Governor’s chief energy advisor. Mitnick was an expert witness appearing before utility regulatory commissions of six states, D.C., FERC, and in Canada, and taught microeconomics, macroeconomics, and statistics at Georgetown University.
The ides of July. July fifteenth. That’s the deadline. You need to send in your Top Innovator nominations by then.
Public Utilities Fortnightly’s annual Fortnightly Top Innovators uniquely recognizes individual innovators and teams of innovators at electric, natural gas, and water utilities.
Top Innovator awards are given in these fourteen categories:
Edith Clarke Top Innovator in the Reliability of Utility Service. Lewis Latimer Top Innovator in Technology or Process Design. George Westinghouse Top Innovator in Leadership in Innovation. Bertha Lamme Top Innovator in Power Generation. Charles Steinmetz Top Innovator in Network or Grid Operations. Nancy Fitzroy Top Innovator in Environment and Safety. Maria Telkes Top Innovator in Distributed Energy.
Francis Upton Top Innovator in Analytics for Utility Service. William Hammer Top Innovator in Electrification. John Beggs Top Innovator in the Energy Transition. Mabel MacFerran Top Innovator in Energy Storage. Florence Fogler Top Innovator in Energy Transmission Technologies. Alan Turing Top Innovator in Cybersecurity. Nikola Tesla Top Innovator in Artificial Intelligence.
The selected awardees will be recognized in an extensive feature in PUF’s October issue. And at the Fortnightly Top Innovators 2025 conference, on October fifth, sixth, seventh, at the historic Willard hotel in Washington D.C., across from the White House.
Nominations should address the following questions:
- Who is the individual innovator, or each of the innovators on the team, that you are nominating for Top Innovator?
- What is their title, or are their titles, and roles at the utility?
- In summary, what was their distinctive and meaningful innovation?
- In greater detail, what was their distinctive and meaningful innovation?
- Which of the above award category or categories do you think this innovation fits, in your opinion?
- At what stage is the innovation? That is, in the planning stage, in the pilot stage, in the process of being implemented, or has been implemented over the last year or so?
- What will be the tangible benefit directly or indirectly for the utility’s customers?
- What is the potential for other utilities or the utilities industry overall to take advantage of this innovation for the benefit of their customers?
- What are the next steps, if any, to build upon this innovation?
Submit one or more nominations to alucas@sepapower.org, PUF’s Ashley Lucas.
