Southwest Power Pool, PPL Electric Utilities and Google recognized for advancing innovation across transmission, distribution and large-load integration
AUSTIN, Texas. October 8, 2026. Electric Power Engineers (EPE), a global power and energy engineering and technology firm, announced the recipients of its 2026 EPE Innovation Partner Awards, recognizing three organizations whose vision, leadership, and standout commitment to innovation are advancing a more reliable, resilient and affordable energy future.
The 2026 recipients are Southwest Power Pool (SPP), PPL Electric Utilities (PPL) and Google.
As the power sector continues to transform, progress depends on partnerships, cross-sector collaboration and the willingness to tackle complex challenges together. The EPE Innovation Partner Awards recognize organizations that move the industry forward – combining strategic leadership and bold thinking with practical execution and measurable impact. Recipients demonstrate leadership in how they collaborate, invest, challenge conventional approaches and work alongside EPE to develop new capabilities that advance a more reliable, resilient, affordable and flexible electric grid.
“Energy innovation delivers its greatest impact when it does not happen in isolation. The most meaningful breakthroughs come when bold partners bring together creativity, technical expertise and shared commitments to solving complex challenges,” said Stephanie Badr, CEO of EPE. “SPP, PPL, and Google exemplify that spirit. Each has brought vision, technical rigor and a willingness to challenge traditional approaches in our work together, going where others think is not possible. These awards recognize not only the progress they are making today, but also the leading roles they are playing in accelerating solutions for our industry, communities and future.”
Southwest Power Pool
SPP is recognized for its leadership in advancing the future of transmission planning through collaboration, investment and innovation.
SPP’s partnership with EPE has contributed to the development and evolution of the technology now forming the EPE Energy Intelligence Platform (EIP) Transmission Engine. Together, EPE and SPP set out to revolutionize how transmission planning of the future will be conducted. The partnership focused on a fundamental transformation of transmission planning processes: automating workflows, enabling advanced intelligence in violation identification and mitigation solutioning, while balancing reliability and economics. They first applied this innovative approach to stability and dynamic analysis, one of the most complex aspects of transmission planning, to deliver faster, more accurate analysis and clearer insights for planners.
The collaboration reflects a broader need across the power industry to increase the speed and scale of planning while maintaining the engineering rigor required to support reliable grid investment.
PPL Electric Utilities
PPL Electric Utilities is recognized for its leadership and commitment to advancing protection and control (P&C) testing, settings development and real-time reconfiguration.
Through its investment, engagement and collaboration with EPE, PPL Electric has helped shape the technology now forming the EIP Distribution Engine. The collaboration focuses on transforming P&C processes by automating testing workflows, applying advanced intelligence to help prevent misoperations and miscoordination, and optimizing the creation of relay settings.
The initial work focused on automating relay testing across all relay types used in PPL Electric’s service territory, bringing greater speed, accuracy and intelligence to the testing process.
PPL Electric’s involvement demonstrates the value of bringing utility expertise directly into the innovation process to develop practical, scalable technology grounded in the needs of planners and operators.
Google is recognized for its leadership in exploring and reimagining the relationship between hyperscale computing and the electric grid.
Through collaboration with EPE’s technical and software expertise, Google has led the exploration of carbon-aware computing, flexible load strategies and new approaches to aligning data center operations with grid conditions. Google is helping demonstrate how large energy users can become active participants in building a more reliable, flexible and efficient power system.
As unprecedented energy demand creates new challenges for utilities, grid operators and energy markets, Google's work represents an emerging model in which large loads can play a more dynamic role in the power system rather than simply being served by it.
EPE's Energy Intelligence Platform brings together purpose-built engineering technology, automation, AI and EPE's power systems expertise to help utilities, grid operators, developers and large energy users analyze increasingly complex systems and make decisions at greater speed and scale.
“Transmission, distribution and large-load development have traditionally been approached as separate parts of the electric power system,” Badr said. “Increasingly, they have to be understood together. The work represented by these three awards illustrates what becomes possible when deep domain expertise, technology and customer collaboration come together to solve problems across the grid.”
The 2026 EPE Innovation Partner Awards were presented to the recipients during GridNEXT ATX 2026, co-hosted by EPE and CleanTX, on October 1.
About Electric Power Engineers
Electric Power Engineers (EPE) is a global power and energy engineering and technology firm providing consulting expertise, advanced analytics, and purpose-built software solutions across the electric power ecosystem. EPE works with utilities, system operators, generation and storage developers, large energy users and other organizations navigating the transformation of the global power system.
Through deep domain expertise, technology, automation and AI, EPE helps its clients address complex challenges across generation, transmission, distribution and large-load integration in pursuit of a more reliable, resilient, affordable and flexible electric grid.
For more information, visit epeconsulting.com.
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Electric Power Engineers
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