Theoretical and applied approaches to assessing the level of progressiveness and innovativeness of electric grid construction projects

The article presents the study of conceptual directions of modernization of electric grids and innovative developments in the energy sector including evolutionary and breakthrough innovation. The author analyses the state of Russia’s market of the electric power industry and studies the experience and efficiency of research and development activities of the largest energy company PJSC ROSSETI. The priorities of innovative development in achieving energy efficiency are identified. The author of the article justifies the necessity of introduction of variant design during the implementation of investment projects of electric grid construction. Complex economic and technical assessment of the level of innovativeness and progressiveness of the project solutions which takes into account the scale of the manifestation of the economic effect should become the basis for this approach. The optimality of the engineering, technological and design solutions about the facility or building depends on both the level of qualification and experience of the designers and the quality of the software products used. Moreover, variant or exploratory design causes the need for the formation of innovative thinking among both developers and customers. The result of inventive creativity requires further assessment of the level of progressiveness and commercial feasibility of the created product. The author suggests principal and sectoral groups of criteria which allow recognizing new products or technologies resulting from R&D as progressive and/or innovative. The article also contains the analysis of the group of criteria characterizing the level of technical equipment of the developer company. On the other hand, both exploratory design of technological systems and variant construction design result in the prolongation of the term of performance of contractual works. In return, prolongation of the terms results in increasing the cost of implementing design solutions. The situation may be solved by creating an open library of uniform projects with innovative characteristics and implementation practice.