The accepted teams will join the first phase of the PowerLab program. During this period, team members will remain in their current position, and there is no need to relocate, as it’s a part-time program. The PowerLab team will agree with the team members’ managers on the exact amount of time the team can dedicate to the PowerLab project starting with a minimum of 20% (1 day per week). The program will support the teams with coaching, expert feedback, a safe learning environment, quick decision-making, executive attention, and access to the decision-makers for seed funding.

Being a part of PowerLab, you will follow the path in three phases: Explore, Develop and Establish. Depending on the maturity of your project, you can either start in Explore or in Develop phase. The PowerLab core team will support you in the decision of which phase is the best one for you to start with.

In the Explore phase, you validate the challenge your project tackles and prove that it is relevant for TenneT. Start the Explore phase by attending the PowerCamp – a workshop week designed to discover all open questions linked to your project and define how to answer them. At the end of this week, you will pitch your project to a management jury to get the resources for the following months of the Explore phase. This pitch is also a decision point: The jury decides about your project going on to the next phase.

In the Develop phase, you develop a prototype of your solution, test it with potential internal or external users, and get feedback.

Both, Explore and Develop phases are closed with the Demo Day, in which you convince the decision makers to give a green light for establishing your project in the long term within TenneT and supporting your project with budget and resources further.

In the Establish phase, you launch and grow your project by using the tools and methodologies introduced in the program.

Your current position will not be affected by participating in the first phase of the PowerLab program. There will be no changes to your salary and other benefits, your contract stays untouched whilst you are participating in PowerLab. In case you (and your team) is selected to the PowerLab program a 20% time commitment is necessary, these arrangements would be aligned with your manager.

Once you have decided to apply to PowerLab you may let your manager know about it and align with them whether you will get to dedicate at least 20% of your working time to your PowerLab project. Suppose your project is selected to the PowerLab. In that case, we can assist you in this conversation and align with you and your manager on your time and resources spent within PowerLab to limit the impact on the ongoing business. Be aware that your application does not mean you can directly start at PowerLab as you still have to go through our selection process.

If your idea is selected to the PowerLab, we can assist you in this conversation and align with you and your manager on your time and resources spent within the PowerLab in order to limit the impact on the ongoing business.

There is no requirement for relocation.

Participation in PowerLab is on a project-like basis and should be done during your regular working hours. We will help you to make an arrangement with your manager to determine the specific working conditions (e.g., full-time or at least 1 day a week, aka 20% of your working time).

Many of the projects submitted would likely be related to an employee’s existing work area. In that situation, the program will help those teams succeed. However, if temporarily covering your position by somebody else in the short term is required, then please indicate this in your application. If your project is selected, we will discuss potential arrangements with your manager.

After the first phase (Explore or Develop phase, depending on the maturity of your project) of the PowerLab program the team’s progress and results will be evaluated and the jury will decide on the following options:

• You move on to Develop phase, which focuses on building the prototype of your project and testing it with potential internal and external users.
• You move on to Establish phase, which focuses on launching and growing your project.
• You iterate the Explore phase to go even deeper into the validation of your project-specific challenges.
• Continued support by other stakeholders: If the project is promising but does not fit the PowerLab selection criteria for the later stages, we will try to find other follow-up supporters for the projects in the respective divisions. This way, you can continue to work on the projects and make them come to life.
• Stop: In case you realize during the Explore or Develop phases of PowerLab that your project does not work, then we encourage the team to document and share what they have learned. This is a crucial step for the future projects and for establishing a culture of constant learning and improvement within our company.

If a project is successful in the long term and creates new revenue, cost reduction, profit, and/or customers for TenneT, it is essential to ensure that the employees that started the project and put their hard work into it benefit from its success. We want you to lead this journey to succeed and grow together with your project.

If the team invalidates their project (through customer interviews, etc.), we encourage the team to share what they have learned. To quickly realize that a project is not feasible in a market is to be seen as a success, not a failure. The start-up environment is a ‘fail smart or scale fast’ environment in which learning from projects that didn’t work out is crucial for the success of the future projects. We want to encourage this mentality not only within our program but for all TenneT employees.