Accelerating innovation is among the long list of recommendations needed to strengthen the U.S. power grid, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 

The report, mandated by Congress, came in the wake of the winter freeze last month that severely strained the power grid in Texas and other states.

In the report, sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE), researchers said the U.S. electricity system needs more coordination and cohesion if it is going to strengthen its safety, reliability and resilience, as well as become more and environmentally friendly.

A mixture of private and public interests controls parts of the U.S. grid, researchers said, “making it difficult to generalize about many aspects of the system across the country, or...