A “hackathon” to brainstorm new wind power technologies will be held for the first time at the WindEurope’s annual conference and exhibition later this month in Amsterdam, under a deal between the industry advocacy body and European sustainable energy innovation outfit InnoEnergy.
The ‘Hack the Wind’ event, a 48-hour technology development sprint by teams for a share of a €20,000 ($23,700) prize, will challenge competitors with solving two as-yet-undisclosed “pressing challenges” facing the wind power industry, one of which will be chosen by Portuguese renewable energy company EDPR.
The teams will develop their ideas using EnOS, a smart, scalable open platform hatched by China’s Envision Energy for Internet of Things applications.
“Digitalisation is a change-maker in the energy business and also in the wind energy sector,” states InnoEnergy chief executive Diego Pavía.
“In times of industry changes, the need for fresh ideas is paramount to strengthen competitiveness and resilience. Hack the Wind's aim is precisely that: connecting bright people from different backgrounds to challenge the status quo.”
Pavía adds: “With Hack the Wind, we are going one step further by fostering new innovations, which will ideally lead to the creation of new innovative start-ups.”
Malgosia Bartosik, WindEurope deputy chief executive, notes that the event has been organised in the spirit of generating “new ideas that can lead to meaningful change for the industry”.
“We are excited to work with InnoEnergy on our first at-event hackathon to drive innovation and new partnerships in the space,” she says.
The hackathon will be held over the first two days of WindEurope 2017, Europe’s biggest wind energy event this year, where Recharge will again be official media partner and publish its high-profile Daily newspapers. The winners of Hack the Wind will be announced in the final day’s issue.
