The best project was selected in ENERGY+ !nnovations Competition

This is the first competition of this type in Poland.  The initiative was to trigger innovativeness in Poland and that is what happened. The authors of the selected project may obtain a total of PLN 1 million financing for the development of their concept.

The organisers waited for ideas which, during 2-3 years, may be used in practice. Over 30 valuable projects were submitted which were reviewed in detail by the Competition Jury, comprising experts of the Polish Institute of Research and Development, GIZA Polish Ventures Fund and Enea.

– Innovations and new technology are an extremely important direction of development for us. We want to establish and strengthen the relations of science and business - explains Enea's president, Krzysztof Zamasz. – We are engaging in numerous projects with the aim to encourage innovation in the energy sector and the whole economy. The project selected in the competition has a great potential of commercial development. We want to test it in our distribution company - he adds.

The selected project relates to the possibility of making the method of HV lines inspections automatic, which improves the reliability and safety of operation of the key elements of the distribution network. The necessity to decrease the number and time of failure interruptions requires care for the managed assets and current knowledge on their technical condition from network operators. Performing manual inspections is frequently not enough to guarantee reliable and safe energy supplies, especially on core overhead HV lines, being the network's spine.

The idea givers of the selected solution are young people, graduates of technical institutions of the following profiles: automation and robotics and materials engineering. They participate in numerous research projects and competitions, e.g. in the largest in Poland competition of mobile robots - Robomaticon. Joining the knowledge, experience and passion of young Polish scientists and possibilities of cooperating with experts from the power sector and Venture Capital funds should considerably improve the chances of the market success of the concept.

The project was appreciated due to: the innovativeness of the proposed solution, compliance with the Strategy of Enea Group, possibility of testing the proposed solutions based on the infrastructure of Enea Operator and the largest commercialisation potential. The other proposals which were among the winners included the areas of generation and distribution of electricity and energy efficiency.

Another step will be conducting detailed analyses of the selected project as regards the law, technology, intellectual property and industrial property. If the results of the analyses are positive, the parties will commence negotiating the transaction terms, and then will establish a company which will be equipped by the competition organisers with the required financial means (via equity holding).

- Having selected the winner does not end our search for innovative solutions for the power sector – emphasises Krzysztof Zamasz. – We made the decision on the establishment of a venture capital fund in the Group, due to which we will soon commence an active searching for financial and organisational support for the ideas of Polish scientists which we will implement in our facilities.