Enel Open Innovability Challenge: Vegetation Data Collection and Monitoring

Enel is looking for start -up and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) Suppliers are asked to that can provide specific techniques, hardware (HW) and/or software (SW) to allow the acquisition of data about vegetation and any possible obstacle (buildings, scaffoldings, …) which is in the surrounding area of the lines and can constitute a safety threat for the infrastructure and the obstacle itself.

This is an electronic Request-for-Partners (eRFP) Challenge; the Solver will only need to submit a written proposal to be evaluated by the Seeker with the goal of establishing a collaborative partnership.

Periodic tree pruning comes with high associated costs in all countries and it is difficult to schedule due to the unknown growth speed of different plants. This uncertainty makes standard tree maintenance plans expensive. Because of this, a new need arises: the optimization of vegetation maintenance activities through the use of data collection and monitoring systems, to decide the proper trimming frequency for each area as a function of its peculiar kind of vegetation.

The ambition of this Challenge is to automate as much as possible the field data collection activity and to identify, with high precision and low costs, the species of vegetation and obstacles around the lines using the obtained information. Today this task is performed in a semi-automated way: helicopter assessments and local verifications.

Hence, Enel is looking for suppliers to provide specific techniques/HW/SW to allow the acquisition of data about vegetation and any possible obstacle (buildings, scaffoldings, …) which is in the surrounding area of the lines and can constitute a safety threat for the infrastructure and the obstacle itself, such information with the objective of reducing as much as possible human intervention and related costs.

This Challenge provides a contribution to the following Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3 - Good health and well being
• SDG 8 - Decent work and economic growth
• SDG 9 - Industry Innovation and Infrastructure

This is an electronic Request-for-Partners (eRFP) Challenge. The Solver will write a preliminary proposal as described above to be evaluated by the Seeker with a goal of establishing a collaborative partnership. Upon completion of the evaluation, the Seeker may contact selected Solvers directly to work out terms for a collaboration.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• The call is open only to already established companies (start-ups and SMEs) from any country around the world. Individuals are not eligible.
• For successful and selected Solvers Enel will provide financial and technical support to develop and test the technologies and selected solutions in the Innovation Lab located in Milan. Startups and SMEs will have access to testing infrastructures in addition to being connected to national and international stakeholders thanks to the global network of Enel Innovation Hubs.
• The Enel’s investment will be in the co-development or in testing activities: for each project the necessary amount and the modalities will be evaluated together with the Solver.
• If the test/PoC will be successful, Enel will offer a concrete opportunity to scale-up the solution by adopting it on its own business through commercial agreements.
• A webinar will be organized on the 19th of November for a Q&A session. You can find the recording of the webinar at THIS LINK.

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (Central European Time, and not  US Eastern Time) on January 10, 2019. Late submissions will not be considered. However, we strongly recommend Solvers to submit before the December 05 in order to allow our experts from different business lines to deep dive into your solution.

ABOUT THE SEEKER

Enel is a multinational energy company and one of the world’s leading integrated electricity and gas operators. Enel works in 34 countries across 5 continents, generating energy with a net installed capacity of more than 86 GW, selling gas and distributing electricity across a network spanning approximately 2.2 million km.

With almost 71 million end users around the world, Enel has the biggest customer base among its European competitors, and it is one of Europe’s leading energy companies by installed capacity and reported EBITDA. The Enel Group is made up of nearly 70,000 people from around the world whose brilliant work is based on our values of Responsibility, Innovation, Trust and Proactivity.

Enel is dedicated to creating innovative solutions that meet society’s changing needs. Through its openinnovability.com crowdsourcing platform, the company connects people and ideas from across the world, encouraging anyone to propose sustainable innovation projects and solutions that help develop local communities.  Enel is also committed to helping to achieve four of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

7 - Access to affordable and clean energy

4 - Support for quality education

8 - Contributing to socio-economic development in the communities in which Enel operates

13 - The fight against climate change

Enel Global Infrastructure and Networks is the business line in charge of steering and coordinating the energy transmission and distribution activities of Enel Group in 8 Countries (Europe and South America). Enel Distribución Peru, with more than 1.4M end users and 8TWh distributed energy, is the second Distribution System Operator in the Country, managing the distribution network of Lima.

With a view of sharing and fostering the best practice in network digitalisation and industry 4.0, from field operations to a new customer experience, Enel Global Infrastructure and Networks is today an international benchmark for Smart Meter and Smart Grid solutions.