A new hackathon is calling on UK-based small businesses, academics, students, consultancies and specialists from data-led sectors to pitch their innovative ideas for the offshore wind sector.
The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult has partnered with ScottishPower Renewables, National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) and the Energy Technology Partnership (ETP) to launch the competition.
The two-day hackathon, which is open for registrations, will centre around an industrial data-led challenge set by ScottishPower Renewables, with the aim of developing a prototype solution for use in wind farm operations.
Teams of up to six people will be eligible to win a £10,000 prize pot, with a view to working with ORE Catapult to develop their solution further, along with the opportunity to pitch that solution to senior managers at ScottishPower Renewables.
The problem statement for the 36-hour hackathon is: “Provide an accurate wind farm Power Available (PA) measure using data that is already available at operational wind farms.”
PA is the electrical power that can be provided by a wind farm at any given instant and is influenced by both the wind resource in that moment and the status of the assets, including any onsite curtailment.
Dr Conaill Soraghan, Data & Digitalisation Team Leader at ORE Catapult said: “We are very excited about this event and are very much looking forward to seeing what innovative prototypes the participants will bring forward for ScottishPower’s consideration.
“The National Grid ESO has ambitions to gather a PA signal from all operational wind farms on the grid to improve efficiency and reduce the costs of running the entire national power system. However, current measures of PA are not accurate enough to be used in operations, and ORE Catapult hopes that the hackathon will provide a reliable business case to offer ongoing support on this topic after the competition.”
Tim Fletcher, Senior Asset Performance Analysis Engineer at ScottishPower Renewables added providing real-time PA data to National Grid ESO from wind farms is a “vital step in the transition to a zero carbon electricity system” and will enable ScottishPower Renewables to further provide ancillary services such as frequency response.
The event will take place on 28th and 29th October at the Glasgow Science Centre.
