The best and brightest young companies descended on Berlin last month for the second annual Startup Energy Transition (SET) tech festival and awards. The global network of innovators came together to share the tech that’s fighting climate change by supporting a swift transition to renewable energy sources.
Akselos was selected from over 1000 applications by a panel of expert judges to join the SET100 network, alongside the most ‘innovative, savvy and promising’ startups in the energy sector.
Key themes discussed at the festival included smart mobility, smart networks, smart cities and solutions to the water-energy-food nexus.
The awards covered a number of categories, including Low Carbon Energy Production, in which Akselos was successful. Our application described how our Predictive Digital Twins can help lower the cost of wind energy by optimising design, and to secure the stability of supply through Condition-Based Monitoring.
It was great to be in an environment that brought together so many companies and thinkers at the forefront of the digital movement. Christoph Frei, CEO of the World Energy Council, said when addressing attendees that the transition can only be a success when linked with digitalization. I couldn’t agree more. You only have to look at the progress made in areas like smart storage, intelligent grids and predictive analytics to see the momentum that digital tech brings.
There were many interesting discussions. Dr. Johannes Teyssen, CEO of E.ON SE, discussed the role of the German energy transition and advocated a floor price for carbon emissions to enforce a more market-driven move towards renewables.
It was great to be introduced to door2door, a German company focused on revolutionizing mobility by working with cities and public transport operators to create on-demand services. Managing Director Dr. Tom Kirschbaum led an interesting discussion about mobility concepts for future cities and how different urban mobility will look in the years to come. He suggested we think about mobility as a product, but it’s more than that because it’s linked to the way we like to live.
Many speakers unanimously confirmed that policy is still lacking to give the energy transition the right legal framework, and that a vision to promote investor security is needed to accelerate the pace.
Overall a really engaging event. We look forward to working with the SET100 network to contribute to the energy transition.
This post was originally published by Jonas Ballani, PhD, Senior Technology Developer, on LINKEDIN.