Are you ready for the New Energy Challenge?

Win valuable support for your energy innovation

The New Energy Challenge (NEC) helps technology-focused start-ups and scale-ups develop emerging technologies that will promote sustainability and shape the future of the energy sector. Competition finalists will have opportunities to connect with investors and experts to unlock the knowledge, contacts, funding and support they need to scale their businesses and help drive change.

For NEC 2024, the organisers are seeking innovative proposals two key areas:

Industrial energy and
Electrochemical battery storage and stationary applications.

Topic 1: Industrial energy

The energy industry is changing and there is a growing focus on the challenges and opportunities of industrial electrification and power demand flexibility. NEC 2024 is looking for solutions that are designed for industrial processes to enhance industrial demand-side flexibility and energy forecasting. This involves understanding the unique energy requirements of factories, manufacturing plants and other industrial facilities.

We are particularly interested in:

solutions for opportunity evaluation of industrial electrification and demand flexibility;
industrial flex-technology ecosystems, with an emphasis on those that enhance demand-side flexibility and enable more effective integration of renewable energy sources into the grid;
AI-driven models and algorithms to help optimise energy consumption, reduce carbon emissions and contribute to the flexibility of the energy ecosystem;
fully electrified processes for producing fuel/energy carriers; and
electrical and thermal energy demand forecasting solutions that can accurately predict load demand and help industries to better plan energy usage and reduce operational costs.

Topic 2: Innovation in electrochemical battery storage and stationary applications

Li-ion stationary battery systems have been deployed for applications such as high-powered electric vehicle charging, trading of green electrons and time shifting of renewable power generation. Recent advances in stationary battery systems have increased system energy density, cycle life, and/or safety. These improvements represent an evolution in product performance, but we are looking for revolutionary solutions and novel approaches.

We are particularly interested in solutions that:

enhance the capabilities of materials and components used in Li-ion stationary systems;
are based on different (non-Li-ion) chemistries (e.g., sodium, zinc, magnesium, calcium or other) or different system architectures (high-temperature, metal–air, redox flow or other); or
improve in-life estimation of Li-ion KPIs (e.g., state of charge, state of health) and lead to an accurate forecasting of remaining life, while being flexible enough to cope with different battery dispatching use case(s) during an asset’s lifetime. Solutions may be software-only, or software–hardware combinations.

Take the next step

The NEC 2024 competition aims to encourage and foster a positive, collaborative environment for rapid and effective development and deployment of new energy technologies. By connecting energy-sector start-ups and scale-ups with industry stakeholders, our aim is to accelerate decarbonisation of global energy systems.

The finalists will join a variety of workshops and training sessions during an exciting accelerator programme. They will work with investors and experts during this final phase of the challenge, thereby unlocking the knowledge, contacts and support needed to develop their company and product. The winning companies may be awarded a collaboration or funding to further scale their businesses.

We look forward to seeing your submissions.