Project to prevent failures in solar panels wins second edition of the Energy Innovation Challenge

January 31, 2025

• A team of Mechanical Civil Engineering students from the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María (UTFSM) won the second edition of the Energy Innovation Challenge, a competition by AES Andes to promote renewable energies with innovative solutions.
• The winning project, led by students from the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, allows for the identification, classification and prediction of energy infrastructure failures. In the most recent call for the competition, which brings students closer to the working world, seven teams from five national universities participated as finalists.

 

For the second edition of this event, the challenge posed to national undergraduate university students was the construction, operation, and maintenance of photovoltaic solar projects and battery energy storage systems. The winning proposal, from the Helimec team, uses neural networks to capture thermal images and thus identify, classify, and predict failures in photovoltaic panels.

Constanza Hawa, a member of the winning team, stated, “We are very grateful to AES because this allows us to develop both soft and technical skills. Due to the emphasis of our studies, we want to work on this type of project throughout our careers, so we appreciate having been able to work on such a real case while still being university students.”

Second place was awarded to the Innovasolar team, also from UTFSM, with their Battery Monitoring System BESS project using Machine Learning (artificial intelligence). Team member Eduardo Hasbún valued the challenge. He said, “It helps a lot in the professional development of the country, because before entering the working world, we are getting to know the industrial side.”

Third place also went to a team from UTFSM, the USM Green Change, which proposed a battery immersion cooling system. Its representative, Juan Pedro Alfaro, commented on the competition, “I think it’s an excellent opportunity because it allows us to put into practice everything we have learned, connect with the industry, and demonstrate the company’s commitment to the training of professionals.”

Javier Dib, CEO of AES Andes, said, “It was inspiring to see so many young people showing their ideas and what the future of the energy sector might be. What we are looking for with this challenge is to bring in young people who may think outside the box, who help us with different thinking, and at the same time motivate them to get closer to this sector."

The first place winners received a prize of US $4,000, the second US $3,000 and the third US$1,500, in addition to a visit to one of the company’s renewable operations. In addition to the CEO, the jury was composed of CFO Ricardo Roizen, Director of Regulatory Affairs Paula Hartung and Director of Human Resources Carla Requena.

This year, 27 teams from 11 universities participated, with seven of them going onto the final.