The energy multinational Enel has launched ReShape: Innovability to build a brighter future, a global call to re-imagine the future and lead the energy transition. The aim is to continue working with startups and SMEs that support the company in its efforts to meet the challenges of the global energy landscape.
Thus, ReShape refers to the organization’s ability to constantly change direction and reinvent itself, from the outside in, and from the inside out, and reflects its commitment to open innovation.
Startups interested in participating in this project can do so from today by registering via the website. Enel has clarified that more challenges will be added throughout the year to the ones already available.
OPEN CHALLENGES
Through this new initiative, Enel proposes different challenges that cover all its lines of business, from energy generation to new value-added products and services. The challenges proposed today are as follows:
- Applying automation to the construction of renewable energy plants. Enel Green Power seeks new solutions to make construction activities, the monitoring of their progress, and the start-up of new plants safer and faster, increasing the tasks that can be carried out remotely or autonomously, through the use of advanced automation solutions and autonomous systems, collaborative robots, artificial intelligence and digital platforms, among other technologies. These innovative solutions will be integrated into the already adopted range of solutions, to give a new shape to the building sites of the future.
- Increasing the safety of employees and ensuring correct distance and traceability. In the wake of the pandemic, Enel needs initiatives to ensure that the recommended guidelines for social distancing and protection are met, both in open and enclosed areas, such as vehicles. In addition, this challenge seeks a solution that is able not only to identify this exposure in the workplace, but also to anonymously track employees who may have been exposed to the virus to prevent its further spread.
- Ensuring sanitation in field operationsThis proposal focuses on innovative solutions and technologies that can improve the sanitation of shared work spaces and equipment, with the aim of strengthening the protection of employee health and safety, reducing the risk of spreading COVID-19.
- Offering remote visits to clients.In view of the new normal, Enel requires low-cost projects to provide its industrial and residential clients with support, assistance and visiting services remotely. The presented projects must reduce the physical visits of the technical service to the client’s facilities and include a high level of interaction and easy installation or use. In the residential segment, solutions should work on the most used personal devices.
- Improving the consumer profile. The aim of this challenge is to understand consumers and end users better. Therefore, it is necessary to find solutions capable of gathering and consolidating data to draw up unique consumer profiles, as well as to identify those who may require special care or who are more vulnerable.
- Fostering the digital experience of clients.To provide more efficient and accessible services, companies are rethinking the way they connect with clients in favor of more digital processes. Enel is seeking solutions focused on improving the consumer experience to reduce the number of steps and operations involved in signing a new contract or in applying for and obtaining a new product or service.
ENEL AND INNOVATION
Enel’s commitment to innovation and startups has not been paralyzed by the COVID-19 crisis; on the contrary, it has been reinforced. An example of this is ReShape, an initiative in line with the group’s conviction that people are the main vehicle through which solutions travel. That is why it is determined to continue supporting startups and working to find innovative and disruptive solutions that change the world.
This commitment has already been reflected in other projects of the company, in which it has worked with nearly 300 startups to implement innovation in all their businesses worldwide. Through its international network of 10 Enel Innovation Hubs in the most innovative ecosystems, or 21 laboratories, the company seeks the best solutions by collaborating with startups and SMEs. Enel is also connected to a community of more than 400,000 active solvers through its crowdsourcing platform Open Innovability.
THE NEW NORMAL AT ENEL
Over the last few years, Enel has been committed to digitalization, energy transition, automation, remote work processes and other technologies that are now essential, allowing, for example,37,000 of the company’s employees to work from home.
Enel has also digitized its assets and launched several innovative technologies within the group, such as drones, cloud processes and automation. Thanks to Innovability (innovation at the service of sustainability) the multinational was the first utility company to have 100% of its data and applications in the cloud, enabling it to operate more quickly, remotely and securely, which is crucial right now.
All the steps the company has taken so far mean that it can now focus on new innovations. This is the case of a data analysis solution that was created in 2019 and that allowed municipalities to improve their services; in this time the solution has been redesigned and is used to track people’s movement during the pandemic.
COVID-19 has undoubtedly been a challenge for companies, which have had to rethink their processes and innovation methods, but in the case of ENEL, its ability to adapt and anticipate change has been its greatest asset. And this now allows it to continue its commitment to innovation and startupswith ReShape.