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- Prize Money up to PKR 3 million
- Potential Mentoring & Support to Scale your Venture
- Potential Equity Investment
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Challenge Statements for EPIC
Showcase your innovation in the areas specified in our challenge statements
OR
Share a game-changing idea or a unique solution to revolutionize the power sector1. Demand Forecasting Automation Using AI:
Population in Karachi and KE’s serviced territories is growing with a fast pace. Segmented demand forecasting requires accounting for varying consumers, their profile and usage patterns to enable targeted planning and resource allocation. How can this process be automated using AI, what can be done to reduce manual work?
2. BESS Utilization for Managing System Dynamics Under Growing RE Integration:
As renewable energy’s share in the generation mix rises, variability in output poses threats to grid stability—leading to frequency deviations, voltage fluctuations, and potential curtailments. Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) can capture surplus energy and release it when generation dips, ensuring smoother power delivery. Yet, large-scale BESS deployment introduces its own set of hurdles in terms of cost, lifecycle management, and grid interoperability. How can we design and implement robust BESS solutions that maintain power quality, mitigate intermittency, and deliver reliable service under ever-increasing renewable penetration?
3. Pre-emptive Transformer Level Failure Detection:
Transformer failures disrupt power distribution, lead to unplanned outages, increase maintenance costs, and reduce customer satisfaction. Predicting and preventing transformer-level failures requires a data-driven approach to monitor equipment health, identify failure patterns, and enable proactive maintenance. How can we leverage predictive analytics and automation to reduce unexpected PMT failures while minimizing manual interventions?
4. PV Impact Analysis:
KE’s power distribution network is rapidly integrating Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), primarily Photovoltaic (PV) systems. To ensure grid stability and reliability, it’s crucial to accurately analyze & forecast PV penetration levels across different geographical areas and socioeconomic segments for timely capacity enhancement or shifting strategies, mitigating potential grid congestion and power quality issues. Additionally, KEL grid faces the challenge of managing significant solar (Grid-tied/Off-Grid) PV penetration, especially under variable cloud conditions. Load masking, a phenomenon where PV generation obscures recognizing the true load demand, can intensify this challenge. Design and develop an automated tool to analyze & forecast when any distribution transformer will reach PV penetration threshold by analyzing factors like geographical location, social class, income level, electrical parameters of Distribution Transformers (DTs) and all other relevant variables? How can we accurately predict the net load on an asset (Transformer/Feeder), accounting for the full impact of solar PV generation, to effectively plan load relief strategies?
5. Smart Monitoring of Transmission Lines: Enhancing Grid Reliability:
Ensuring the reliability and efficiency of transmission infrastructure is critical for uninterrupted power supply. Traditional monitoring methods often face challenges in detecting faults, assessing line conditions, and responding to potential failures in real-time. With expanding grids and increasing demand, manual inspections alone are no longer sufficient.
To improve grid resilience and operational efficiency, how can K-Electric implement smart monitoring solutions—leveraging IoT sensors, drones, and GIS mapping to enable real-time fault detection, predictive maintenance, and enhanced transmission line management?
6. Underground MV Cable Health Indexing:
To develop a digital asset management system for K-Electric (KE) to assess the health of energized underground medium voltage (MV) cables. This system aims to create a research-based cable health indexing mechanism using non-destructive testing methods such as Partial discharge, IR, Tan delta & VLF, visual inspections and data analysis techniques. How can we develop an innovative mechanism to identify whether cables have reached the end of life or are no longer suitable for operation, enabling KE to plan timely replacements and ensure network reliability and safety?
7. Real-Time Fleet Tracking & Visibility for Power Utilities:
Power utilities rely on swift field operations to maintain reliable electricity services. Real-time tracking offers greater visibility into vehicles and crews, enabling faster dispatch, reduced downtime, and improved service quality. Yet, implementing these capabilities effectively across diverse regions remains challenging. How can we best achieve real-time fleet tracking and visibility at scale—ensuring minimal disruptions, consistent reliability, and operational efficiency?
8. Proactive Energy Theft Detection:
Energy theft incurs significant losses for power utilities, yet traditional detection methods often fail to flag all suspicious activities in a timely manner. Predictive analytics can transform this process by analyzing consumption patterns, identifying anomalies, and enabling faster interventions. However, deploying such tools effectively requires accurate data, robust algorithms, and integrated workflows. How can we leverage predictive analytics to enhance energy theft detection at scale—minimizing revenue losses and preserving the integrity of power supply?
9. Tamper-Proof PMT-Based Load Shedding Solution:
Solutions to implement load shedding at PMT level for a more targeted approach. By shifting to a PMT-based approach, reliability can be improved and unwarranted disruptions can also be reduced.
The solution has to be effective and tamper-proof—optimizing consumer-centric reliability, minimizing unnecessary power interruptions, and ensuring scalable implementation across diverse operational environment.
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10. Open Innovation: Driving Transformation in the Power Sector:
Do you have a game-changing idea or a unique solution to revolutionize the power sector? Whether it’s an AI-powered innovation, groundbreaking technology, process optimization or a creative approach to enhancing services, we invite you to share your vision! This is your opportunity to present ideas that can reshape the future of energy, improve efficiency, and elevate customer experience.