EDP has already invested 331 million euros in innovation projects in the last two years
EDP's commitment to innovation on a global scale has reached new heights in the last two years. Some of the projects promoted from this investment, including robotics and automation solutions, will be presented at this year's Web Summit where EDP is once again present.
EDP is returning to participate in the Web Summit 2024, in Lisbon, and strengthening its presence at the event by presenting significant advances in innovation at a global level. In the last two years, the company has raised its commitment to innovation to new levels of investment – between 2023 and 2024, 331 million euros were invested in opportunities in line with its strategy to accelerate the energy transition.
In this context, EDP will present some of these innovative projects to the Web Summit edition beginning today, 11 November. The objective is to present initiatives developed by EDP's global innovation area, focused on green technologies and that represent new opportunities for expanding renewable energies. The main projects include solutions for process automation to construct solar power plants, and asset maintenance, technologies that accelerate the construction of electrical networks, the use of drones to optimise asset inspections, combined solar and battery systems for the supply of clean energy, among others.
"Climate change requires significant investment and a rapid acceleration of renewable energy, which we need to treble by 2030. The challenge in terms of speed and scale is urgent and demanding. It is in this context that innovation assumes an increasing importance, as it is what will allow us to overcome many of these challenges”, says Vera Pinto Pereira, executive administrator of EDP and responsible for the group's innovation area. "Investing in innovation is crucial to improving our ability to anticipate trends and generate positive change. If we want different results, we need to do it differently”, concludes Vera Pinto Pereira.
Innovation, green technologies and energy transition will thus mark Vera Pinto Pereira's speech at the opening of the conference's New Energy Summit stage, on the 12th. A presentation that will be joined by another EDP debut at the event: the organization of two Masterclasses, led by innovation experts, which will deepen the challenges of the energy transition and present in greater detail some of the projects with which the company is fulfilling this mission.
The first MasterClass, led by António Coutinho, CEO of EDP Inovação, will be dedicated to the theme 'How can innovation accelerate the energy transition?', exploring the challenges of this urgent change and the essential role of innovation. The second MasterClass will present real and disruptive projects, reinforcing EDP's commitment as a driver of the energy transition through several innovation fronts. The main projects of the three essential aspects of innovation at EDP will be highlighted: the startup ecosystem, investments through the venture capital unit (Ventures) and internal innovation contributions to EDP's entire ecosystem. In addition, to close its participation in the event, EDP organises a conversation on the stage of the New Energy Summit with Michael Liebreich, a British expert in clean energy.
Featured automation projects
Automation is one of the great innovation opportunities of EDP, which has been investing in several projects to incorporate this technology into its processes, ensuring greater speed, quality and efficiency. Currently, the company is developing more than 10 projects that have automated solutions that will help with the challenge of scale and speed for the energy transition.
Among the main highlights are projects aimed at accelerating the construction of underground and overhead land lines, which bring less inconvenience to local communities, robotic solutions that operate alongside workers for a more efficient approach to roofing work, automated solutions that accelerate the construction of solar power plants and reduce execution time, solutions for wind turbine inspection that combine Artificial Intelligence-based software with drone technologies, quadruped robotics for inspection and operational assistance in hydroelectric dams, among others.
"To keep up with the structural challenges of the energy transition in a short period of time, we need to do more and do it differently. The demand for professionals in the renewable energy sector is expected to increase up to fourfold in the European Union by 2030. It is therefore essential to act quickly and on a large scale, and automation combined with human collaboration is the solution that will give us the conditions to face this challenge”, affirms Vera Pinto Pereira.
EDP's main automation projects and other innovation fronts will be presented at the Web Summit on 12 November, at 3:00 p.m., and 13 November at 11:00 a.m., during the two MasterClasses.