EDP returns to Web Summit and is looking to invest in startups to accelerate the energy transition
For the fifth consecutive year, the company will be present at the largest entrepreneurship summit in Europe, with an EDP Master Class on hydrogen. The group's most recent innovations, such as the Windfloat Atlantic or the Solar Neighborhoods, will also be highlighted.
This year, and despite being held in a completely digital format, Web Summit continues to be a mandatory place for EDP to establish contact with innovative startups.
EDP's presence at the largest entrepreneurship summit in Europe is already known by the hundreds of startups that pitch to the company, presenting its solutions in the areas of renewable energies, energy storage and new-downstream. EDP will adapt to the new format of the event, maintaining the same objectives: to promote EDP on an international stage, and to find startups that can add value to the group, in its various business areas and worldwide.
Vera Pinto Pereira, Executive Board Member at EDP, will be a keynote speaker at this event, which is attended by thousands of people from all over the world each year. Under the theme “The energy transition is calling you”, it will address the important role of utilities in reducing carbon emissions, and how these companies can lead our transition to a more sustainable world. Along this critical path, among other relevant steps, is the growing commitment to renewable energy and the promotion of innovative solutions along the value chain - such as the Windfloat Atlantic project, the first floating wind farm in continental Europe, or the recent EDP Solar Neighborhoods, which will allow for the creation of solar energy communities among neighbors. The talk will take place on December 4th at 4.50 pm.
During the Web Summit, EDP will also promote a Master Class on green hydrogen, in which it will demonstrate the strong potential that this new technological solution represents for the world of energy, and for a more sustainable future. The investment in hydrogen, which involves more and more innovation agents, companies, investors and countries, is clearly a trend which is one of the major ways to ensure that the goals of decarbonization and energy production from clean sources are achieved. This session, which will take place on December 3rd between 3.30 pm and 4.00 pm, will have the theme of "Green Hydrogen: the next revolution in the energy sector", with interventions by António Vidigal, president of EDP Innovation, and the Cleaner Energy team at EDP Inovação.
At last year's edition, EDP heard from almost 400 startups and, from these, selected 80 for in-depth meetings about their businesses. Since Web Summit came to Portugal, more than 850 startups were able to present their ideas to EDP during the days of the event, in a unique opportunity to contact a company present in 19 countries and with more than 11 million clients.
Entrepreneurship and innovation are areas where EDP has been investing, and where it currently has an expressive participation, namely through various instruments to support entrepreneurship. One of these is EDP Ventures, which makes venture capital investments in early stage startups and still has 30 million euros to invest in ground breaking projects that want to shape the future of the energy sector. EDP Ventures has investment teams located in Portugal, Brazil and Spain, but operates and invests all over the world. Currently, it has 33 companies in its portfolio, located in Europe, Brazil, USA, Israel and Bangladesh. Of the 70 million euros under management, it has already invested more than 40 million euros in startups with disruptive solutions for the energy sector. The most recent investments were made in two companies operating in the USA: Yotta Energy, which develops an innovative solar storage solution, and Aperio, that offers data integrity solutions and has its engineering and research team based in Israel. The latter was a startup that EDP met at the first edition of the Web Summit.
EDP also promotes several programs to support technological startups, such as Free Electrons and Starter Business Acceleration, managed by EDP Starter. EDP has invited 10 startups to participate in the Web Summit, including the nine finalists of the Starter Business Acceleration. The finals of this program, which last year happened during the Web Summit, took place this year in a virtual way, on November 18th. The winner received a prize of 50 thousand euros.
EDP's recruitment area will also be present on the Web Summit's Jobs Board, where participants and startups can express their interest in working at EDP.
List of startups that will be attending Web Summit with EDP:
EUROPE
Innovative robotic technology that provides more efficient, faster and safer Opertation & Maintenance services in wind farms.
EET’s hardware system, SolMate, is a plug-in photovoltaic and storage device for every home. It can detect the power consumption of the household from any wall socket without any further hardware.
YData aims to support a world led by data, enabling organizations to guarantee their users' privacy and be compliant with privacy regulation. The use of YData’s Data science helps companies to develop data-driven solutions faster, while keeping their data private and easy accessible for data science teams.
Critical communications solution built especially for handling communications, alerting and critical data management in emergencies and disasters.
NORAM
Aplanet empowers organizations with cloud-based solutions that allows them to manage, measure and report their social and environmental impact.
ClimaCell provides best-in-class Weather Intelligence and operational tools to enable better business decisions and efficient operations for power companies.
Yotta Energy is an energy storage company pioneering a new "panel-level" format that is simple, modular, cost-effective, safe and durable. They are on a mission to lead the world’s transition to 100% clean renewable energy by simplifying its keystone: energy storage.
LATAM
Energy Source works with a solution to reduce, reuse and recycling Lithium Ion
Batteries and through their green solar lamp they can store the electricity to
provide lighting everywhere.
Nuveo is able to automate manual processes as well as interpret contracts or any documents or images through AI, making their clients less dependent on manual back-office work.
Plataforma Verde can control all of the environment’s KPI’s in the generation and distribution point of view. They can also control the discarded materials during the lines maintenance.
