EDPR University Challenge is a competition promoted by EDP Renewables, one of the major market players in renewable energy. Entrants are required to design a project which would be adequate to the EDP Renewables reality in its technical, marketing or business aspects. The rules of the competition prohibit the entrants from revealing any details of their concepts until the Final Gala, which is scheduled for 11 October this year.

What has made our students enter? “We decided we wanted to do something all by ourselves, outside the University, and see if we could work together as a team, do something from scratch, without being told what to do by our teachers,” says Monika Lis.

That is how a team of four was formed. Monika Lis, Dominik Selwa and Michał Zarębski are students of the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering and Łukasz Kulas is from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

“I’ve been made the coordinator of our group and I’m responsible for the economic part and for the choice of energy sources,” says Monika Lis. “Dominik deals with simulations using graphics software, Łukasz handles everything connected with circuits and electrical calculations and Michał digs up intelligence on Poland’s energy market and collects details on transport.”

The students of Warsaw University of Technology have worked on their project for two months and for 8 hours a day in the last two weeks. The effect of their efforts had to be presented in a report providing an obligatory technical and economic analysis of the project. “Otherwise the content was pretty up to us and we opted for simulations powered by graphics software as fitting for our concept,” says Monika Lis.

Importantly, the competition materials had to be prepared all in English.

“Now, we have to make a presentation in a start-up style format, and do it in English, of course,” Monika Lis explains.

The selection of the winning projects will be a two-stage process. At the first stage, 15 teams qualified for the finals will present their work. Only 5 of them will make it to the second stage. And the top three winners will be picked from the shortlisted group. The winning team will be awarded PLN 15,000 and the prize for the runners-up is PLN 10,000 and that for the third place is PLN 5,000.

Agnieszka Kapela

Office for Promotion and Information