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The innovation and entrepreneurship center of the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (FCFM) of the University of Chile, Open Beauchef, invited the company to present its problems to academics, researchers and students.
Transelec, the main power transmission company in Chile and the largest provider of high voltage systems in the country (10,135 kilometers of lines and 69 substations of 500 kV and 220 kV, from Arica and Parinacota to the Los Lagos region), was invited by Open Beauchef to present its main challenges in innovation to researchers from the Center for Mathematical Modeling (CMM) and the Copernicus Regional Center, academics and students from the FCFM and representatives of startups such as DualVision and Clickie.
The executive director of Open Beauchef, Alejandro Pantoja, explained that “as an innovation center we are seeking to bring the challenges of industry closer to the Faculty and to connect on issues of culture, innovation, entrepreneurship and technology transfer. In other words, to serve as a bridge (…) These meetings that we are establishing with the companies are to be able to provide services. We believe that these instances are a first candy that will allow us to strengthen relationships and realize projects, both for our startups and for the Faculty”.
Tomás Riddell, head of Transelec Ventures (innovation area), announced the 3 open challenges that, on June 29, the company will officially present in the 2023 call for proposals: Immersive solutions and digital experience, Automatic monitoring of substation construction and Optimization in transmission line construction.
“We are about to launch three challenges, the first one has to do with everything related to digital twins, augmented reality, virtual reality and that allows us to generate use cases where we can visualize the data or interact with the data we currently have, in a much more interactive, easy and available way. The second has to do with the fact that we do not have “eyes” on the construction sites, we do not know the state of progress in real time and we do not know the contractor’s performance. The last one is about the construction of transmission lines, because for us it is very important to finish the work on time, that marks the milestone of commissioning”, he said.
Riddell added that “we are looking for solutions, construction methodologies and tools in general that will allow us to shorten the time of some critical activities such as cabling, laying foundations and excavations, and commissioning as such”.
Jaime Ortega, CMM researcher. Photo: Alonso Farías.
The applications coordinator of the Copernicus Regional Center and CMM researcher, Jaime Ortega, explained that “one of the issues we raised was the use of satellite images and how they can help the company’s planning and processes. When they design transmission lines, for example, they have to make an analysis of the sectors and, clearly, satellite technology can help. On the other hand, transmission lines normally have to be monitored, they cannot be too close to forests, because they can generate forest fires and there, again, satellite technology could be an alternative”.
Jorge Amaya, FCFM academic and CMM researcher, explained that “in the case of energy generation and transmission, there are many resource optimization problems, and in the use there are also many challenges that are not solved and that are technologically interesting. I think there is a lot of information that is probably not being used. I have the impression that there is a vein of work out there”.
Jorge Amaya, CMM researcher. Photo: Alonso Farías.
“Efficiency in construction, whether of high-voltage grids or infrastructure installation, must be environmentally friendly, and this analysis can be done with satellite images that can help make better decisions on how, where and in what magnitude to generate and transmit energy. We have a great challenge in Chile to make rational decisions regarding the protection of ecosystems and attack sustainability issues with mathematical modeling”, he added.
Next step
At the end of all the presentations, the head of Transelec Ventures stated that “what they presented fits very well with Transelec’s tasks. Mainly the issue of satellite images is directly related to a geographic information system, based on satellite images that we use for the design of transmission lines, also for vegetation monitoring. We are an infrastructure company, an equipment company, so predictive maintenance and fault projection is very important for us, so there was also a very good match”.
“We are committed to come and visit the (Mathematical Modeling) center and the supercomputer in detail. In addition, these figures that connect – such as Open Beauchef – are very important, because the networking of companies is usually traditional with their suppliers or contractors, so that there are these instances are a direct gateway to connect very quickly with many entrepreneurs and researchers”, concluded Riddell.
Members of the FCFM community and Transelec representatives. Photo: Alonso Farías.
By Alonso Farías Ponce, CMM journalist.
Posted on Jun 28, 2023 in News
