The UK office was proudly represented by Rachel Knight and Adil Ahmed at a Hackathon organized by the Integrated Power Business Unit of TotalEnergies — a three-day development marathon dedicated to innovation.
Starting in La Défense, Rachel Knight (Collections Data Manager within the Credit Team) and Adil Ahmed (Product and Go-to-Market Manager within the Marketing Team) - who competed in separate teams - travelled to Château de Bellinglise to meet their teammates from Spain, France, and Brussels. Each team was assigned a volunteer from the IPBU Innovation team and a ‘Start-up coach’ with experience from innovative technology companies such as Meta and Apple.
What was the challenge of the first IP InnoGames?
The aim was to come up with innovative solutions to real-life IPBU problems. Each team had a good mix of expertise, from programming, app/software design, and data science to product management, marketing, and sales.
Here is what they had to say:
Adil:
"My team, ‘SmartNet,’ was tasked with ‘encouraging peer-to-peer markets,’ and our solution provided integrated both the residential and B2B spaces for a unique approach to peer 2 peer sharing through batteries.
At first, we realized that we all had different understandings of the energy market and available technologies—we worked across different borders and skills. We spent one of the three days drawing out the entire grid, right down to the community level. From this, we started conceptualizing the use of batteries and ancillaries and had a unique idea of where the battery is best placed—at the community level rather than the household.
From there, we built a business model and, using exact numbers, demonstrated how the battery could be funded, as well as its capacity, lifespan, and ability to meet our goals of being profitable—all while removing pressure from the national grid.
The key merit of our idea was to have a community-level battery that aggregates and optimizes household demand through SmartNet’s ‘Intelligent Optimizer.’ A local supermarket, which has assets, would also spill its excess renewable energy into the community—demonstrating its commitment to ESG and being rewarded with more stable prices than offloading to the grid, while avoiding grid costs.
To build the model, we looked at a proposed location where we felt it was most feasible. We considered peak shaving, negative pricing, ancillaries to balance, and introduced a proportional use of the battery (60% for the community, 40% for TotalEnergies to export to fund the battery through gained margins, negative prices, and excess from the local business).
It was incredible to build this solution, with a fully working optimizing program—we even handed the ‘dragons’ two mobile phones with physical apps for demonstration."
Rachel:
"For large B2B customers, we came up with an innovative idea that provides the customer with a non-technical prototype to give them added value when they purchase renewable energies from TotalEnergies.
The prototype included utilizing the unused space on multisites and was a unique offering not provided by any current energy providers. We demonstrated that adding the prototype to the renewable purchase should help develop and strengthen the relationship between TotalEnergies and the customer and is scalable and easily adjusted to different countries.
Winning the first edition of InnoGames feels good, but it is not the most important part. I care more about the experience itself, implementing an innovation in three days. It is all about learning new things, working with others, and bringing ideas to life. In the end, we took part in this immersive experience to #share, connect, and collaborate. Special thanks to the GreyTest team for all the hard work, creative thinking, and team effort."
Of course, to balance the intense pressure and keep the creativity flowing, there was also time for some fun.
On the first evening, there was a big screen showing the France vs. Spain football match, as well as karaoke, a spa, gym, badminton, games rooms, and much more on site, every night!
