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Overview

The protection of biodiversity is one of the most important values by which a Company's sustainability is measured. Preserving ecosystems and species means respecting life, the Planet's natural heritage, places, and communities' symbols.

The preservation of biodiversity is key in the fight against climate change: an effective implementation of nature-based solutions could be an additional lever to reach the target of maintaining global warming below 1.5°C by 2030.

Enel Green Power (EGP), a global leader in the development and management of energy production from renewable sources (wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal), is aware of the value of the ecosystems and of biodiversity and is committed to the responsible management of natural resources along all of the phases of its plants worldwide, starting from the design, construction, operation and decommissioning.

The protection of biodiversity is a strategic objective of Enel's environmental policy. It is regulated by a specific internal policy, which defines the guidelines for all the Group's biodiversity protection initiatives. EGP has an integrated ecosystem-based approach to preserve the biodiversity and to promote the ecosystem services through an effective implementation of nature-based solutions to maximize environmental benefits and minimize ecological impacts.

With this initiative, EGP is committed to reach even more challenging targets, in order to increase its sustainability, looking for innovative strategies and models to preserve local flora and fauna, to be complementary with the initiatives already in place in its plants.

This Challenge provides contribution to the following SDGs:

  • SDG 13: “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”;
  • SDG 15: "Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss".

For questions about the challenge and your proposal you can contact: EnelOpenInnovabilityChallenges@wazoku.com

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Description

BACKGROUND

Climate change and biodiversity loss are strictly interconnected: climate change is a relevant driver of biodiversity loss on one side and biodiversity loss worsens the climate crisis on the other side. In order to reach the target of limiting the global warming to 1.5°C, CO2 emissions have to be cut in half by 2030. This goal can be achieved by increasing the growth of the renewable energies that needs to be managed to avoid biodiversity loss (e.g. habitat fragmentation). Indeed, renewable plants can contribute to the potential enhancement of biodiversity and restoration of ecosystems within the infrastructure matrix, as for example, providing refuges for specific animals (e.g. fish, mammals).

This Challenge has to be considered in this framework, investigating solutions and strategies that will allow EGP plants to be more sustainable in the energy transition scenario through adequate management interventions enabling the biosphere resilience to climate change, identifying the hotspots of vulnerability and resilience of the ecosystems. The following links describe representative examples of existing EGP plants and initiatives aimed at preserving biodiversity.

  • Enel Green Power’s Sustainable Renewable Projects

http://enelgreenpower.com/our-projects

  • The Photovoltaic Plant That Floats on Water

http://enelgreenpower.com/media/news/2020/10/floating-solar-panels-italy

  • Renewable Energy Wind Farm

http://enelgreenpower.com/learning-hub/renewable-energies/wind-energy/wind-farm  

  • Aurora Solar Plant: our first sustainable dual-use solar project

http://enelgreenpower.com/stories/articles/2020/10/aurora-solar-plant-sustainable

  • Agrivoltaic Beekeeping Project in Spain

http://pv-magazine.com/2020/11/18/agrivoltaic-beekeeping-project-in-spain

  • Agrivoltaics: A New Land Use Model in the Shadows of Solar Arrays

http://enelgreenpower.com/stories/articles/2019/04/solar-energy-new-model-land-use

  • In the Enel Green Power Forest 

https://www.enelgreenpower.com/stories/articles/2021/03/reforestation-projects



THE CHALLENGE

Enel Green Power is looking for new tools and techniques, enabling strategies aimed at improving the environmental sustainability and biodiversity preservation of its renewable installations, as photovoltaic plants both on land and floating, wind farms and/or hydroelectric plants. These solutions could be applied at all stages throughout a project’s life cycle, from early design, through the construction, operations and the decommissioning for new and existing plants.

The proposals should include technological and non-technological solutions for the improvement of habitat management and protection of flora and fauna wildlife, avian, terrestrial and aquatic, aiming at the development and the enhancement of eco-system services and of biodiversity restoration. Solutions will have to identify the most suitable conditions for the co-existence of renewable power generation plants and healthy ecosystems, avoiding, e.g.: habitat fragmentation, exotic and invasive species introduction and/or creating more resilient habitat for some species, as pollinator-friendly ones. This list is not exhaustive and the proposals could address additional mitigation actions to restore and preserve biodiversity. 

As mentioned above, EGP has initiated pilot crop cultivation projects to pollinate plants with bees. Pollinator-friendly proposals are welcome provided that they introduce distinctive and innovative aspects as compared to conventional pollinator-friendly solutions.

Submissions should address the following Solution Requirements

The proposed solutions must

  • Be focused on flora and fauna wildlife protection;

  • Be targeted on preservation of ecosystems;

  • Not interfere with the plant operations and maintenance activities; 

  • Be based on sustainable principles, guaranteeing a circular approach by reducing the environmental and ecological footprint.

Moreover, your proposed solution could be carried out and implemented with other stakeholders (non-profit organizations, Universities, Research Centres, etc.) creating shared value for them and promoting a common, forward-looking vision for overcoming fragmentation in biodiversity research, in accordance with local communities and institutions. 

 

PROJECT DELIVERABLES

The submitted proposal should at least include the following documentation: 

  • A detailed technical description and explanation of a solution that can meet the above Solution Requirements;

  • A quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the relationship among direct, indirect, and cumulative effects of the proposed solution on biodiversity preservation; 

  • Evaluation of the impact also in terms of circular economy goals, if any;

  • Costs and benefits;

  • Identification of potential risks or eventual constraints, if any;

  • Data, case studies, patents and journal references or any additional material that supports the proposed solution. 

The proposal should not include any personal identifying information (name, username, company, address, phone, email, personal website, resume, etc.) or any information the Solvers may consider as their Intellectual Property they do not want to share.

Challenge rules

All proposers are invited to read carefully the Challenge and the Regulation of this Challenge, attached below in the Attachments section, before submitting a solution.

By submitting a solution they automatically accept the attached Regulations other than the Terms of Use of this platform.

 

Eligibility

The employees of Enel Green Power and of the other Companies of the Enel Group who are involved in the organization and management of the Competition or admitted to the Open Innovability Portal back office, as well as their spouses or partners and their relatives up to the fourth degree, are not eligible for participation in this Challenge.

Also, employees of the companies of the Enel Group who have worked in the technical sector of power plant environment and impacts mitigation field and that work, in the moment of the challenge, on power plant biodiversity preservation activities, or their spouses, partners or any of their relatives up to the fourth grade determined according to Italian law are not eligible for the participation in this Challenge.

Without prejudice to the article 5.5 of the Terms of Use, the obligation to grant the IP rights set in this article does not apply if the winning solution is proposed by an employee of an Enel company, unless the employee is the owner of the solution according to the relevant national law.

Explain your proposal clearly in English, attach documents (max 5 files, 25MB total size) if needed.

 

Challenge, award, IP rights

This is an Ideation Challenge, which has the following unique features:

  • There is a guaranteed award. The awards will be paid to the best submission(s) as solely determined by the Seeker. The total payout will be $15,000. In case of multiple awarded solutions [maximum five (5)], there will be at least one submission receiving an award no smaller than $5,000, while the others won’t be smaller than $2,500.
  • The Solvers are not required to transfer exclusive intellectual property rights to the Seeker. Rather, by submitting a proposal, the Solver grants to the Seeker a royalty-free, perpetual, and non-exclusive license to use any information included in this proposal, including for promotional purposes.

 

Deadline

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (Central European Time) on June 25th, 2021.

Late submissions will not be considered.

Specific regulation attached at the bottom of this page.

What happens next?

After the Challenge deadline, the Seeker will complete the review process and make a decision with regards to the Winning Solution(s). All Solvers that submit a proposal will be notified on the status of their submissions; furthermore, Solvers will only receive a high level evaluation from the Seeker.

Enel will evaluate the proposal using the following criteria:

  • Overall scientific and technical feasibility of the proposed solution;
  • Economic potential of concept (e.g. Total Cost of Ownership);
  • Business potential for Enel;
  • Novelty and creativity;
  • Potential for proprietary position (i.e., is the technology novel or protectable);
  • User's capabilities and related experience;
  • Realism of the proposed solution;
  • Maturity level of the proposal.

In case the reward includes "Collaboration with Enel", once suitable solution/s have been identified, Enel will reserve the opportunity to start a collaboration, by way of example, all or part of the following activities:

  • Test execution;
  • Supply of prototypes (if an equipment);
  • Installation and site tests;
  • Follow up and monitoring of the proposed idea behavior.

Upon completion of the evaluation, you will receive feedback.

In case of success, an Enel contact person will get in touch with you to discuss the next steps.

The final award for this Challenge is contingent upon satisfactory completion of the verification process, including acceptance of the Challenge-Specific Agreement that is the regulation for this Challenge.

The verification process includes obtaining the following from the Solver: signed affidavit (based on the Challenge-Specific Agreement), employee waiver (if applicable), proof of identify and Counterparty Analysis Questionnaire.

Attachments

Ideation Challenge - Biodiversity Preservation

PDF (0.33MB) Download

About the seeker Enel - Enel GPG

PDF (0.21MB) Download

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