PRESS RELEASE
22 October 2018. For the third year running, The University of Melbourne and Energy Hack founding partner Powershop Australia have hosted industry, academics, professionals, students and start-ups for Energy Hack 2018.
Hack team Powershop Rangerz won the $5,000 first prize for their idea which provides a unique and engaging smart meter-enabled app which gamifies energy efficiency for schools – saving schools money and educating the next generation of energy consumers.
Energy Hack is one of Australia’s largest energy hackathons. The event brings together students and professionals from all walks of life to look into the future and drive innovation towards stable, abundant and affordable energy for Australians.
Over the weekend the teams had two days to develop their ideas around aiming to improve energy affordability, reliability, and/or reduce emissions and pitched their concepts to a panel of industry expert judges including Simon Holmes a Court (Energy Transition Hub, University of Melbourne), Sarah Proudfoot (Australian Energy Regulator), Dean Spaccavento (Reposit Power), Maggie McNamara (Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning), Michael Benveniste (Powershop Australia), Prof Michael Brear and Anita La Rosa (University of Melbourne), Rose Skandari (CitiPower and Powercor).
Powershop Australia CEO Ed McManus said, “Powershop is proud to partner with The University of Melbourne to bring the Energy Hack back for the third year in a row. We are passionate about supporting innovation and progress in the energy industry. Since the first Energy Hack we have launched Powershop Labs to mentor and support renewable energy start-ups. We’re looking forward to working with this year’s teams over the weekend to build ideas that could help shape the future of the energy industry.”
Professor Michael Brear, Director Melbourne Energy Institute said, “The Energy Hack has given our students and the other participants a chance to work with experienced professionals on some of the big problems facing the energy sector. The calibre of projects developed during the Energy Hack shows how talented and passionate our community is about building a lower emissions energy future.”
With the support of the Victorian State Government, City of Melbourne, Citipower PowerCor, AEMO, Siemens and Arup, the two day event was even bigger and better than last year.
