ERIA has opened the call for the third edition of its acceleration program. The open call, aimed at startups in pre-seed and seed stages, will run through April 13 and seeks companies developing innovative solutions to tackle Estabanell’s challenges in energy generation, distribution, and sales to customers.
This is the third edition of ERIA’s acceleration program to identify innovative projects with tangible business impact, aligned with customer needs and the evolution of the energy sector. The collaboration model between startups and Estabanell enables validating innovative solutions by testing their technologies in real-world environments to assess potential and explore collaboration opportunities with the group. This approach to continuous innovation turns disruptive projects into practical applications within the energy sector.
Four Focus Areas
In this edition, the following topics will be addressed:
- Renewable energy generation: Advanced operation and maintenance for photovoltaic plants. Solutions based on drones, robotics, and advanced analytics to detect incidents in solar plants early and improve the efficiency of plant operations and maintenance.
- Energy distribution: new digital services for the low-voltage grid. Technologies that leverage the digitalization of the electrical grid to enable data-based services, distributed energy flexibility, and digital platforms for third-party developers.
- Energy sales: compact and affordable home battery. Development of compact, intelligent residential batteries tailored to homes with contracted power between 3 and 7 kW to optimize consumption and generate energy savings.
- Energy sales: home microflexibility with customer control. Digital solutions to activate energy flexibility in homes without an electric vehicle or air-source heat pump, using consumption data to reduce costs and improve the customer experience.
Acceleration with mentorship, resources, and sector connections
The acceleration program lasts approximately six months. The four selected startups will receive comprehensive support to advance their project in an equity-free model. Among the program’s main benefits are personalized strategic guidance, with a board of mentors for each startup formed by two or three mentors from the Áticco Lab network and an energy specialist mentor from Estabanell, as well as an initial two-day Growth Bootcamp in Barcelona to define objectives and the growth plan for each project.
After the program ends, ERIA and the Estabanell Group will be able to propose to participating startups the execution of a proof of concept (PoC) for their product or service, making available the infrastructure and resources of a group with more than 125 years of experience in the energy sector.
The startup with the best trajectory during the program will receive a prize of €10,000, which will be determined based on the KPIs tracked during the acceleration process.
Once the program concludes, startups will be able to conduct pilot tests or proofs of concept (PoC) with the various Estabanell Group companies to validate their technology in a real-world environment.
