Project Energize

A sustainable way to harness and share renewable energy

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Inspiration

Electricity can transform people's lives, not just economically but also socially. There is a significant proportion of our society who still don't have access to uninterrupted energy. Our Team would like to use Project Energize to create an ecosystem where we can provide people in developing communities with access to sustainable energy and a platform for people to share excess energy with people in their fellow communities. In recent years large investments have been made in generating renewable energy using Solar Energy. Many of the people in developing countries do not have proper power grids or infrastructure that provided electricity. Hence we were interested in building Energize which is a subset of the larger ecosystem that allows sharing of excess renewable energy generated within the community.

What it does

There are 2 parts to this project, the first part is a Hardware Prototype and the second part is a Software Application. We have built the Software Application for this hackathon. Project Energize aims to solve the issue of SDG No 7 on Affordable and Clean Energy.

The first step would be to encourage and provide subsidies for people in rural communities to own Solar Panels. They can either buy or rent solar panels. Solar Panels would be able to generate renewable energy that they need daily. People living in these communities only need a minimal amount of energy and the Solar energy that they generate on their solar panels can be more than what is required. As a result, the excess energy can be sold to nearby Energy Hubs using the Energize Web Application. The energy Hubs help the community store excess energy and distribute it to the people in times of need.

Impact: Millions of people do not have access to affordable energy. Many of these communities also lack infrastructures such as power grids or power cables. Our Product Energize is unique in the service category. The application uses a Web App and Energy Hub to maintain renewable energy and sell excess energy to hubs. When people need excess energy they can come to these hubs to charge their batteries. This product can be scaled by just establishing energy hubs in their localities.

The ecosystem consists of

  • Solar Panels to generate renewable energy
  • People living in developing communities who harness electricity from Solar Panels
  • Energy Hubs located in the neighborhood maintains excess energy and distribute it to the people
  • Energize Web Application which helps to facilitate Buying and Selling of Electricity, Share information on the location of energy hubs and display energy storage levels of hubs

How we built it

Our Energize Web Application uses Google Firebase as our database to store data such as User information, Hub Information, and other forms of data. We used Google Maps API to display map information. The Front-End is built using ReactJS a modern framework based on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The website uses other libraries such as Bootstrap, Data Visualization, and Google Maps features.

Challenges we ran into

  • We could have built more cool features with more time
  • Understanding documentation that is available and identifying whether this framework is suitable for our project

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a functional End to End Web Application that is user friendly and effective
  • Manage to work on this project while interning during the weekdays
  • Able to complete a software development project in the Hybrid Working method

What we learned

  • Learn to utilize the features of firebase which provides a scalable and reliable database
  • Creativity, Time Management, Team Work and Innovation

What's next for Project Energize

  • The Next Step is to build the hardware services such as building Energy Hubs in rural communities that can facilitate the transfer of excess energy and provide everyone with unrestricted access to renewable energy.
  • Energize is a scalable application. Simply add more energy hubs that centrally store excess energy for the community. These hubs can transfer energy to people who need it.
  • Use Data Analytics to predict the demand and supply of energy that is needed in the community
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