Team of Prof. Zbigniew Krzemiński winners of the Grand Challenge: Energy competition | Gdańsk University of Technology

The competition was organized by the National Centre for Research and Development, thanks to the support of the European Funds under the Smart Growth Operational Programme.

The winners, MMB Team, including: Prof. Zbigniew  Krzemiński, Robert Dobieglewski, Sebastian Giziewski, Mateusz Karpiczenko, Bartosz Kołpacki, Krzysztof Kowalewski, Piotr Pancewicz, Jędrzej Pietryka, Mariusz Rutkowski, Janusz Szewczyk i Marcin Szostak, is a team commonly involved in engineering electronic circuits and control systems for power electronics and drive devices.

The wind power station developed by the team from Gdańsk University of Technology is equipped with high power factor turbine. Energy conversion i.a. engineered in a manner providing high efficiency. Algorithms for optimal regulation of the turbine,  including energy storage, were adopted within. The device works without power limitations against strong winds and uses maximal wind energy for low and high speeds.

Since now, the MMB Team is also the author of the winner prototype of a home wind power station, in the first, historic final of the Grand Challenge: Energy competition.

– This is many years of hard teamwork - tests and search for an optimal solution. The final version of the prototype occurred 2-3 months ago. We were unsure of the victory until the very end. We are pleased that our hard work was appreciated. We wish for commercialization of our invention – says Janusz Szwczyk, the developer of the MMB Team.

– Congratulations for the MMB Team, the winners of the first Grand Challenge: Energy competition in the Polish history.  You have accomplished a huge success. The final itself was on very high level and the following stage should be the commercialization of the inventions – underlined Wojciech Kamieniecki, PhD Eng., the director of the National Centre for Research and Development, when granting the main prize.

The decisive duel

The competition on the main pitch of PGE National Stadium begun on 16 October in the morning.  Ten best teams of constructors, selected during the Friday semi-finals, entered the competition: Archetyp, BIGI, Chinook Team, DTD, KamilEco, MMB Team, PJWteam, POLDOM, Silesian Wind Generator, WindCraft.

The objective of the Grand Challenge: Energy - the competition organized by the National Centre for Research and Development with the support of the European Funds, under the Smart Growth Operational Programme, is to stimulate the development of groundbreaking solutions for small-sized, effective wind power devices.

During the Saturday Grand Final, the prototypes of the home wind power turbines were working in the artificial wind for six hours. The turbines were placed on a special venting spot and a designated jury supervised the competition, ensuring that each team was provided with the conditions as close to reality as possible. MMB Team turned out to be the team, whose device was the most effective and efficient in converting the wind energy into electricity.

Renewable energy popularization

Over 180 teams from entire Poland applied for the Grand Challenge: Energy competition, originated by NCRD two years ago. The initiative uses the experiences of Grand Challenge competitions, started in 2004 by the American agency DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). In the USA, challenge to develop autonomous car systems resulted not only in development of innovative and successfully implemented technologies, but also integrated the environment of the innovators.

In response to the research problem presented by the Grand Challenge: Energy, the teams of constructors presented the work of the compact devices for individual application, capable of converting wind energy into electricity, to store it (the optional requirement) and return it in most effective way. However, it was not only efficiency that was important. The prototypes of wind turbines had to meet the parameters determined in the Participant Manual, i.a. their dimensions could not exceed a cube of 2 m and their weight 200 kg. Moreover, the systems were esthetic and silent.

Due to the pandemic, the event was organized in a hybrid mode and the competition of the construction teams at PGE National Stadium was transmitted online.

More details on the Grand Challenge: Energy Can be found on: https://wielkiewyzwanie.ncbr.gov.pl