Australian innovators are encouraged to challenge for funding to cement the country’s place at the forefront of addressing climate change. SGA member GE together with  partners have announced a $200 million open innovation challenge that seeks breakthrough ideas to create a smarter, cleaner, more efficient electric grid and to accelerate the adoption of smart grid technologies.

The global challenge invites technologists, entrepreneurs and start-ups to share their best ideas and come together to take on one of the world’s toughest challenges – building the next-generation power grid to meet the needs of the 21^st century.

Innovation is the engine of our effort to transform the way the world creates, connects and uses power. The need for cleaner energy and better efficiency has never been more apparent. The ideas and technology exist now to make this transformation and this challenge is designed to accelerate this process. It is also a positive way to jump-start new ideas and deploy them on a scale that will modernise the electrical grid around the world.

The challenge is part of GE and partners ecomagination initiative, a global commitment to build innovative clean energy technologies and will help fund the most promising ideas. Proposals are sought in three broad categories: Renewables, Grid, and Eco Homes/Eco Buildings.

The $200 million commitment will help bring these ideas to market by providing businesses and individuals with the opportunity to secure growth capital investment by GE and/or participating venture capital firms.

It is believed that Australia is in a strong position to become a world leader in sustainable practices after recently seeing great advances in energy innovation particularly in smart grid technology. This challenge is about collaboration and harnessing the promise of fledgling ideas and businesses to transform our energy future.

Modernizing the world’s aging electrical infrastructure is vital to meeting ever-increasing demands on the power grid, supporting more renewable energy and increasing energy efficiency. Full smart grid implementation could reduce carbon emissions through efficiency, enable further reductions through new source management, make the most of current assets and support thousands of new jobs.