Hack the Climate.
Save the Green Electrons.
Bring AI to the heart of Europe's energy transition
The Problem
Europe is building renewables faster than ever, but grids can't always deliver what they produce. When clean power can't reach the system, it's dispatched-down and green electrons are thrown away. This happens for system-wide stability limits (curtailment) and local grid bottlenecks (constraints). On top of this, market signals can take generation offline even when the grid could carry it. Predicting and reducing each is one of the biggest unsolved challenges of the energy transition.
The Sandbox
Ireland is one of the most wind-penetrated energy systems in the world — a compact, connected market where this challenge plays out in real time. That makes it the perfect testbed for solutions that can scale across Europe.
Your Mission
Using real energy datasets and Microsoft AI, build a solution that predicts, reduces, or eliminates dispatch-down and market-based curtailment — keeping every green electron on the grid. Demonstrate how your solution will bring value to users. The solutions should map to a deployable product, decision-support tool, or optimisation engine that could be adopted by TSOs, generators, or large demand side users.
Prove it in Ireland. Scale it to Europe.
Prizes
1st prize
€10,000
2nd prize
€5,000
Organised by
In partnership with
Who is this hackathon for?
Professionals from the following disciplines should find the scope of this hackathon interesting:
Data Science & AI
Programmers, machine learning engineers, and data scientists ready to build predictive models for energy generation, grid load, and weather patterns.
Renewable Energy & Grid Operations
Engineers, analysts, and professionals working in wind, solar, and hydro power who understand asset management, energy storage, and grid injection constraints.
Climate Risk & Weather Analysis
Meteorologists, climate risk analysts, and environmental scientists who can contribute insights on weather forecasting, seasonality, and climate-induced generation spikes.
Energy Trading, Finance & Policy
Professionals working in energy markets, risk management, and carbon finance who understand the economic penalties of curtailment and the value of optimized energy dispatching.
Software & Infrastructure Engineering
Cloud architects, backend developers, and systems engineers capable of building scalable, real-time mitigation tools and monitoring dashboards.
How to participate
Review the problem and the mission.
Formulate an intention.
Form a team of 3 to 5 people.
Register.
First come first served.
Teams confirmed on a rolling basis
until full capacity is reached.
(100 participants)
Terms & Conditions
Data sets
We are currently curating the data sets that will be made available to participants. These sets will include data from ENTSO-E Transparency Platform, such as generation, load, and prices, as well as data from other sources. We will provide more details on the data sets, including their sources, formats, and access instructions, in the coming weeks.
Judges
Andrew McCorriston
Senior Regulation Manager, SSE
Apostolos Bakovasilis
Senior Analyst - Offshore System Integration & Cybersecurity, WindEurope
Didier Mallieu
Solution Manager Renewables and Transmission Europe, Hitachi
Fergal Ahern
Director of Market Development, SSE
Owen Dignam
Senior Industry Advisor - Energy & Resources EMEA, Microsoft
Paul Moran
Acquisitions Manager, ESB
Tarjeevn Sahota
Digital Business Development Manager Europe, Hitachi
Judging criteria
- Innovation
- Scalability
- Technical difficulty
- Presentation
- Deemed success
- Business/Environmental impact
Agenda
28 September
Day 1
09:00
Welcome and introduction
10:00
Start coding
13:00
Lunch
14:00
Continue coding
29 September
Day 2
09:00
Continue coding
13:00
Lunch
14:00
Continue coding
18:00
Stop coding
30 September
Day 3
09:00
Final demos
13:00
Lunch
14:00
Jury's deliberation
18:00
Award ceremony
Practical information
Contact
Mafalda Martins
mafalda.martins@windeurope.org
Venue
The hackathon takes place at Microsoft's Ireland offices in Dublin.