Team Hedemølle, a group of students from Hedemølle Efterskole in Bjerringbro, Denmark, stood out in this year’s edition of the FIRST LEGO LEAGUE thanks to their project “ENERGY PACK”. At the World Championship in Houston, Texas, they won the Breakthrough Award, a prize that celebrates a team that made significant progress in their confidence and capability.
The project comprised two integral components: a control unit and a battery. The battery is a highly efficient heat storage system, effectively converting electricity into stored heat energy. Simultaneously, the control unit performs a critical role by assessing energy availability from private sources, such as backyard windmills or rooftop solar panels, while considering market conditions, including energy prices. By leveraging this ingenious approach, surplus energy generated during wind-rich days can be seamlessly directed to the battery, allowing homeowners to access affordable and sustainable energy for heating their houses.
The members of Team Hedemølle passionately explain the motivation behind their groundbreaking solution. They address a current dilemma: when the generation of solar energy is at its peak around midday, it’s also when this energy is less used since people tend to be at work at that time. This makes the use of power when it’s needed more expensive and less sustainable. Their visionary goal was to rectify this inefficiency by creating a more balanced energy consumption curve.
Team Hedemølle created a battery system that efficiently stores surplus energy to address this discrepancy. This stored energy can be utilised when green energy sources are less readily available, such as early mornings or evenings when most people are home. By directly addressing this critical issue, Team Hedemølle's ENERGY PACK project provides an innovative solution to optimise the utilisation of sustainable energy sources. This groundbreaking endeavour propelled them to victory in the Danish championship of the FIRST LEGO LEAGUE and secured their well-deserved spot in the prestigious World championship.
At BioMar, we are committed to sustainability and innovation, so we were proud to sponsor the team on their journey to the World Championship.
Their unwavering dedication to environmental innovation is a powerful inspiration to aspiring young scientists and engineers worldwide, reminding us of the immense potential of youthful ingenuity in shaping a brighter and more sustainable world.