Seven teams have been tabbed by the Bureau of Reclamation to share $80,000 in prize rewards as phase one winners in the Automated Maintenance of Protection Systems Challenge (AMPS).
The competition challenged the the public to develop innovative solutions that make power systems more reliable by automating maintenance testing of protective relays and transformers. Each of the winning teams is set to receive $10,000 and continue to the next phase of the competition.
Overall, the AMPS Challenge consists of two phases, with the first level of operation requiring solvers to submit a paper that outlines their knowledge of the problem, the approach they will use to solve the issue and a description on how they will develop a prototype.
In 2022, Reclamation will conduct tests on the top five prototypes with the top team pocketing up to $100,000. The winning team will also have the opportunity for a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement or other technology transfer agreement to further refine their solution.
“Solutions here will assist Reclamation and other partners to increase efficiencies in monitoring, testing and automating existing protection systems at its hydropower facilities," said Senior Advisor for Hydropower Max Spiker. “By complimenting traditional design research to target the most persistent science and technology challenges we face today, the AMPS problem solvers further Reclamation’s mission to protect hydroelectric plants and, ultimately, strengthen safety and reliability overall.”
The winners are Michael Gemmer, United States, Seyed Mohammadhadi Rahavi, Canada (Two submissions selected for award), MultiSequence Inc., United States, Mohammad Maqsudur Rahman, Bangladesh, Jose Andrés Quintanilla, Sweden, Brett Michael Wilson and Professor Jian Guo Zhu, Australia, and Matthew Wolter and Matthew Paul, United States.
As part of the prize competition, Reclamation is partnering with Freelancer.com. an online job marketplace, the Western Area Power Administration, Bonneville Power Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, NASA Tournament Lab and Arrow Electronics.
Freelancer has also partnered with Arrow to run a first-of-its-kind contest with a total prize of $250,000. Sponsored by Reclamation, the project invites innovators and engineers from across the globe to offer their ideas and solutions to solidify Reclamation’s mission of managing and protecting water and related resources through improving efficiencies related to electric power protection systems.
In the wake of the 2003 Northeast blackout in North America that impacted more than 50,000 people, NERC moved to compose a list of testing protocols designed to prevent such outages and upgrade system reliability.
The five prototypes selected will be tested at Western Area Power Administration’s Electric Power Training Center in Colorado.
