Aguascalientes, Ags., November 30, 2022.—Engineering students won the Energy Transformation Challenge competition organized by Siemens Energy in Mexico this summer. Their project required several months of continuous development.
Siemens Energy
The School of Engineering demonstrated, once again, its students’ ability to establish Panamericana as a highly prestigious university on a national level, while also proving that it is no stranger to the podium at events of this kind, where organizations and participants from across the country compete.
Project Team
The engineering team consisted of students Mateo Albarrán Sánchez, César Alejandro Cienfuegos Gómez, and Arturo Alexis de la Rosa Sánchez, who were supported by Professor Marco Colmenares throughout the arduous process required to bring this highly innovative project to fruition.
“Over time, a series of thermalcameras, in addition to standard cameras,were integrated into a standard drone, ” says Diego Larrondo Montalvo, Head of the Energy Technology Engineering program. “All of this is so that, using an algorithm, any type of fault in the solar cells of large-scale solar farms can be detected.”
The idea is, for the most part, to help industries save both money and time. It is a project that has caught the attention of many investors in the sector, as they see that it could be of great help to them in the near future. Its potential is clear, and for this very reason, the Germany-based company decided to back this idea from the students at our institution.
Diego Larrondo notes that,“within this industry, it is a challenge to detect these cell failures, since a person has to inspect hundreds or thousands of rows of panels that may fail—a process that is both time-consuming and costly. This drone streamlines the entire process significantly.”
The team from Aguascalientes traveled to Mexico City to present their project. Although there were some higher-profile competitors in terms of budget, our engineers delivered their presentation to the investors in a very eloquent and precise manner, which enabled them to win the competition and prove their great value to everyone in attendance.
Broadly speaking, the goal is to change the way we use energy. We need to find resources and sources that are less harmful to the planet and make clean energy easier to use and more affordable, so that we can achieve the sustainability we so desperately need.
After winning the competition, the students have been working on the technology and design since September , and they will continue to do so on behalf of Siemens, having been hired directly by the company. The plan is for the project to take about a year to complete. Once it is finished, they will be given the option to continue with this type of project or to move on to the company’s energy division.
