Eskom launches ‘open innovation’ pilot to tackle key problems
Wednesday, 25 May 2011 |  Terence Creamer  |  0 comment

Image by Aparna E

Power utility Eskom has initiated an ‘open innovation’ pilot project in an effort to assess whether some of its most vexing challenges – from safety, to water and demand management – might be able to be solved through ideas generated with support of companies and individuals outside of the State-owned utility.

The programme is being run in conjunction with the Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (Riis), of Pretoria, and global open-innovation facilitator NineSigma, which will bring its network of two-million international problem solvers to bear on the project. Eskom is paying R600 000 for the support of the two partners.

Eskom believes it is the first electricity utility globally to embrace the model, which seeks to leverage external ideas to solve internal problems. The concept is relatively well established in other sectors, with companies such as consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble having institutionalised processes and procedures to allow customers and outside researchers to participate in its product innovation.

A Web portal has been developed, at a cost of R500 000, to facilitate the pilot, which officially begins on June 1, 2011, when four open-innovation requests for proposals (RFPs) will be issued online.

The first RFP calls for suggestions on how residential energy consumption could be reduced by 10%, the equivalent of a permanent reduction of 700 MW. The second wants innovators to apply their minds to how fallen power lines, which are a danger to human and animal health, can be detected.

A third challenge being dealt with under the pilot relates to Eskom’s desire to improve its sustainability reporting. The tender, therefore, encourages experts to participate in a peer review of its current model in a bid to improve the way it measures its social, economic and environmental impacts.

The fourth RFP seeks expertise and systems to improve the group’s water use and management – Eskom is a significant water consumer, using 1,35 l/kWh produced.

The solutions do not necessarily need to be technical in nature and Eskom will embrace financial, or managerial innovations that could help solve the problem.

Research and development GM Barry MacColl assures that safeguards have been put in place to ensure that intellectual property (IP) is respected, and that capacity is put in place to give all suggestions due consideration. However, he acknowledges that there could be a risk should responses run into the thousands.

Riis CEO Audrey Verhaeghe stresses that the RFPs have been crafted in such a way as to caution respondents to protect their IP rights. She also says that the potential rewards for submissions, which could range from a commercial contract, to a research grant, to being paid for ones time to participate in an expert panel, are also given prominence in the documentation.

MacColl anticipates that it will take between three and six months for responses to filter through and says that Eskom anticipates that some commercial transactions may result.

The utility will also use the pilot to assess the applicability of the open-innovation concept to problem solving more generally, and will make a call by the end of March 2012 as to whether the model should be deployed on a more permanent basis.

Further information on the pilot project and the first RFPs can be obtained at www.openinnovation.eskom.co.za.