SCTE Announces Finalists for Energy 2020 Adaptive Power Challenge

SCTE announced Thursday six finalists for its Energy 2020 Adaptive Power Challenge, which seeks to reward technologists with the most innovative approaches to reducing network power consumption.

Technologies competing for two $10,000 prizes, as well as access to top cable operator decision makers:

• Alpha Technologies’ Enhanced Power Systems, which would enable operators to extend the amount of time a system will last on standby power—often even without generators—by leveraging additional run time available with nodes in a reduced-power setting. 

• Energy Cool’s Energy Cloud, which would utilize distributed UPS batteries to deliver demand response services to the power grid. Field tested in Denmark, the solution could aggregate a high number of individual sites, presenting and controlling them as one combined site to the power grid and allowing testing and monitoring of UPS batteries for high reliability. 

• SOFC.nl Holding B.V.’s Distributed Negative Emission SOFC Power, which would address demand by using small Solid Oxide Fuel Cells to directly supply additional power at the location where it is required. The solution would allow power resources to be kept to a minimum while enabling power to be delivered when necessary. 

• Technetix’s Intelligent Power System, which would reduce current through high-power amplifiers (hybrids), saving up to 10% power per device as well as reduced power losses within the cabling, enabling significant power savings without reducing service quality.

• Teleste’s Make Sense, offering three alternatives for operating existing amplifiers with lower bias current when lower network usage allows amps to run below their 1.2 GHz maximum capacity. Teleste maintains that in those situations, power can be reduced while keeping the quality of end-use experience intact. 

• Robert F. Cruickshank III’s Grid over Broadband: Jointly Optimizing Electric Power Generation and Residential Electrical Use, which supports the power grid by using the superior speed and two-way connectivity of the broadband network to enable the existing electrical grid to deliver and manage power in a more effective and efficient way, creating new business opportunities for cable operators while simultaneously addressing environmental concerns. 

The Adaptive Power Challenge was created by the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and its global arm, the International Society of Broadband Experts (ISBE), in partnership with Comcast and Liberty Global.

Winners will be announced at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta on Oct. 23.