The Picnic conference has organized a green challenge with a 500'000 euros price to launch a new ecological project. Several hundreds of submissions were received, and an electricity optimization project called Qurrent won the gold medal:

Qurrent has developed a unique system that consists of a box in every participating home (Qbox) that measures and optimizes energy flows and a central server (Qserver) which collects the data fro all Qboxes and runs that data through an optimizing algorithm. From that algorithm, the Qserver sends data back to the Qbox, which will then run certain devices in the home (washing machine, dryer, boiler, etc.) at the most financially and energy efficient time. The whole system not only looks at a single home, it creates an optimum for the entire cluster (or Local Energy Network). Locally generated energy will hereby be used more effectively, increasing the profitability of products like solar panels."

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Economically and environmentally sound, we need that everywhere!