Shantel
Key Takeaways:
- Wegaw, a Swiss climate-tech startup, has been awarded a CHF 1.4M Swiss Accelerator Grant by Innosuisse to build advanced geospatial digital twin technology.
- The technology developed by Wegaw will revolutionize the monitoring of snow, glaciers, and water, enabling accurate forecasts of future water and energy availability.
- Global snow cover decline has adversely affected Switzerland’s ability to forecast and generate energy, especially during uncertain periods like summer and mid-winter.
- Wegaw aims to partner with Hydrique and Mitta to create a highly accurate digital twin of water, glacier, and snow resource datasets using geospatial technology.
- This partnership will empower Swiss energy, water, and utility industries with a climate change forecasting tool to anticipate electricity outages, drought situations, and potential shortage scenarios.
- The project will enhance forecasting capabilities, optimize energy trading pricing strategies, and tackle diminishing water supplies, maximizing renewable energy production.
About Wegaw:
Wegaw, a climate-tech startup based in Switzerland, has been making waves in the industry with its innovative approach to climate change forecasting. The company has recently been awarded a CHF 1.4M Swiss Accelerator Grant by Innosuisse, a significant milestone in their journey towards developing groundbreaking geospatial digital twin technology.
With a mission to revolutionize water and energy forecasting, Wegaw aims to tackle the challenges posed by declining global snow cover and its impact on Switzerland’s energy generation and water management. The company’s technology enables near real-time monitoring of snow, glaciers, and water resources, providing unprecedented accuracy in forecasting future water and energy availability.
Empowering Switzerland with Geospatial Digital Twin Technology:
The decline in global snow cover has resulted in the loss of an entire month’s worth of snow at low and medium altitudes in Switzerland. This has significant implications for accurate energy forecasting, especially during uncertain periods such as summer and mid-winter. To address this pressing issue, Wegaw is embarking on a two-year project, supported by Innosuisse, to develop one of the most sophisticated geospatial digital twin technologies.
Partnering for Success: Wegaw, Hydrique, and Mitta
In collaboration with Hydrique and Mitta, Wegaw aims to create a highly accurate digital twin of water, glacier, and snow resource datasets. By leveraging geospatial technology and combining observation data from satellite and drone imagery, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations, in-situ measurements, and weather stations, Wegaw’s technology will equip the Swiss energy, water, and utility industries with a powerful tool for climate change forecasting.
“We are strongly supportive of Wegaw and the R&D pursuant of snow and water analysis,” says Monica Jill Vaksdal, Country Manager at Mitta Norway.
Driving Sustainable Water and Energy Solutions:
The partnership between Wegaw, Hydrique, and Mitta will have far-reaching implications for Switzerland’s energy and water sectors. By providing near real-time data on water availability, the geospatial digital twin technology will enable increased electricity generation and optimized energy trading pricing strategies. Moreover, it will empower companies, utilities, and public agencies to prepare for potential shortage and climate anomaly scenarios well in advance.
“We are very proud to have been chosen in this highly competitive process to support Switzerland’s commitment to combating the national and global water crisis. Our energy transition accelerating team is certainly well placed to complete this new phenomenal opportunity for which we are exceptionally grateful,” says Ion Padilla, CEO & Co-Founder of Wegaw.
The new geospatial digital twin technology will be piloted and tested at home and abroad by leading hydropower companies in Scandinavia and Canada. Over a 12-month period, Wegaw will lead several pilots to improve short-term forecasts for energy and water output optimization, as well as long-term forecasts for financial risk reduction and trading value maximization. The objective is to help hydropower and water management organizations become more resilient to climate change by enabling their forecasting capabilities to be as accurate as possible.
Further participant announcements and project updates will be released in due course. To get involved and to find out more, please get in touch with the Wegaw team directly at wegaw.com/contact-us.
About the Innosuisse Swiss Accelerator:
The Innosuisse Swiss Accelerator is a transitional measure for Horizon Europe that provides grants to innovative Swiss SMEs and startups to receive direct financial support for ground-breaking projects that demonstrate significant potential. The program aims to facilitate the growth of Swiss companies and supports the latest developments within engineering, life sciences, energy, social sciences and business management, IT & Communications, and environment. Innosuisse received 752 project proposals, and after a rigorous three-stage assessment process, 53 projects (7% of the applications) were approved to receive up to CHF 2.5M each. The final total funding grant by this grant amounted to CHF 112M. You can find out more by clicking here.
About Hydrique Ingénieurs:
Hydrique Ingénieurs is a Swiss SME specialized in digital twins for hydropower and water networks. Its products focus on real-time river flow forecasting, flood and drought management. More than 60 customers benefit from this strategic information, in the hydropower, flood management, agriculture, and wastewater sectors. For more information, please visit hydrique.ch.
About the Mitta AS and Mitta Group:
Mitta AS is the Norwegian subsidiary of Mitta Group, a large geo-monitoring corporation headquartered in Finland. Mitta Group has an annual turnover of EUR 60M and almost 600 employees in Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Mitta’s customers span various industries, from energy and infrastructure to aquaculture, district heating, mining, and nuclear. The company focuses on innovation and digitalization to facilitate sustainable decision-making using reliable geodata and services.
