Driving Renewable Innovation with AI

Both Zelestra and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are delighted to announce the winners of the 2025 ML ASCEND Challenge hackathon.

Participants were asked to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) concepts to advance innovation in renewable energy.

Running on the HackerEarth platform, more than 7,000 participants took part in the challenge from Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Africa.

Set over two phases, and involving in-depth briefing sessions with Zelestra and AWS experts, participants collaborated to design advanced models that could better explain and predict the performance of solar energy systems — bridging the gap between theoretical generation and real-world output.

Judges noted the exceptional quality of submissions, with several teams offering novel insights into the hidden inefficiencies within solar operations and presenting creative ways to visualize and mitigate them.

In a very close-run competition, judges have chosen the proposal from Team AiVERSE — Harsh Mishra and Sanjana M — as the standout winner.

Congratulations also to our runner-up teams for their exceptional contributions:

• 1st Runner-Up: Team challenger404 — Sanjay R , Deo sagar kumar , Soumik Roy , and Manikandan K

• 2nd Runner-Up: Team Sounds Good — Arnav Goyal , AGAMDEEP SINGH , and Gaurang Garg

• 3rd Runner-Up: Team Oraesians — Om Shree Gyanraj and Rameeza Yasmeen

• 4th Runner-Up: Team Enderman — Dipanta Bhattacharyya a, Ritvik Kumar , Navneet Agrawal , and Vinayak Dev Mishra

Anupama Mishra , Head of Digital HUB at Zelestra, said:

“The Hackathon with AWS and HackerEarth has uncovered exceptional ideas from some truly talented AI and ML engineering talent from across the world. Zelestra is scaling data-driven intelligence across all our assets and projects globally, and we are excited to further develop the winning concept from Team AiVERSE to bring their concept to life in a real-world setting. It has the potential to help us co-build future clean energy solutions that are as reliable, efficient, and resilient as possible in all markets, supporting our clients in delivering their decarbonization goals.”

Amazon Web Services (AWS) added:

“AWS is proud to partner with Zelestra in this hackathon, where AI and ML are applied to real-world renewable energy challenges. Zelestra’s approach demonstrates how technology-first thinking and open collaboration can accelerate global decarbonization at scale. Together, we’re enabling innovators to turn ideas into impact for a cleaner energy future.”

At Zelestra, we see these events as part of a broader co-creation strategy. By opening our doors to developers, analysts, and data scientists around the world, we accelerate fresh thinking and uncover AI-driven solutions that could genuinely improve how we operate clean energy assets.

The creativity and depth we’ve seen this year—from forecasting models to performance analytics and loss breakdown tools—has been inspiring. Some of these ideas have the potential to scale into real-world impact across our portfolio.

Digital transformation in energy isn’t just about technology. It’s about community, experimentation, and shared ambition. And this hackathon embodies all three.

A heartfelt thank you to every participant, mentor, and partner (especially AWS) for making this a global movement for cleaner, smarter energy.