On August 25, 2023, the opening ceremony and award ceremony of the HICOOL 2023 Global Entrepreneur Summit were held at the China International Exhibition Center (Shunyi Pavilion). Dr. Ci Song, a researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Applied Electronics (EEA) at Tsinghua University, received the first prize in the final round of the HICOOL 2023 Global Entrepreneurship Competition for his project titled “Digital Energy Storage Solution Based on Dynamic Reconfigurable Battery Network Technology”. The summit was inaugurated by Yin Li, Central Committee Political Bureau Member and Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee, and the first prize was presented to the awardee by Yin Yong, Deputy Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee and Mayor of Beijing.

At the opening and awarding ceremony of HICOOL 2023 Global Entrepreneur Summit

Dr. Ci Song currently serves as a researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University and is the director of the Ministry of Education-China Mobile Joint Laboratory for Information Energy. He is an IEEE Fellow and has been selected for national talent programs. He also holds the position of Global Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Munich in Germany. Dr. Ci Song is an expert in the field of interdisciplinary research in information energy and has dedicated his research to modeling and optimization theories for large-scale complex systems and their applications in the Internet of Information and Energy. His competition project showcased core theoretical methods and key technologies, including dynamic reconfigurable battery networks and digital energy processing and computing system architectures based on energy informatization. It systematically explained how the digital energy storage solution based on dynamic reconfigurable battery network technology fundamentally eliminates the “weakest link effect” inherent in fixed series-parallel battery systems, greatly enhancing the safety and reliability of battery energy storage systems. It is the only essential safety system-level solution for battery energy storage systems in the current energy storage industry, achieving a battery system cycle life approximately equal to that of individual battery cells. This technology is a disruptive innovation in the energy Internet. Currently, the digital energy storage solution based on dynamic reconfigurable battery network technology has been widely applied in scenarios such as power-side/grid-side/user-side energy storage, retired power battery-scale cascade utilization energy storage, and digital power supply for communication base stations, equipment rooms, and data centers.

HICOOL, as an international brand, has become an important driver for Beijing to accelerate the construction of an international science and technology innovation center and a high-level talent hub, embodying the lively practice of “attracting talents from around the world and putting them to good use”. The HICOOL 2023 Global Entrepreneurship Competition lasted for two months and saw participation from 5,705 entrepreneurial projects and 7,467 entrepreneurial talents from 114 countries and regions. After three stages of preliminary rounds, semifinals, and finals, a total of seven first prizes were granted, with the recipients sharing CNY 1 billion in prize money with other award winners.