Munich’s award organisers have unveiled the finalists in the Outstanding Projects category for The smarter E Award 2026, with winners to be named on the eve of The smarter E Europe in Munich on 22 June. Solar Promotion has framed this year’s edition against the geopolitical backdrop, from the war in Iran to the lingering effects of the wider energy crisis, presenting renewables as both climate policy and a hedge against fossil fuel exposure. The ceremony is free to attend. The exhibition runs from 23 to 25 June at Messe München.
The smarter E Award 2026: Integrated Energy
In Outstanding Projects, the shortlist spans grid-scale solar and storage, agrivoltaics, virtual power plants, community energy and green hydrogen. The common thread is implementation, with projects that show how clean-energy systems are being deployed in very different settings, from major urban power markets to local microgrids and industrial sites.
Outstanding Projects finalists include:
- Arevon Energy (US): Eland Solar-plus-Storage, a combined solar and battery project that covers around 7 percent of demand in LA
- Fluence (United States): DTEK and Fluence energy storage portfolio, installed across six sites in Ukraine within six months
- IBC Solar (Germany): Veringenstadt solar park, described as the first agricultural PV farm with solar trackers, generating around 11 GWh per year
- PowereX (Slovakia): a virtual power plant for telecommunications, using AI to connect telecoms emergency power infrastructure across Slovakia
- Schoonschip (NL): Schoonschip VPP, an energy community of 30 floating houses in Amsterdam operating an intelligent grid-connected microgrid
- SMA Altenso (Germany): Africa’s first integrated green hydrogen plant, built in Namibia and producing off-grid green hydrogen from solar power
- SMA Solar Technology (Germany): a 100 percent solar-powered EV charging station in Gran Canaria
- Solarpro Technology (Bulgaria): Tenevo, a renewable energy complex combining large-scale solar generation with 760 MWh of storage
- suena (Germany): Hybrid battery operation for urban energy flexibility, a stationary storage project at Hamburg’s Alsterdorf bus depot
- Sungrow Hydrogen (China): Daye Hydrogen Energy Mining Project, an electrolysis plant with hydrogen storage in a repurposed cavern
Overall, the finalists reflect a broad project landscape, spanning grid-scale solar and storage, local energy communities, transport infrastructure and industrial hydrogen production. (TF)
