• Energy Research
• OA Publications Mandate: Yes close
• 2019 close
• 2019 close

Global population’s growth is set to increase to 9.8 B people by 2050 . This raises concerns regarding the energy demand as more and more energy and food will be needed. Energy production currently mainly relies on fossil sources, which will soon be depleted and seriously threaten the environment. Sustainable wind energy production represents a valid potential alternative, but is still either centralised or inefficient, thus not providing energy with a desirable continuity and capacity. This causes waste of resources and considerable risks of shut downs. Moreover, the loudness and death of birds and bats on the blades causes a lower integration of these solutions. AWP introduces Vertical Sky, the only vertical axis wind turbine for distributed and sustainable energy production. Thanks to the unique and proprietary pitch angle control system, Vertical Sky provides 3-fold noise reduction, 90% bird and bats death reduction, 25% easier transportation and 15% easier installation. This, along with the improved efficiency (0.47, comparable to large turbines) and power range (0.75-1.5MW), makes Vertical Sky the perfect solution for sustainable and decentralised energy production close to residential areas. AWP enables energy self-production makes energy available for anyone, anywhere. During the phase 1 feasibility study,AWP will establish a sound go-to-market strategy and supply chain, and will draft further development plans. During the second phase of the innovation project, AWP will perform engineering optimisation activities and validate the commercial potential in a pilot trial at a partner's facility before introducing the technology on the market.

Modvion AB is a company founded in 2016 with the purpose of developing and constructing a wood-made modular wind turbine tower. Further to its founding, the Modvion team grew constantly, highly specialized people joining the company. This led to the development of our first patent and to other patent application with pending status. We are bringing to market a modular wind turbine tower made from laminated wood (LVL). Our technology allows towers to have a larger diameter base which increases its strength properties and supports a larger tower. By using engineered wood such as LVL, we are able to develop a structure 53% stronger than its steel counterpart and be part of getting wind turbines to even larger heights. Our turbine tower can go well beyond 150 meters in height and can support a 350 tons heavy nacelle and turbine. Our turbine tower outperforms existing solutions on the market, such as steel and concrete wind towers, in terms of specific strength, operational costs, maximum height and many more. In terms of environmental impact, our product shows a zero impact and, compared to alternatives, this impact goes well beyond what is available on the market. As a system made of wood, our turbine tower hold the CO2 captured by trees during their growth and trapped in the tower. The amount of CO2 trapped in a Vultus tower is of 2,000 tons (in a 150-meter tower) The main target of this Phase 1 is to improve our business plan, focusing on updating a previous market assessment. We want to update our business model based on the changes in the renewables market, with risk and IP assessment as secondary analyses.

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) is one of the most promising renewable energies, but its deployment has been negatively affected by its high investment costs. This fact reduces its competitiveness compared to other alternatives (photovoltaics and wind power). In addition, existing CSP plants are facing troubling issues with the molten salts mega tanks, one of the core elements of their Thermal Energy Storage (TES) areas. These tanks, usually worth around €10M, are made of stainless-steel or carbon. The length of their welding cord and the increased corrosiveness of these materials at high temperatures endanger their durability. Recently, some settlements and even breakages have been reported in commercial plants, causing relevant repairing and substitution costs. TANKRETE project, developed by InCrescendo, is aimed at tackling this problem while contributing to increase the CSP profitability. TANKRETE is a cylindrical tank with an isolating foundation system, all manufactured with patented thermal concretes. TANKRETE provides greater stability and durability to the TES area, with a significant reduction in the investment cost (35% cheaper than current tanks), plus additional 3-4% savings in a budget of €45M in salt volume. TANKRETE provides adaptability and design flexibility, as well as immediate applicability, it being compatible with current plants’ technologies. We have developed two small-scaled functional prototypes, whose long term thermal and structural stability has been successfully tested. Based on our estimates, TANKRETE will reach by the 3rd year from launch a cumulative turnover of €63M in a turnkey business model, with a cumulative profit for us of €6.3M. This is a high-risk project. We have the customer base and a current existing demand. However, they need a more adequately sized pilot unit to be tested, due to the high investment. We aim to confirm our preliminary feasibility data through Phase 1 and then we will pursue the pilot unit construction.

The wind energy market is developing quickly and it will produce 15% of the EU’s electricity demand by 2020, avoiding 333 million tonnes of CO2 per year and saving Europe €28 billion a year in fuel costs. Yet, it struggles to find innovations that can reach the market soon, with little costs, and that be used on existing turbines. We address this need via a novel coating technology that we have developed in house and patented. In short, we create microstructures on the wind turbine blades in order to reduce their air resistance. These microstructures are grooves that channel the air turbulence on the surface thus improving the aerodynamics. Our innovation is perfectly suited to wind turbines blades, since it helps to increase their efficiency without changing their shapes or manufacturing process, and it can be even used on existing wind turbines, simply by recoating them. We are currently at TRL 6, we filed one patent in 2018 and performed an extensive Freedom to Operate analysis, with positive results. Our customers are the manufacturers of wind turbines, who want to create a better product without re-engineering the blades, and the Operations and Maintenance companies of wind farms, who want to improve the performances of existing wind turbines. The Total Addressable Market is over €1.76 billion. Our first sale will happen in December 2020 but we are already commercializing the printing system without the full capabilities of microstructure coating in order to gain revenues and reputation. In our commercial strategy, we will first address five countries that are promising (UK, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands) because of the maturity of the wind turbine market to then expand to the rest of the EU, and eventually to the whole world. According to our forecasts, our turnover will reach €16 million at the end of 2022. We are a woman-led team of 9 people, all with at least a master degree, with complementary expertise in engineering and business.

Today the glass lenses and solar panels have a low durability and are easily stained with undesirable fingerprint, oil, dust and environmental pollutants decreasing the efficiency of their optical properties and generating and extra cost and time for their cleaning. In addition, the most current approaches for achieving an amphiphobic material (repels water and oil) rely on fluorinated compounds such as perfluoroalkyl sulfonates (PFAS)s. However, these fluorinated compounds may be carcinogenic for animal and humans at relatively high dose levels with strong evidence for connection between exposure to them and several forms of cancer. There is a necessity to find an effective, self-cleaning material with a high durability that provides glass surfaces with a high resistance to ngerprinting. In response, our companies ONYRIQ (ON) and ADVANCED NANOTECHNOLOGIES (AD) have developed NaDam-G (Nanocoating Deposition of amphiphobic and fluorine free material on Glass), an innovative technology consisting of a fluorine-free(avoiding the damage to health and environment), anti-fingerprint (avoidance of fingerprint and smudges) and self-cleaning (inherent ability to remove dirt), polymeric material covalently bonded on glass by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (PECVD). NaDam-G imparts high-durability for optical lenses and solar panels (increasing the efficiency by 3.5 % and generating an extra 25% of electricity) while being self- cleaning reduces cost and time consuming. Having validated the reliability of the NaDam-G system at the pilot scale, we now want to finalise its development and achieve market preparedness. In Phase 1 we aim to carry a Feasibility Study to warrant the project from a technical, commercial and financial point of view. Besides the crucial benefits that it will bring to nanocoating sector, NaDam-G will boost the growth of ON and AN, expecting to gain € 43million profits and 26 new people after 5 years in the market, reaching a ROI of 16.3.