Organic Rankine Cycle turbine

Low-temperature heat can be captured and converted into electricity through the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) system. Againity takes advantage of low-temperature heat down to 90 degrees and can perform with systems in the range of 50-2500 kW energy production. The modularity of the Againity solution means they can be combined and scaled. Automation steers the system but can also be remotely controlled. The intended market is for heat sources from water boilers, treatment plants, or industrial processes.

Sweden

4

Automatically created transport solutions for events

Existing transport infrastructure often reaches its capacity limits at events, for example, which is why alternative solutions are required at short notice. Triply offers a possibility to estimate the arrival routes of the visitors in advance and to provide alternative mobility solutions for the transport. Finding stops and routing are optimized by an underlying triply algorithm, which saves money and valuable time. Triply offers a possibility to clearly display the coverage of public transport systems and to visualize the effects of changes on the accessibility. The interactive map can be used as a basis for planning or for external communication.

Austria

4

Grid-scale thermal storage using solid-state material

EnergyNest developed a thermal battery for thermal power plants and energy-intensive industries. The company recently installed and commissioned a pilot system with a combined capacity of 1 MWth. The company says that the system was operated over more than 6,000 hours with an energy cycling profile resembling operation in a power plant. In 2018, a first free-standing commercial module was manufactured and displayed at the company’s assembly site in Rotterdam. Since the technology’s two main materials – concrete and steel – are available and recyclable, it can be deployed in any geographical location, and up to 80% of the storage materials can be sourced locally.

Norway

5

Energy efficient ceiling fan

Atomberg Technologies aims to use their innovative Gorilla Ceiling Fan to reduce power consumption of cooling compared to conventional fans. The company claims that, whereas other fans consume around 75 Watts at full speed, Gorilla fans consume only 28 Watts; achieved using a brushless DC motor design and a driving algorithm called “atomsense”, which precisely senses various motor parameters in real time and controls the motor in a closed loop, avoiding power losses.

India

5

Batteries for EV range extension and grid services

EP Tender is a company providing services relevant in the area of electrical mobility. The company is focused on mechanical design and tuning, electrical system development and integration, design and coding of the control algorithms, modeling and managing the rental platform and network, and equipping their clients' cars with the additional charging interface. The interface takes the form of a tow-behind attachment to provide additional storage for electric transport solutions. The business model uses a customer driven tender system to charge and exchange batteries.

France

5

Pulp-based studs as building material

Wood Tube Sweden produces pulp-based studs for inside walls and furniture. The studs are similar to traditional wooden planks, but utilize a hollow design. It has a lower weight and price compared to alternatives and, due to the hollowness, its greather surface can be treated for improvement. The attributes can lower costs of construction while reducing environmental impact from heavy materials and newly-sourced timber.

Sweden

5

Smart electricity meter data analysis

SustLabs uses automated metering and big-data analytics to ‘decode’ real-time electricity consumption data at residential level up to heavy appliance level by analysing smart meter data. This unlocks a wealth of information that electricity supply carries, generating insights for utilities, appliance manufacturers, market research companies, etc., which creates data driven revenue opportunities. SustLabs predicts this will transform compulsive electricity consumers to informed users.

India

6

Perovskite solar cells

Perovskite solar cells are developed by the University of Warsaw and represent a new class of photovoltaic devices. Their efficiency has reached 24 percent within 8 years of development, which is comparable with silicon solar panels that hav been developed for decades. Estimates say that this generation of solar cells will be significantly cheaper than panels currently available on the market. This is due to low temperature fabrication processing, simple manufacturing and cheap components. Furthermore, there is a possibility to make flexible devices which opens a brand-new application of solar panels.

Poland

6

Eliminating waste acid from the stainless steel industry

SUSTEC is focusing on green technologies to reduce the environmental impact of existing technologies. SUSTEC has developed a process they call 'REGMAX' to overcome existing problems with mixed acid pickling and its regeneration. According to SUSTEC, the REGMAX process enables total recovery of all waste acids components: The process is applicable for all metal and acid concentrations and gives freedom of choosing the optimum pickling conditions for best pickling performance. The closed material loop minimizes the operational costs and environmental impact of pickling.

Austria

6

Design of small-scale concentrated solar power plants

In a project called 'Solarbosch', Enerbosh is developing small-scale concentrated solar power tower (CSP-T) plants, with ranges from 0.5 to 3 MWe for power generation or 1 to 10 MWh for heat processes on a 24/7 basis. Current CSP-T plants use molten salts as heat transfer fluid (HTF) and storage medium, reaching temperatures up to 560 °C. This is only profitable at very large scales due to the high investment required. In this project the CSP-T plant uses air as HTF, which can easily exceed 1000 °C. The heat storage medium is copper slag, a Chilean mining industry by-product (low cost), with ideal heat storage properties up to 1,000 °C.

Chile

6