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

High capacity drone spreading system

Nordluft Automation offers solutions of forestry and agriculture spreading systems using drones. The solutions offered by the company are focused on two areas: First, forest fertilization, where a group of drones combined with a platform can be used to increase the growth rate of forests while also increasing the amount of CO2 absorbed per area unit. The second main application is ash recycling, where ash created as a by-product in different applications is spread to provide forests with additional nutrients. For both applications, Nordluft has developed their own specialized drone, the NordKopter.

Sweden

6

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

Solid-state refrigerator

India's National Physical Laboratory has developed a portable, solid state cooling technology that does not require the compressor or refrigerant found in conventional refrigerators. It can therefore be operated at a low-power supply of only 75 Watts DC, e.g. directly from solar photovoltaic cells and batteries. The purpose of the innovation is two-fold: first, as a low-cost comfort and food storage solution to rural populations, and second, to compliment India’s immunization program for rural populations of children by storing vaccines at low temperatures. With a long lifespan and needing little maintenance, the solid state cooler maintains 5 °C at an ambient temperature of 40 °C but can cool to -2 °C if required.

India

4

Solar powered small-scale agricultural machines

ALTO precision’s aim is to develop a range of solar-powered small-scale decentralised machinery for remote small holding agri-processing needs in India. Their current developments include a range of small-scale rice processing machines. The solar rice huller is a 360 W machine that can produce 100 kg/hour with a hulling efficiency of 98% in the first pass, which ALTO precision claims is the most efficient small-scale rice processing machine in the world, almost 50% more efficient than any other machine, at a low price. The machines are solar powered, high capacity and very efficient, giving farmers access to a sustainable energy source and providing food security and the opportunity to create an additional income.

India

4