In 2022, 18 innovative companies joined the EIT InnoEnergy equity portfolio, and in the last quarter, they welcomed five new companies: Prime Battery Technologies, Nevomo, Empyrio, Voltaro and Coat-it.
EIT InnoEnergy supports companies in different portfolios, such as: Energy Storage, Fusion, Sustainable Cities and Buildings, Green Hydrogen, Circular Economy, Renewable Energies, and Transport and Mobility. With these expanded portfolios, they are able to reach new markets and customers. Let’s find out more about the newcomers!
Energy Storage
Prime Battery Technologies
Prime enable the energy transition by providing the most affordable energy storage solutions. With 37+ years of cumulative experience in Lithium-ion batteries, they focus on adding value to energy storage systems by implementing appropriate policy and regulatory measures. They contribute to achieving the ambitious Green Deal decarbonisation targets set by the European Commission. Their goal is to actively contribute to a sustainable future.
Pure Battery Technologies
Driven by the demand for electric vehicles and energy storage, the battery market is exploding globally. This in turn has increased the need for pure and flexible battery materials. PBT is in a unique position to support battery producers by providing cleaner battery materials at a more affordable price. They will be cost leaders on the battery market and will also be powering the real clean energy evolution.
Mine Storage
Mine Storage develops and operates fast-response, medium to large-scale, environmentally friendly power storage plants in abandoned underground mines. The team wants to contribute to a sustainable future with fossil-free energy production. This is done with a proven technology, which was installed for the first time in 1929.
Basquevolt
Basquevolt develops the safest and most competitive solid-state batteries. A new generation of solid polymer composites and semi-solid electrolytes has resulted from a decade of research by Professor Michel Armand, one of the fathers of modern lithium battery development. The research team led by Professor Armand has been able to improve composite polymer electrolytes (a technology he discovered in 1978) and solve the main solid-state battery challenges. This unique technology brings lithium batteries beyond the state-of-the-art in cost, safety and energy density.
Silbat
Silbat has developed a silicon battery that is set to transform the landscape of long duration stationary storage. The solution is based on the latent heat of metal-grade silicon and its back-conversion to electricity using thermophotovoltaics. According to MIT research, cost-effectively turning renewables into dispatchable electricity sources requires long duration storage with capital expenses of less than USD 20/kWh. Silbat’s battery can do it for less than USD 10/kWh.
Fusion
Novatron
Novatron develops nuclear fusion reactors for large-scale fossil-free energy production. Fusion has the potential to provide the world with unlimited access to clean, safe, sustainable and controllable energy. The technology offers a global opportunity to radically reduce CO2 emissions and reduce the risk of climate crises, high fluctuating energy prices, economic and political instability. Fusion has the potential to offer enormous social and environmental benefits.
Sustainable Cities and Buildings
Nevomo
Nevomo are working on the future of transportation. They are developing MagRail, a technology based on magnetic levitation, linear motors, and autonomous control systems, a technology that enables a quick, phased implementation of hyperloop-inspired transportation within railroad systems. Their technology will enable the transportation of goods and people at double the average speed of a conventional railroad. They can upgrade existing railroad infrastructure to the speed of 550 km/h at a very competitive cost. MagRail can be subsequently transformed into a vacuum version called the hyperloop.
Suena
Suena empowers energy storage and renewables with AI. They make renewable energy supply predictable and therefore ensure planning security in the uncertain times of the energy transition.
Green hydrogen
GravitHy
GravitHy is a sustainable iron and steel company. They plan to build and operate a modern low-CO2 iron plant in France. By using hydrogen to react with iron ore, the high CO2 emissions from traditional production methods can be avoided. The product is direct reduced iron (DRI), which can be used as feedstock for low-CO2 steel production or traded in the form of hot briquetted iron (HBI). GravitHy will decarbonise steel production, support the EU’s ambition of carbon neutrality and respond to a growing demand for low-CO2 steel products.
Phynix
Phynix wants to decarbonise business with green hydrogen in a simple and competitive way. They are the first independent green hydrogen producer in Europe, offering competitive and funded migration solutions for sustainability-minded companies to achieve carbon neutrality.
Circular Economy
Empyrio
Empyrio develops a compact mono-incinerator for sewage sludge and other organic waste utilisation. Empyrio inventors developed a system which provides a complex pre-drying and subsequent burning of high-moisture organic waste. The system burns by itself without using additional side energy sources and raw materials, ensuring a cyclical process. The heat from the burning process is sent back to pre-dry and further incinerate wet waste again.
Renewable Energies
Voltaro
From planning to operation, Voltaro’s digital end-2-end process provides on-site solar implementation efficiently, creating a seamless customer experience. A projecting platform provides a simple and scalable way to connect all stakeholders, deliver transparency and build trust as well as the best and most cost-efficient offer. This makes commercial on-site solar implementation easy and reduces the craft bottleneck.
Seaqurrent
Seaqurrent develops the next generation of tidal energy plants based on the principle of kiting. Tidal and ocean currents contain a large amount of kinetic energy. Seaqurrent develops a completely new approach for 3D-harnessing this energy. Their patented multi-wing TidalKite™ makes it possible to generate clean electricity from shallow and deep low-velocity tidal and ocean currents.
Soof
Soof is a new customer acquisition platform for engineering and installation companies specialised in developing solar photovoltaic projects. The platform connects property owners interested in receiving various offers for photovoltaic installation from companies willing to develop and finance projects.
Norwegian Crystals
Norwegian Crystals specialise in manufacturing high-quality, cost-efficient, ultra-low carbon monocrystalline silicon ingots, bricks and wafers for the photovoltaic value chain. They are located in Glomfjord in Northern Norway, a region with access to clean hydropower, glacier cooling water, and a skilled workforce with a rich tradition rooted in the solar industry. There has been monocrystalline silicon production in this town for the last 25 years. Their products go downstream and serve as substrates for solar cells and together become solar modules. These modules are installed on rooftops or as part of a solar power facility all around the world.
Transport and Mobility
Coat-it
Coat-it is an innovative company, whose plating nano-additives improve the protective and mechanical properties of metallic coating and surface treatment. Using just as little as nano can be, Coat-it products improve significantly anticorrosion properties, increase hardness, wear resistance and add new functionalities to the surface.
Avocargo
Avocargo offers free-floating e-cargo bike sharing services for citizens as well as businesses. It is a way to transport goods, kids or groceries in a more sustainable and scalable manner, combining deep mobility know-how and operational excellence with a customer-centric approach.
Source: European Institute of Innovation & Technology I News (https://bit.ly/3lwFf2u)