Startups, scale-ups, (energy) companies, and governments together can fast-track the development of more affordable solutions to reduce emissions and make a lasting impact on the energy system. That’s why the New Energy Challenge 2021 is organized once again by Rockstart, YES!Delft, Get in the Ring and Shell, for European and Israeli entrepreneurs that want to develop technologies that are vital for meeting future energy needs worldwide.
We called on founders who are developing solutions that could be vital to meeting future energy needs worldwide. Curious about who they are? You can find more information about the individual teams and their entries below.
Out of more than 180 companies, we are thrilled to announce that 22 amazing companies have made it to the shortlist of the NEC2021! With many applications from all over Europe and Israel, we have selected the start-ups and scale-ups that displayed the best talent and achievement in making a difference in the energy system. All of them focus on finding more affordable ways to reduce emissions. Learn more below about how each of these companies is changing the energy industry.
Battery Intelligence OY (Finland)
Pavel Marek & Yevgeni Koucheryavy
Battery Intelligence OY strives to make industrial batteries as sustainable as possible. Battery Intelligence OY develops prescriptive analytics for battery fleets to help industries get the most out of their batteries. The company has the only solution that offers a holistic battery management system for fleets through its proprietary IP. Customers can halve maintenance costs with predictive battery maintenance guidance and extend battery lifespan 30% with optimal battery use and life-cycle management guidance.
Energiency (France)
Arnaud Legrand, Thierry d’Allancé & Aymeric Hervieu
Energiency supports manufacturers in rapidly achieving new and sustainable energy and CO2 savings by leveraging existing data in real time. The company uses SaaS energy management software and a dedicated team of Energy Managers to help manufacturing companies save up to 15% in energy and CO2 usage in their manufacturing processes. Energiency can also help manufacturers predict future energy usage using algorithms which provide recommended actions to the manufacturer to adjust and reduce energy usage.
Tokwise (Bulgaria)
Krasimir Kolev, Vassil Vassilev & Julien Marcenac
Tokwise is a green energy portfolio management platform which empowers renewable energy stakeholders (producers, aggregators, suppliers) to maximize their ROI to help address the ongoing energy transition. The company offers a SaaS platform which uses data management and AI algorithms to reduce imbalance costs by 40%, helping stakeholders move towards a sustainable business model with zero environmental impact.
KraftBlock (Germany)
Martin Schichtel & Susanne König
KraftBlock is a company that develops and sells high-temperature energy storage systems designed to help decarbonize the steel, glass, ceramic, and petrochemical industries. The storage system is newly designed, consisting of 85% recycled raw materials, able to withstand temperatures between 350 C° and 1,300° C, and has an excellent CO2 footprint. They were also the winners of Get in the Ring Berlin – Impact in 2020.
Neuville Grid Data (United Kingdom)
Clarke Simmons, Matt Hanley, Chris Gentile, Jessica Francois & Maitreyee Dey
Neuville Grid Data is a developing digital infrastructure technology that will enable the electrical power sector to improve the performance of its assets thanks to advanced analytics and high-resolution data. The company provides grid operators with high-resolution data to better manage grid stability problems that arise from new electrical load types (such as next-generation heating, electric vehicle charging, etc.)
Everimpact (United Kingdom)
Mathieu Carlier, Alain Retière & Jan Mattsson
Everimpact helps cities and industries measure, reduce, and monetize their greenhouse gas emissions. The company uses an IoT software that combines satellite, ground sensors, and AI data to establish cities’ carbon footprint. As a result, cities can certify their energy emission reductions and find high-profile carbon offset buyers through Everimpact’s digital platform.
Bioledger (United Kingdom)
Patrick Lynch
Bioledger Ltd. is a software development company formed by biofuel industry stakeholders in response to the risk of fraud and non-compliance in the certified sustainable biofuels market in 2019. Bioledger’s team of world class developers embed a deep understanding of global biofuel and feedstock trading, operations, and compliance into mobile and web-based applications, making use of best available technology to facilitate biofuels compliance.
Climate Blockchain Initiatives (Spain)
Olga Brigado
Climate Blockchain Initiatives (ClimateTrade) introduces an innovative carbon footprint offsetting process based on Blockchain Technology. Climatetrade is leading the carbon neutrality services sector with its unique innovative and technological marketplace based on Blockchain technology, while fostering sustainable projects around the world to fight Climate Change, promoting SDGs aligned with the UN Agenda.
FlexiDAO (Spain / Netherlands)
Alvaro Guzman, Simone Accornero, Grzegorz Bytniewsky & Joan Collell
FlexiDAO is a cleantech start-up providing software solutions and advisory to help companies reach zero-carbon energy goals. The company collects energy certificated and metering data through its integration with data hubs, certificate, registries, and grid operators to check where energy is coming from. FlexiDAO also helps companies increase credibility in their energy reporting which eases the auditing process.
Teraloop (Finland)
Ted Ridgeway Watt
Teraloop is a revolutionary electrical energy storage technology developer, scalable to play a critical part in a decarbonized energy system with a focus on EV fast-charging and distributed energy systems. Its system operates in synergy with renewable generation assets, balancing the natural variation of supply and demand. By enabling a fully renewable electricity generation system, it can safeguard the world’s resources for future generations.
Zeigo (United Kingdom)
Juan Pablo Cerda, Paul Massara & Laurent Segalen
Zeigo is a climate-tech platform that connects corporates, looking to go green, with renewable energy generators. Using data and smart technology to cut through the complexities of clean power procurement, Zeigo helps companies find the best zero-carbon solution for their energy needs. The company also provides a competitive price solution, being 75 percent cheaper than traditional energy consultants.
Porous Liquid Technologies (United Kingdom)
Tony Bastock
Porous Liquid Technologies Ltd is a spin off company from Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Liverpool with a support group of experienced business and technical associates. The company uses novel Porous Liquid technology to reduce and remove CO2 from post combustion and biogas. This efficiently lowers the carbon footprint in a cost-effective way.
SmartCloudFarming (Germany)
Michele Bandecchi, Suvrajit Sara & Dylan Warre Raffa
SmartCloudFarming is on a mission to modernize century-old soil management practices using data and AI, to enable remote soil monitoring, and to restore soil health. Using digital soil maps for soil carbon, soil moisture, and soil nutrients, the company delivers hidden insights about subsurface soils and creates trust and transparency in carbon verification and certification.
Coval Energy (Netherlands)
Frank Schreurs
Coval Ventures develops ground-breaking CO2 reduction and utilization solutions that use CO2 as a feedstock rather than a waste product. Since its inception in 2015, Coval has developed two technology platforms, Colyser and HyAPC, that it is now looking to commercialize to a technology licensing business.
Enerpoly (Sweden)
Eloisa de Castro, Dr. Mylad Chamoun & Samer Nameer
Enerpoly is building a future where everyone has access to clean energy by pioneering rechargeable zinc-ion batteries and innovating in affordable energy storage solutions. The company focuses on reducing cost of storage per cycle – the cost of components is less than half those for lithium-ion, and Enerpoly batteries’ 2,000-cycle life is 10-times longer than lead-acid. Enerpoly zinc-ion batteries are suitable for stationary storage in residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale installations.
Geyser Batteries (Finland)
Stefan Strohmayer
Geyser Batteries offers high-power heavy-duty energy storage solutions based on novel proprietary water-based electrolyte and unique engineering and manufacturing. The heart of Geyser Batteries’ innovation is in its patented and proprietary ECR (ElectroChemical Recuperator) technology, which is a successful combination of a battery and a supercapacitor in one single electrochemical system.
Supercritical Solutions (United Kingdom)
Luke Tan, Mike Russ, Gaiel Gobaille-Shaw & Matt Bird
Supercritical is developing the world’s first high-pressure, ultra-efficient electrolyzer, to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water, with zero emissions. By using heat and pressure, the company’s proprietary design allows it to exploit the benefits of supercritical water and deliver gases at over 200 bar of pressure, without the expense or challenges of hydrogen compressors. With this, Supercritical can deliver the lowest cost of pressurized green hydrogen.
BETTERY (Italy)
Alessandro Brilloni
BETTERY S.r.l. is a start-up working to change the paradigm in energy storage and distribution to a new, sustainable circular energy economic. The company offers green liquid batteries with the highest specific energy and safety associated with the lowest cost and recharge time ever reported. BETTERY’s patented technology is a new concept of semi-solid flow lithium-oxygen battery, combined with lithium-oxygen batteries,
Forestify (Norway)
Lupi Love, Liviu Ene, Yahiya Hamdan & Paulo Borges
FORESTIFY brings financial transparency to reforestation by providing NBS (Nature Based Solutions) stakeholders (donors, companies, and governments) with a universal, data driven system to track investments in tree planting (end-to-end supply chain management), and outcomes over time (monitoring, reporting, and verification). FORESTIFY harnesses blockchain technology and satellite imagery to monitor the conversion of dollars into trees, and trees into ecosystems.
Cutting-Edge Nanomaterials (Germany)
Jens Mitzel, Aldo Gago & Schwan Hosseiny
CENmat is a spin-off from the German Aerospace Center with the core business in the development and production of Nano-enabled Materials & Systems for energy storage and conversion. The company aims to provide a package that allows customers to produce and operate the most economic, efficient, and durable green energy storage and conversion technologies.
Energy One AG (Germany)
Dieter Waffel, Dirk Neupert & Christoph Harks
ENERGY one utilizes blockchain technology to implement “neighborhood energy solutions” through cross-sector integration of peer-to-peer trading, electricity generation, battery storage, heating and cooling, and electro-mobility. The company applies modern technology to help customers with responsible and sustainable energy usage, in addition to cost-savings.
RIFT (Netherlands)
Mark Verhagen
RIFT (Renewable Iron Fuel Technology) was created to transform energy intensive industries (district heating, industrial processes, and electricity plants) into clean and circular energy users. The company implements iron fuel technology by using iron fuel as a circular process in which iron powder is used as a medium for energy storage. The company is moving forward towards developing its first commercial system in 2023.