In 2021, global investments in the energy transition industry totalled $755 billion – a new record achieved with all eyes turning to climate change. The numbers were announced in a new report, published by the research firm BloombergNEF (BNEF) and covered investments in sectors such as renewable energy, energy storage, electrified transport, electrified heat, nuclear, hydrogen and sustainable materials. The European Innovation Council has also been following this trend, and several companies with innovations in renewable sources of energy have been joining the EIC portfolio. From renewable methane to sustainable wind towers, discover how the EIC is powering the green energy future.
DazeTechnology: Italian startup closes new funding round and continues moving toward green mobility
DazeTechnology is manufacturing EV charger stations. The Italian company started with its first product – DazeBox – a wallbox for home charging with a Dynamic Power Management system. From this innovation, they expanded to offer a range of solutions, including DazePlug, the first totally autonomous conductive charging system to automate recharge for Electric Vehicles. Today, their portfolio includes products with dynamic power management, photovoltaic panels' integrations, and storage batteries both in AC and in DC.
In February 2022, the company received a new investment round led by 035 investimenti S.p.A, Day One and the EIC Fund. According to Giacomo Zenoni, Co-founder of the company, DazeTechnology is planning to develop new solutions and expand to other Europe areas. To Zenoni, EV charger stations are the connection between sustainable mobility and energy at home.
"Through the funding round closed in February 2022, Daze will foster its R&D activities to develop new software functionalities of its EV charging solutions. Moreover, the company will increase its electronics and mechanical components inventory, also funding the purchase of key machinery and equipment, " explained the co-founder.
"This investment allows the company to cover its monthly burn rate and, therefore, to keep focusing on the technological (ICT and mechatronic) development of its future products and solutions. This is crucial to make EV charging the true enabler of clean energy management at home by connecting EV batteries bidirectionally to electrical appliances and solar panels. Furthermore, the equity injection helped to make it easier to find new investors in future financing rounds", concluded.
DazeTechnology joined the EIC ePitching event on Space and Transport last month, and the company will also participate in the Scaling Up with the EIC event on Sustainability and Technology taking place in Paris on June 14. DazeTechnology is on a series A fundraising, looking for EUR 4M of a total of EUR 8.2M.
X1 Wind: New investment in disruptive floating wind technology developer
The Spanish startup X1 Wind is developing a disruptive floating system to change the paradigm of the wind energy industry. Nowadays, power producers are looking for floating solutions to exploit their sites located in deep waters, but current technologies are not competitive in price. In this sense, X1 Wind has been designed for offshore but taking into account that renewable solutions need to be low cost in order to be competitive. Unlike other solutions, which use "marinized" onshore wind turbines on the top of adapted Oil&Gas platforms designs, X1 Wind has designed an integrated system to take advantage of the offshore environment. The result is a dramatic reduction in the weight of the platform and a reduction in installation and operating costs, making floating offshore wind cost-effective and unblocking the huge wind potential located in deep waters.
In February, Technip Energies announced an investment in X1 Wind technology. The leading engineering & technology company is the lead investor in this funding round, which also counts on the participation of the EIC Fund and some of X1 Wind's previous shareholders.
According to João Neves, Director of Strategy and Business Development of the company, the funding will help the company continue growing its team of engineers and increase its commercial activities and partnerships with developers of offshore wind farms.
"Our company's mission is to develop smart solutions to change the way society produces energy and radically minimize our impact on the environment. We have been focusing on our innovative floating wind technology to increase the competitiveness of producing electricity from deep locations offshore. To achieve that goal, it is essential to finalize the design and certification of our full-scale platforms as early as possible and in parallel to develop an industrialization strategy that enables their mass deployment. Having Technip Energies onboard – one of the most experienced international EPCI companies in offshore engineering – will accelerate these activities and allow us to have a competitive product to support the energy transition", concluded João.
Technip Energies and X1 Wind will collaborate on the development of the first commercial-scale demonstrator and the related industrialization and commercialization plans of the technology.
Electrochaea: €14.9 million in equity investment to support production of renewable methane to replace fossil fuels
Europe is focused on its energy transition, and decarbonising natural gas through bio-e-methanation is one very efficient path to achieve this. This is why, after being awarded with an EIC grant to develop their Echaea project (that will be running until the final trimester of 2022), Electrochaea received a €14.9 million equity investment from the EIC Fund. This investment completes their €36 million Series D round, led by the energy technology company Baker Hughes.
About the funding received from the EIC and the closing of their Series D round, Doris Hafenbradl, CTO & Managing Director of Electrochaea, told us:
“With this investment we will be able to build out the team and to speed up the market entry significantly. We are currently building a strong team that can execute on commercial projects. In particular, we are growing our business development and sales teams to address the new markets that are opening up at the moment. From a technical point of view, we are scaling our technology to generate a strong impact on the decarbonisation of various industries.”.
The German company is continuing to work on their disruptive and scalable technology to meet immediate and growing market needs worldwide, when it comes to storing renewable energy, displacing fossil gas with renewable natural gas, and reusing carbon dioxide. For instance, the EIC-funded Echaea project will prepare a Power-to-Methane solution for the marketisation of Electrochaea’s innovation. This entirely biogenic e-fuel provides a great energy solution for various sectors, such as transportation, power generation, or industrial heating.
Modvion: €1.5 million invested to create renewable energy from sustainable wind towers
High altitude wind power plants are the future of wind energy production. Since wind tends to blow faster and more constantly the higher you go, taller towers can lower the cost of energy. The EIC-funded Modvion project is developing the next generation of cost-efficient tall towers. Their proposition is to bring to market the first ever modular wind turbine tower made from laminated wood. With the successful implementation of this project, the EIC Fund was interested in continuing to support Modvion’s innovation by investing €1.5 million in the Swedish company.
"It is a seal of quality that the EU chooses to continue supporting us, and now taking the step to become a shareholder. To combat the climate crises, we need more renewable energy and sustainable wooden constructions, our technology enables both", said Otto Lundman, CEO of Modvion AB.
Modvion builds wooden wind turbine towers in laminated wood, nature’s own carbon fibre, which is stronger than steel at the same weight. The towers are built in modules that can be transported on public roads, making it easier to build taller towers at a lower cost. The carbon dioxide taken up by trees as they grow is stored in the wooden towers, which enables climate-neutral wind power by replacing large emissions from steel or concrete towers.
Otto Lundman continued to add:
“We enable the wind power industry to build climate-neutral wind energy, lower total costs and facilitate transportation of tall towers. It feels great that the European Innovation Council understands the potential in our technology and invests in fighting climate change.”.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.