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Story 04 July 2022
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EIC GHG Synergy Stories: When co-creation produces useful collaborations Finnish corporate SpinDrive teams up with EIC SME Advanced Microturbines

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Oriana Baptista

The European Innovation Council (EIC), within the Greenhouse Gas Programme (GHG), enables and supports valuable matchmaking opportunities between EIC beneficiaries and business partners to achieve sustainable growth. Resulting from the Co-creation Peer-to-Peer (1st cohort) initiative in the summer of 2021, the Finnish corporate SpinDrive established positive collaborative practices with participating SME Advanced Microturbines

 

With the EIC GHG Programme, EIC SMEs can access a vast spectrum of support services and expertise which includes co-creation activities that promote sustainable innovation and growth. 

 

A clear example of that resulted from the 1st cohort of the Co-creation Peer-to-Peer in the summer of 2021, where the Finnish corporate SpinDrive – leading creator of customised levitation technology to improve energy efficiency and promote oil-free solutions – and the company named Advanced Microturbines – innovative producer of microturbines that create a sustainable energy harvesting system for gas and water pipelines – established a partnership.  

  

Founded in 2013, Advanced Microturbines is an Italian-based company that develops microturbines for the local generation of electricity from pressurised gases (in the range of from 20 W up to 50 kW). It aims to use the microturbines to perform an “energy harvesting” system that recovers the energy dissipated by the gas and water during the decompression process, converting it into electricity for on-site use. Advanced Microturbines’ innovative and sustainable modus-operandi resonated with SpinDrive. 

 

When asked about the undertaken interactions at the time with the startup, Nikita Uzhegov (COO & Co-founder at SpinDrive) recalled how the process occurred between the two companies: 

Our mission is to fight climate change by improving the energy efficiency of industrial processes. To do so, we’re implementing active magnetic bearings easily and affordably and managed to increase the system efficiency by approximately 35% for different rotating equipment. That’s why, from the very beginning, we saw great potential in partnering up with Advanced Microturbines and approached them to discuss how we could collaborate.” 

 

Emanuele Guglielmino (Founder & CEO at Advanced Microturbines) stated: 

We focus our business on microturbines meant to recover energy from gas and water pressure drops and flow. Given the importance of gas and electricity in current times, being able to recover electricity from gas (and water) pressure drops that result in a waste of energy is of utmost importance. To help with this, we designed and manufactured these types of machinery, which vary in size depending on the application and need. When we attended the EIC GHG initiative in 2021, we were added to a working group that was in line with our business scope related to the field of green technologies, and afterwards matched with SpinDrive, whose innovative solution requirement involved a special type of bearings, known as magnetic bearings. As bearings are a necessary part of a turbine or any other rotating equipment, we thought that cooperating with SpinDrive could increase the potential of our microturbines. Hence this resulted in the perfect opportunity to collaborate.” 

  

In addition, Emanuele reiterated that developing such a crucial collaboration with SpinDrive is a way of meeting sustainability ends while complementing each other’s innovations. He explained: “Both our products are complementary in the sense that we don’t manufacture bearing. Given this is a special application, the magnetic bearings manufactured by SpinDrive, if installed on our machinery, would allow turbines to rotate at a much higher speed, resulting in higher efficiency and produced power. Having said that, it ends up being an opportunity to create cooperation and a positive synergy as well." 

 

EIC = Pivotal facilitator   

As for positive intakes of attending the EIC GHG Co-creation Peer-to-Peer (1st cohort) initiative, both were clear on that. Nikita referred that: 

These types of initiatives are a great platform to discover people who are interested in such cooperation projects related to energy efficiency and climate technologies. It was a good opportunity to meet Emanuele and understand right from the start that we were both on the same page and pursuing a similar path with our technologies.” 

 

Emanuele shared the same feelings and emphasised: “Being part of this initiative was important because the EIC was the facilitator of this opportunity. Otherwise, the whole interaction would have been much more difficult to happen. Which makes our current collaboration that much important and key to maintaining also for the future.”  

  

About SpinDrive 

SpinDrive provides design, prototyping and serial production of active magnetic bearings (AMBs) for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). SpinDrive increases the energy efficiency of the high-speed machine-driven unit by at least 10%. For a 500-kW unit, this solution mitigates 200 tons of CO2 emissions annually, which is equivalent to 2,000 barrels of oil burnt and enables payback time below 2 years. An active magnetic bearing levitates the rotational part of the machine, eliminating mechanical friction. It enables 20 years of maintenance-free operations. SpinDrive solution is completely oil-free, which allows OEM customers to enter rapidly growing markets and ensure alignment with a contaminant-free environmental strategy. We help customers significantly increase their solutions’ system efficiency, reduce material consumption, and minimise maintenance costs. SpinDrive lowers the customer’s equipment lifecycle costs by 35%.   

  

About Advanced Microturbines  

Advanced Microturbines develops and manufactures microturbines for local generation of electricity from the decompression of pressurised gas and water. 

Our core business is energy harvesting, based on compact patented microturbines, ranging from 20 W (for IoT applications) to 50 kW (for energy recovery). Our microturbines can be installed on existing infrastructures with minor modifications and minimal maintenance. 

Our technology is a self-powered gas and water grid management system that enables continuous remote monitoring, diagnosis, and management of gas and water assets, such as pipelines, through data-driven decisions.  

  

About the EIC Business Acceleration Services 

This opportunity is brought to you by the EIC Business Acceleration Services. To explore other opportunities to connect with the largest corporates in Europe, keep an eye on our events page.       

   

About the EIC GHG Programme      

With the EIC GHG programme, part of the Business Acceleration Services, the EIC offers its beneficiaries a dedicated GHG tool, the GHG Badges & CO2 Neutral Label initiative, and further resources.   

    

In addition, co-creation activities with corporates, industrial associations, regions in carbon transition and other EIC beneficiaries are taking place on a regular basis.

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.

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