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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - willpower (willpower – make your own fuel from CO2)

Teaser

Our vision is to make Europe independent from fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas. The goal is to replace the centralized supply of fossil fuels for heating, which accounts for more than 73% of the fossil fuel usage and is responsible for 57% of all CO2 emissions in...

Summary

Our vision is to make Europe independent from fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas. The goal is to replace the centralized supply of fossil fuels for heating, which accounts for more than 73% of the fossil fuel usage and is responsible for 57% of all CO2 emissions in the EU-28 region. The first domain to attack is the residential heating sector that accounts for the biggest share of the energy consumption (ca. 40%).

The activities of the proposed SME-2 project help bridge the gap on way into the European market. The overarching objective of this pilot project is to present a validated pre-series system and verify its performance data to prove the efficacy and economic viability of the willpower system. The planned activities can be divided into two stages:
Phase 1: Enhancing and upscaling the demonstrator to a pilot system. To reach these aims, Gensoric’s team will:

• upscale the reactor cell stack (WP1)
• integrate the adapted CO2 capturing device and verify its performance of (partner SKYTREE; WP2)
• elaborate and validate the biocatalyst (enzyme) production concept for mass production (partner Fhg-IGB; WP3),
• design the pilot system according to customer needs and regulatory requirements (WP4).

Phase 2: Implementation and pilot test runs under real-world conditions with a trendsetting house design company. To realize these test runs and conduct user-centered performance studies under real-world conditions, Gensoric defines minimum performance parameters, setup the pilot plant in a residential context (WP5) and conduct test runs with lead customers (WP6), all backed by a parallel project management (WP7).

Since the beinning of the project we reached out to more than 1 mio. pepople across europe through dissemination activities. We have been contacted by more than 120 potential customers and four strategic investors.

We acquiered a co-investment to fince the project aif 500.000€ and our crowdinvest campaign ahs yielded additional 120k€ so far (01.08.2017).

Work performed

In the first 12 months of this project, we achieved more than we had initially planned. We have successfully built the pilot system, which already possess all features that are needed for non-industrial (residential) applications. We achieved this remarkable milestone through the help of the strategic partner Innogy SE, the successor of RWE, the company which supported our proposal with a strong Letter-of-intent. Our Pilot system is now key component of the so-called “Green Fuel” project by Innogy SE , in which Germany’s biggest utility company demonstrates the feasibility of a methanol economy, as envisioned by George Olah.
The pilot system has successfully been checked for its conformity with pertinent European and national safety standards. These documents are the blueprints for the full conformity of the systems which will be built based on the pilot system. We have been approached by several companies that will help us integrate our system into the energy infrastructure of residential buildings (methanol-driven CHPs, roof-top PV system, architecture firms).
Due to Innogy’s tight timeline we had to adjust our initial project plan. We particularly needed a partner that could provide a sufficient amount of enzymes in relatively short period (~4 months). Since there was no time left for optimization, we needed a rather big amount of enzymes (off-the-shelf). Our initial partner FhG-IGB did not possess such enzyme production capacities. That is the reason why we started the amendment process to integrate a powerful supplier, c-LEcta GmbH – also an SME-2 winner.
The subsequent 2nd project phase will focus on 1) catalyst optimization and 2) commercialization, particularly follow-up investments and further pilot projects in real-world settings. Parallel, we are running tests with the pilot plant to gather data on performance, efficiency and optimum operation mode.

Final results

We have more achieved than initially planned.
We designed, constructed and implemented a pilot system (WP4) in a residential-like environment (mainly WP5). The system’s nominal performance feature (power, energy intake, storage, etc.) are already those of the final system, which we had initially envisaged at the end of the SME2-project.
The crucial components reactor cell stack (WP1), CO2 capturing device (WP2) and the catalysts (WP3) have been realized, partly through the designated subcontractors. The actual performance which has been achieved so far, is sufficient to start the pilot system test runs. Further optimization of key and other components is to occur in the second phase. The need and extent of such optimization will be a result of the test runs (WP 6).
What still needs to be done:
• WP3 - Optimization of the catalysts in both respects: performance and stability
• WP6 - Test runs and data gathering (and corresponding enhancements of the system)
• WP7 - Follow-up investments

Website & more info

More info: http://www.willpower-energy.com.