A revolutionary HYDRO POWER technology to sustainably exploit super-low-head water steps: Turbulent

Programme(s): H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges
H2020-EU.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies

Topic(s): EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020 - SME instrument

Call for proposal: H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-2

Funding Scheme: SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2

Grant agreement ID: 873765

Project description:

Hydropower goes small to make a big splash
One of the oldest, simplest and consistent forms of renewable energy is hydropower – watermills have been around since ancient times. Today, it’s the largest source of renewable energy in the world. There is potential to move beyond large-scale dams. A microhydropower system that uses the natural flow of rivers with interconnected small turbines that generate up to 100 kilowatts of electricity each to form an energy solution up to a few megawatts. The EU-funded Turbulent project is developing a cost-efficient microhydropower plant designed to use a very low head stream without impact. It does not require a dam and is smaller, lighter and easier to install and maintain. The aim of the project is to promote microhydropower and expand the technology in the EU and abroad.

Objective:

Energy utilities, investors and project developers are actively looking for decentralized solutions that combine sustainability with stable and risk-free energy production at low cost. Since wind and solar are highly intermittent, hydropower is to take an important role in the energy mix. An alternative to large dam facilities is small hydropower technologies but they still present the major challenge of size reduction in order to lower the usable head (water height) to under 3 meters.
All kinds of hydropower techniques have been tried to scale down for local and to lower the usable head to under 3 meters, without success until now.
TURBULENT provides a reliable, cost efficient, micro hydropower plant uniquely designed to use a very low head stream (<3m) without impact. Based on a biomimicry, the power plant generates energy close to the end user ranging from 15kW to 100kW.
• No dams= Fish friendliness = Reduction of civil works >50% .
• Smaller, lighter, easier installation and maintenance.
• Biomimic impeller design = Double energy production with same size
• =Cheaper cost-of-energy €0,026/kWh. (Solar is € 0.06kWh)
Current TRL is 7. 2 Real scale demonstrators and 1 commercial setting succesfully completed & in operation.
MARKET: Global <3m hydropower installation potential of 341GW! This represents a global market opportunity of €1x10^12 (1 Billion €).
Turbulent is unleashing the potential of micro hydropower and expanding the technology in EU & abroad countries through trained and certified distributors (Viral in social media +100M views = +3.5K requests received).
The SME project will allow to accelerate the market entry and the company team growth (37 employees by 2023). In 2021 the company will reach profitability and the forecast show a cumulative EBITDA in 5 years of €64M.
Funding needs. A first seed round of €1.6M has been signed with commitment to sum another €1.6M in 2020. In this project we request 2.3M to scale up.