Battrion scoops up €100,000 in electrical storage prize

The competition attracts start-ups with innovative electrical storage ideas to compete for a place in one of its coveted business creation programmes – the Highway or Boostway. Narrowed down from over 220 applicants, all 10 finalists will receive a place and a tailored package of support, training, services and funding. Finalists are allocated to a programme depending on their specific business needs; the Highway uses a hands-on approach to support early stage start-ups in the go-to-market phase, helping ready products for commercialisation while the Boostway programme supports scale-ups to grow their businesses.

The final, held at Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam, saw 10 winning finalists from across the world go head-to-head for the crown of most innovative electrical storage technology or business model. In the end Battrion and instagrid won the cash prize.

Battrion, a Swiss-based start-up, boasts a unique storage solution for lithium ion batteries aimed to increase the charging speed of high energy density cells. By innovating on a single step in the industrial battery manufacturing processes, the patented Battrion technology improves the microstructure of the negative electrode, which constitutes the bottleneck for fast charging. Because the Battrion technology uses flake graphite, it also reduces cost and minimizes the environmental impact of battery production. The Battrion fabrication technology has been tested on pilot-scale and is fully compatible with current cell fabrication processes and materials. Battrion is a Swiss spin-off of ETH Zurich and works closely with the Laboratory for Nanoelectronics at ETH.

Instagrid is a German start-up that has developed a portable battery for applications with a high energy density demand. This solution offers a portable power supply that will help professionals in sectors such as construction to work fully electrically, whenever and wherever they want.

Judging the event, InnoEnergy CEO Diego Pavia said: “Supporting its work with the European Battery Alliance (EBA), InnoEnergy focused this inaugural competition on electric storage innovations for applications in transportation, for grid, distributed and mobile energy storage, or to deliver energy efficiency improvements and emissions reductions. The energy systems revolution has started but it will not happen without storage solutions, which is why we are identifying and supporting start-ups in this field.”