Disrupting the energy market with the innovation in solar heating

Project Information

Polarsol Phase One

Grant agreement ID: 684882

DOI

10.3030/684882

Project closed

EC signature date 12 June 2015

Start date 1 July 2015

End date 31 December 2015

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

POLARSOL OY
Finland

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Polarsol Phase One (Disrupting the energy market with the innovation in solar heating)

Reporting period: 2015-07-01 to 2015-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The actions performed in the Phase 1 have enabled the company sharpening its B2B marketing focus to cover three priority applications/markets, which have the optimal conditions for achieving significant market share and revenues in a relatively short time. Twelve different application areas / market segments were analyzed in terms of the market volume, growth rate, competition, value chain structure, profit margins, decision making process and market barriers as well as the technology readiness level. The data used for that analysis have been obtained via extensive communication with potential customers and other key stakeholders involved in the value chain. At the same time those discussions helped Polarsol to spread the knowledge about the company and its solutions to the market. That has in turn generated a strong interest towards the company and led to increased sales pipeline.

In addition, the needs for enhancing the management team capacity were identified. So two founders of the company, who were so far mainly responsible for the operational
management as CEO and Chairman of the Board, will switch to the positions of CTO and CFO respectively, which better reflects their personal competences and the actual impact in the company. A new CEO with strong background in the industry and proven management capability will be nominated in the first half of 2016. As a result of that change executed during the Phase 1 the company is much better prepared for strong growth on the selected market segments in accordance with the new marketing strategy.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Several important studies related to the further commercialization of Polarsol’s technology were executed during the Phase 1.
These studies include:
• B2B market segmentation, including the selection of the priority market segments based on the analyzed data
• evaluation of the current status of IPR protection
• investigating the opportunities of the license based production
• analysis of the internal cost structure for different capacity levels, including profitability calculations for different solutions /products
• identification of the current market barriers

In addition, the following actions were fulfilled:
• developing the IPR roadmap
• improving the web presence and communication
• building social media channels
• developing the B2B marketing strategy
• analyzing and streamlining the organizational structure, including the capacity building plan on Polarsol’s management team
• planning and partly executing measures to overcome identified market barriers

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The implementation of the feasibility assessment, especially regarding the market segmentation study, has led to several commercial cases in Finland, which are currently in the negotiation phase. All of them are related to the priority B2B market segments identified within the study and thus represent applications with the most obvious business value (savings) for the end customers. In case of Polarsol's technology savings are typically resulting from the decreased consumption of the fossil energy sources that are substituted by the locally generated renewable energy.

The successful implementation of several commercial cases in 2016 will provide Polarsol with sound references, which will further enable the company to build strong market presence. This will in turn lead to the remarkable socio-economic impact via the improved energy efficiency and the cost-effective low-carbon solutions.

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