willpower – make your own fuel from CO2

Project Information

willpower

Grant agreement ID: 726539

DOI

10.3030/726539

Project closed

EC signature date 28 June 2016

Start date 1 June 2016

End date 31 May 2018

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 2 442 500,00

EU contribution

€ 1 709 750,00

Coordinated by

GENSORIC GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - willpower (willpower – make your own fuel from CO2)

Reporting period: 2017-06-01 to 2018-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

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 250 potential customers and more than five strategic technology partner along the value chain and investors.

We acquiered a co-investment to fince the project aif 500.000€ and our crowdinvest campaign has yielded additional more than 300k€.

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

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 was 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.

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.

The subsequent 2nd project phase was focused 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.

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)

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 were part of the second phase.

The need and extent of such optimization will be a result of the test runs (WP 6) and also one part of the project results.

With the help of the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase 2 we are one step closer to our goal to enter the market in the next 24-36 months and will be the basis for a commercially successful business and disrupt the fossil fuel supply of a whole country or region such as Europe!
For this reason, we will carry on with our project.

Objectives have become clearer. Over the course of this project, initial assumptions were verified and tested under real world conditions (first fully functional pilot plant). These clarifications are crucially important to set up the next steps for the market entry.

- Assembling pilot system v2 and further improvements
- Preparation for CE – certification
- Optimization and outsource of (bio-) catalyst production and further enhancement
- Find production partner for the overall willpower energy® system and first serial production
- Further investors to secure first serial production

Willpower Opening Pilot System Essen 2017

Willpower Logo