COMMERCIALIZING THE FIRST ENERGY RECYCLER FOR RESTAURANT VENTILATION

Project Information

LEPIDO

Grant agreement ID: 835709

DOI

10.3030/835709

Project closed

EC signature date 23 November 2018

Start date 1 December 2018

End date 31 May 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

ENJAY AB
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LEPIDO (COMMERCIALIZING THE FIRST ENERGY RECYCLER FOR RESTAURANT VENTILATION)

Reporting period: 2018-12-01 to 2019-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

"Heating and cooling of buildings amount to more than 40% of the world's total energy consumption. Within the framework of the Paris deal, increased energy efficiency for buildings is one of the corner stones for the strategy to reach the targeted redcutions of CO2 emissions. Enjay has launched one of the missing pieces to this puzzle: Before Enjay launched Lepido, it was not possible to recover the inherent energy in the exhaust air being exhausted from restaurants. More than 100,000 kWhs was wasted - Every year - From Every restaurant. With more than 1,500,000 restaurants in Europe, Lepido represents a potential annual saving of more than 15 MILLION tons of fossil CO2 equivalents in Europe alone.
Enjay's Lepido is now enabling society to recover this energy, rather than wasting it. The really good news is that the end customers WANT to invest in Lepido: thanks to the large amounts of saved energy, the customer's energy bill will decrease substantially, leading to short return on investment and high annual cost savings. Enjay is one of the ""new generation"" of environmentally focused companies that are emerging: The companies that transform environmental savings into monetary savings for the customers, therebye creating an economically based pull from the customers, rather than - as used to be the case - a push created from legislation, taxes or fees, incurred by governments and local authorities. The more money our customers save - the greater the environmental impact will be. A true ""win/win"".
Before, Enjay had the sights set on the cold markets around the globe, but, after having had the benefit of working through Phase 1 of the SME program, the plan has evolved into a global focus. It has been established that customers in both cold and warm parts of the world will have similar and exciting economical benefits, which means that restaurants all over the world, regardless of climate zone, will be able to recover the hundreds of thousands of kilowatthours that they are currently emitting straight out into the ambient air. In the process they will save a lot of cost, while automatically becoming a part of the environmental solution, as they will save many tons of fossil CO2. Every year. For every restaurant."

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

"The work during the feasibility study has been focused on two major fields: Technology and Sales. For both fields the progress during the program has far outperformed the objectives that were set.
Technology: The objectives were; determine the prerequisites for increased production capacity; develop a suitable time-plan for the project; estimate the financial requirements and investigate the feasibility of building an own production facility. During the project the achivements have gone a lot further than that: Enjay have found, negotiated with and signed a contract with a new sub-supplier, increasing the production capacity by a factor of more than 10. But further than that, Enjay have also, together with this new supplier worked through the production process and updated the design of the product, resulting in several substantial upgrades to efficiency, both in build hours, in material costs and reduced waste. Rather than, as planned, now have a time-plan and an understanding of financial impact, Enjay are past all that and have a tenfold increased production capacity and already have implemented several changes to reduce the cost of the product. Enjay also have a clear understanding of the prerequisites for at what point our own production facility is a viable option.
Sales: The objevtives were to; perform a market study for both the ""New buildings segment"" and for the ""Retro-fit segment""; establish a strategy for commercialization of Lepido on international markets and; evaluate IPR policies. Enjay have during the feasibility period progressed far beyond market study for both segments: Enjay have even generated the first sales. Much quicker than anticipated, the customers in the ""Retro-fit"" segment have understood, ordered and installed Lepido. Even in the ""New buildings"" segment, a notoriously slow moving part of the construction industry, Enjay have generated the first results in the form of consultants specifying new building projects with Lepido. The work on the commercialization for international markets have also progressed nicely, with a first embryo to how the set-up should look like already drawn up. A deeper analysis, performed together with Business Sweden, is about to be completed at the end of September and is a deep-dive into the first international markets of Germany, France and United Kingdom. As a direct result of the work during the feasibility period, Enjay are currently finalizing a new patent which is scheduled to be submitted at the beginning of september."

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)

When Enjay submitted the Phase 1 application, we had no chance of imagining the level of sales-progession that the project would lead to. Now, at the conclusion of the project, Enjay have gone from having two pilot-installations, to having a signed contract with Burger King Scandinavia which says that Lepido is standard equipment in all new Burger Kings in the territorium. This is progression so much faster than imagined and the fact that negotiations with several other large chains are under way, is far beyond even higly set expectations for the product.
One aspect that was not even the objective of the project, but which became a natural progression once the new sub-supplier came onboard, was to improve the design of the product from a production standpoint. During the feasibility study period, Enjay have: Decreased the man-hours required in the production by more than 50%. Decreased thje the material bill by at least 30%. Decreased the requirement of internal logistics by more than 50%. These savings add up to a substantial improvement in Enjay's ability to operate profitably - actually, as the savings weren't even on the radar at the beginning of the feasibility study, Enjay have a chance to turn red figures into black already during 2020.
The achievements during the feasibility program means that Enjay have accelerated the launch plan by several months, this in turn means that the potential contribution to reductions in fossil CO2 equivalents also has been accelerated. The 15 Million tons of annual fossil CO2 reduction in Europe has suddenly been moved forward in time, which is useful in the currentl situation when improved energy efficieny in buildings is one of the cornerstones of the Paris-deal

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