Project description
A life jacket for buildings
Coastal communities in Europe and around the world know all too well the devastation that can be caused by flooding. As climate change is increasing and accelerating this threat, flood resilient construction strategies are critical for effective flood risk management. The EU-funded FloodFrame project has developed an automatic and preinstalled flood protection technology based on a waterproof membrane that wraps the building during a flood. It also protects the building’s foundation. According to the project, flood victims will be targeted first to reach at least 0.7 % of the market (more than 7 300 properties).
Objective
Climate change has increased the occurrence and frequency of flood events worldwide, and 215 million people are currently under flood risk. Flooding can be devastating for both homes and businesses, causing economic loss. An estimated cost of a flood is €98,000 per household, and, to date, there is a lack of effective individual solutions for houses and buildings in the flood protection market. At FloodFrame A/S (DK, 2017), we have developed FloodFrame (patent pending): an automatic and pre-installed Flood Protection Technology for houses and buildings based on a waterproof membrane, which wraps the building during flood events protecting also its foundation. It does not require a flat surface to be effective and is activated by the rising water functioning without any electricity or human interaction while giving the possibility to increase the protection height during the flood automatically as high the water rises. FloodFrame is currently offered at a competitive price of €300/m. Today there is no solution in the flood protection market that could fulfill the specific needs of home owners and at an affordable price. Our primary target customers are homeowners who have already experienced a flood, like our 12 Early Adopters in Roskilde Fjord and Houston (US). Today, our prototype is at TRL7, and this project will help us to reach the TRL9 by optimizing and testing the final design and the installation process as well as to complete the commercial activities still needed to reach the market (e.g. supply chain consolidation and fulfilment of legal and quality requirements). By 2024 and based on a two-fold business model – direct sales and license holders – we expect to reach at least 0.7% of the market across Europe and US (least 7,387 properties protected by FloodFrame).Thus, we have forecasted €29.72 million of cumulated revenues (€18.63 cumulative profit - ROI 4.45) and at least 40 new employees (20 technical support, 10 trainers, 4 engineers and 6 sales experts)
Fields of science
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic health
- social sciencessociologygovernancecrisis managementflood risk management
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesphysical geographynatural disasters
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
2970 HORSHOLM
Denmark
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.