Project description DEENESFRITPL Hydropower goes small to make a big splash One of the oldest, simplest and consistent forms of renewable energy is hydropower – watermills have been around since ancient times. Today, it’s the largest source of renewable energy in the world. There is potential to move beyond large-scale dams. A microhydropower system that uses the natural flow of rivers with interconnected small turbines that generate up to 100 kilowatts of electricity each to form an energy solution up to a few megawatts. The EU-funded Turbulent project is developing a cost-efficient microhydropower plant designed to use a very low head stream without impact. It does not require a dam and is smaller, lighter and easier to install and maintain. The aim of the project is to promote microhydropower and expand the technology in the EU and abroad. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective Energy utilities, investors and project developers are actively looking for decentralized solutions that combine sustainabilitywith stable and risk-free energy production at low cost. Since wind and solar are highly intermittent, hydropower is to take animportant role in the energy mix. An alternative to large dam facilities is small hydropower technologies but they still presentthe major challenge of size reduction in order to lower the usable head (water height) to under 3 meters.All kinds of hydropower techniques have been tried to scale down for local and to lower the usable head to under 3 meters,without success until now.TURBULENT provides a reliable, cost efficient, micro hydropower plant uniquely designed to use a very lowhead stream (<3m) without impact. Based on a biomimicry, the power plant generates energy close to the end user rangingfrom 15kW to 100kW.• No dams= Fish friendliness = Reduction of civil works >50% .• Smaller, lighter, easier installation and maintenance.• Biomimic impeller design = Double energy production with same size• =Cheaper cost-of-energy €0,026/kWh. (Solar is € 0.06kWh)Current TRL is 7. 2 Real scale demonstrators and 1 commercial setting succesfully completed & in operation.MARKET: Global <3m hydropower installation potential of 341GW! This represents a global market opportunity of €1x10^12(1 Billion €).Turbulent is unleashing the potential of micro hydropower and expanding the technology in EU & abroad countries throughtrained and certified distributors (Viral in social media +100M views = +3.5K requests received).The SME project will allow to accelerate the market entry and the company team growth (37 employees by 2023). In 2021the company will reach profitability and the forecast show a cumulative EBITDA in 5 years of €64M.Funding needs. A first seed round of €1.6M has been signed with commitment to sum another €1.6M in 2020. In this projectwe request 2.3M to scale up. Fields of science engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energyhydroelectricity Keywords distributed energy renewables zero carbon hydro-electric small hydro power distributed generation energy mix resilient water low-head Programme(s) H2020-EU.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs Main Programme H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies Topic(s) EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020 - SME instrument Call for proposal H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020 See other projects for this call Sub call H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-2 Funding Scheme SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2 Coordinator TURBULENT Net EU contribution € 2 458 050,00 Address WIJGMAALSESTEENWEG 6 3012 Wilsele Belgium See on map SME The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed. Yes Region Vlaams Gewest Prov. Vlaams-Brabant Arr. Leuven Activity type Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 3 511 500,00