The SOLUM and Greenovation start-ups have been selected to be co-financed by the Fundación Valenciaport within the framework of the EIT Climate-KIC Accelerator

These grants are part of the #SuperLabPorts initiative, in which the Fundación Valenciaport is co-funding start-ups in the EIT Climate-KIC Business Acceleration Programme, with the collaboration of the Port Authority of Valencia.

The start-up Greenovation, which already entered phase 1 in the previous EIT Climate-KIC call, will move to phase 2 in this call and will receive 15,000 euros, while the start-up SOLUM, which responded to the challenge launched by Valenciaport on innovation in photovoltaic installations in ports, will enter phase 3 of the Accelerator and will receive 30,000 euros in funding.

The main objective of this initiative is to attract talent to the logistics-port sector and thus promote a culture of open innovation in the area of Valenciaport.

Valencia – 17.09.20. This week the winners of the Open Call organised by the EIT Climate-KIC Accelerator in collaboration with the Fundación Valenciaport and the Port Authority of Valencia have been announced. The objective of the call was to co-finance 2 start-ups aimed at improving sustainability in the logistics-port sector in the different phases of the aforementioned acceleration programme.

The initiatives selected to receive this support were those presented by the Greenovation and SOLUM start-ups. The Greenovation start-up, which already entered phase 1 of the previous EIT Climate-KIC call, has moved on in this new call to phase 2 in which it will receive 15,000 euros which will facilitate the validation of its business model. Greenovation is a spin-off developed by the Greenb2e group (supplier of integral energy solutions that provides consultancy, engineering, management and ‘EPC’ services) that has developed a platform that will make it possible to certify, in the future renewable energy installations to be implemented in the port of Valencia, any measure susceptible to energy assessment through blockchain technology.

For its part, the start-up SOLUM, which responded to the challenge launched by Valenciaport on innovation in photovoltaic installations in ports, has been selected to enter phase 3 of the accelerator, having passed phases 1 and 2 in previous calls the previous year, and will receive aid of 30,000 euros to resolve this challenge in the port area. SOLUM has developed a photovoltaic pavement that generates solar energy thanks to the monocrystalline solar cells integrated in its structure, helping to reduce CO2 emissions by generating clean energy. Its main characteristic is that its panels are designed to be installed on the ground so they are much more resistant and, in a place like the port, they also have the advantage of being able to produce energy in areas where a panel could not be installed.

Both start-ups will have the possibility of working closely in the port environment of Valenciaport during the last months of 2020 through the #SuperLabPorts initiative (https://superlabports.com/), the first Hub specialised in innovation and entrepreneurship in climate action for the maritime-port sector, which has the vocation of being a meeting point for the different agents that make up both the industry and the innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem.

It should be recalled that one of the main purposes of this initiative is to attract talent to the logistics-port sector by applying a strategy of open innovation in the Port of Valencia, in alignment with one of the major demonstrators in the new EIT Climate-KIC strategy (Deep Demonstration Net-Zero-Emissions for Resilient Maritime Hubs), where the co-design of innovative solutions by the actors involved can be developed and implanted in the port area, thus contributing to achieving its challenge of zero net emissions in 2030.

Jury for this initiative

The two challenges presented to this call (Innovation in photovoltaic installations in ports and Virtual Battery for storage of renewable energy in an internal network) were defined by the Sustainability Group of the Innovation Committee of the Valenciaport cluster, of which some members such as Inés Picazo from SAGGAS and Lucía Calabria from Fundación Valenciaport, also acted as a jury in the selection process of the two winning start-ups which took place on the 3rd of September.