Impressive innovation
Alistair Welch reports back from the Innovate10 event, where small companies fought it out for funding
Renewable energy company Oxford Photovoltaics has been awarded a £100,000 grant from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) after impressing a panel of experts and the audience at October’s Innovate10 exhibition and event.
The funding was the top prize in the “Disruptive Solutions Competition”, a contest sponsored by the TSB and aimed at promoting innovation in small companies. Split into four sections, Oxford Photovoltaics triumphed in the “Energy” category; the other divisions were healthcare, digital, and sustainability. According to the organisers, the unusual title reflected the fact that the judges were looking for a solution to a challenge that, by applying a different set of values, might create a new or unexpected market opportunity.
In a format inspired by the BBC business show “Dragons’ Den”, the three finalists, who included representatives of RE Hydrogen and Arcola Energy alongside Oxford Photovoltaics, had five minutes to present their pitch to the experts and the Innovate10 audience before having to face questions from the panel. In another television twist, the audience were then invited to vote for their preferred pitch with that gameshow favourite, the keypad.
In order to reach the live final, the companies first had to upload a two-minute video presentation before a shortlist of 15, to be cut to three finalists, was selected to offer written applications.
Oxford Photovoltaics was seeking the grant to fund the commercialisation of its solar glazing product. This technology uses abundant, low-cost organic compounds and metal oxides to produce glass windows and glazing panels that produce electricity through a photovoltaic process akin to photosynthesis. The company applies the material directly to glass panels using a simple screen-printing process.
The organisation, which is a spin-off from Oxford University, is targeting the building integrated photovoltaics market and hope that developing its products on glass will give it a major advantage in the built environment.
“Adding a photovoltaic layer represents a trivial cost while providing a return in the form of electrical energy to reduce grid consumption and lower the carbon footprint of buildings,” explains company founder and chief executive Kevin Arthur.
Arthur added that the award would allow his start-up company to work on improving the conversion efficiency of the technology and speed scaling-up and progress to market.
The two runners-up each received £25,000. RE Hydrogen Ltd proposed to develop a 5kW, 1 bar, alkaline electrolyser stack at £75/kW for H2 production operating at 76 percent system efficiency based on the higher heating value of H2. The unit will produce up to 2.3kg H2/day.
The Arcola Energy project would determine the feasibility of using a hydrogen fuel cell to power remote offices and outdoor events as well as small indoor offices through application of LED lighting technology and DC micro-grids.
The TSB, which promoted the competition and will provide ongoing support for the winning projects, explained the philosophy behind the contest: “It is often the small companies that come up with the radical ideas, but find it difficult to get the right sort of support to develop them through the early stages.”
Innovate10, the networking, conference, and exhibition event for delegates from business, government and academia that hosted the final stages of the competition heard a keynote speech from David Willetts, the Minister for Universities and Science, in which he promised that the coalition government would not be “mothballing” UK innovation. He said: “The purpose of all this work – of putting the TSB at the heart of a streamlined innovation system – is to make private-sector led investment driven growth the defining feature of our economy.”
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