Skip to main content
European Commission logo
Enterprise Europe Network

A UK Company seeks technical cooperation to launch novel low-cost heat stores.

Summary

Profile Type
Technology offer
POD Reference
TOGB20240124012
Term of Validity
24 January 2024 - 23 January 2025
Company's Country
United Kingdom
Type of partnership
Commercial agreement with technical assistanceResearch and development cooperation agreement
Targeted Countries
All countries
Contact the EEN partner nearest to you for more information.
Find my local partner

General information

Short Summary
A small UK company has successfully launched micro pumps in combination with low-cost heat stores. Electricity from renewables can run domestic or small commercial central heating without gas boilers. Technical cooperation is being sought with manufacturers of renewables or heating products to finalise and validate these.
Full Description
A UK hydraulics engineer invented a micro pump solving household water flow and pressure problems. The resulting business is doing well so new generations are being added for different applications.
The low hanging fruit is a heat storage device that transforms a standard hot water cylinder into a heat store at minimal cost. The economics are simple: energy from solar panels, wind turbines or cheap night-time tariffs is currently stored in a battery bank and some of it sold back to the grid at low prices. At the same time, the existing hot water cylinders are set to only hold hot water in their top third. Mixing the water in the tank with the micro pump whilst heating with cheap electricity allows to store similar amounts of energy at 1/10 of the outlay. Please see the attached pdf use cases. The hot water will be used for showers and heating so that much less energy needs to be purchased and there is no need for a gas boiler. The micro pump is the only pump which operates on the hot side of all pressurised systems. The pumps work equally well for cold water as well as hot.
In new builds, bigger heat stores can be built which still cost much less than the battery banks. They can be powered by solar panels or a small wind turbine. Talks have started with a UK University but SMEs are being sought on the Continent for R&D and productization.
The company seeks technical cooperation and consecutive licensing with manufacturers of domestic renewable energy systems and central heating products.
Advantages and Innovations
The innovation lies in using low-energy pumps in combination with stratified or non-stratified water tanks. Much more energy can be stored than what is currently believed.
Stage of Development
Available for demonstration
Sustainable Development Goals
Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

Partner Sought

Expected Role of a Partner
Type of partner sought: industry.
Specific area of partner sought: manufacturing and sales of renewable energy systems or water tanks.
Role of partner sought: the company needs technical collaborators to finalise the productisation and validation of the described systems. Licensing and cross-sales will be discussed between the UK and continental territories.
Type and Size of Partner
SME 50 - 249SME 11-49SME <=10Big company
Type of partnership
Commercial agreement with technical assistanceResearch and development cooperation agreement

Call details

Coordinator required
Yes

Dissemination

Technology keywords
04001001 - Heat storage
Market keywords
006005003 - Other solar06008 - Energy Storage06003003 - Wind energy006005002 - Photovoltaic solar
Targeted countries
All countries

Files

Use case for Southern Europe
English
(1 MB - PDF)
Download
Use case for Northern Europe
English
(2 MB - PDF)
Download