CRI SELECTED WINNER OF WÄRTSILÄ SPARKUP CHALLENGE FOR POWER-TO-X START-UPS
Carbon Recycling International has been selected by a jury of energy specialists as the winner of Wärtsilä’s SparkUp Energy Challenge. Close to 70 companies from across the world entered the challenge, and 4 companies were selected for the final round. The jury focused on which technologies would best address key challenges to the integration of 100% renewable sources in the power system. CRI gets the opportunity to collaborate with Wärtsilä on transformative projects as well as a monetary prize of 50.000 euros.
The final competition took place at the new Wärtsilä campus in Helsinki on Thursday, January 18, 2019. CRI’s entry in the SparkUp Challenge featured the proprietary Emissions-to-Liquids (ETL) platform and CRI’s experience with industrial and commercial scale systems. CRI’s ETL technology is used to synthezise methanol from hydrogen and captured CO₂. In power systems with an increase amount of fluctuating energy from wind and solar resources, surplus power and carbon emissions can thus be transformed into a liquid fuel and chemical feedstock. Methanol can be easily stored for short or long periods and transported cheaply over long distances using existing infrastructure. The added benefit of ETL is net reduction of CO₂ footprint, which applies across chemical, energy and transport sectors.
“CRI has emphasized bringing to market commercial scale, innovative and cost-effective solutions addressing the entire value chain of Power-to-X, based on flexible production of renewable fuel from CO₂,” says Sindri Sindrason, CEO of CRI. “We look forward to collaborating with Wärtsilä, as our visions for the future of power are closely aligned.“
“The real winner of this challenge is actually Wärtsilä. We get the opportunity to collaborate and work with these growth companies. Power-to-X is the missing piece of the puzzle when we are going towards 100% renewable energy systems. The winning company has experience on the whole process of Power-to-X from end to end, and we have a lot to learn from each other,” says Matti Rautkivi, Director Business Development at Wärtsilä Energy Business.
About the SparkUp Challenge: