A know-how that converts low-temperature waste warmth into electrical energy has earned the Institute of Physics (IOP) Enterprise Innovation Award for FeTu, the Elland-based inexperienced vitality enterprise behind the strategy.
The award celebrates FeTu’s success in translating physics analysis right into a viable business enterprise with a product that the IOP judges described as a “revolutionary heat engine”. The FeTu know-how allows industrial corporations to get well their waste warmth and convert it to electrical energy, vastly lowering each vitality prices and carbon emissions.
Based in 2016 by Yorkshire-born designer Jon Fenton, FeTu has grown to a group of 15, securing over £12m in sponsorship, funding and grants. In October the agency established a brand new manufacturing arm in Huddersfield to allow the business roll-out of its clean-energy know-how with a pan-European pilot programme. A gaggle of blue-chip meals manufacturing corporations, knowledge centres and industrial producers are rigorously trialling the product this winter.
Receiving the Enterprise Innovation award, Mr Fenton mentioned: “It’s a actual honour to obtain this award. FeTu is a wonderful instance of British ingenuity, overcoming the unattainable to allow entry to considerable inexperienced vitality sources that exist already.
“Our ability to generate electricity from heat sources as low as 40°C is a critical development for the UK to recover £4bn in industrial waste heat into free, green electricity.”
The distinguished IOP Enterprise Awards had been set as much as showcase the function of physics and physicists in creating jobs and financial development by powering innovation to satisfy main challenges corresponding to local weather change, higher healthcare and meals manufacturing.
IOP president Professor Sir Keith Burnett mentioned the awards recognised “impressive businesses that are pushing the boundaries of physics-powered innovation”. He added “Physics businesses are developing answers to some of the biggest challenges facing our society, driving economic growth, attracting investment and creating high-value jobs.”
Companies can use FeTu’s on-line calculator to judge their very own waste-heat-to-electricity case at h2p.co.uk