The goal of the STEPS project is to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the North-West Europe region (NWE) bring their energy storage products to the market and increase their competitiveness. STEPS is part of the Interreg NWE programme financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The programme consists of two phases, the first of which offers product enhancement support from universities across the NWE region to the top 40 applicants. 20 of these SMEs will be supported with a second phase aimed towards development and demonstrating their technology at suitable testbeds. One of the SMEs supported in the first round of the project is Adaptive Balancing Power.
The company was founded in 2016 in Darmstadt by Dr. Hendrik Schaede-Bodenschatz and Nicolai Meder. The founders have been deeply involved with 4th generation flywheel technology since 2008 and started the development and commercialisation of the Adaptive Balancing Power flywheel packages in 2012. Together with a team of 16 people, they now focus on innovative applications in which the flywheel energy storage systemsoffer added economic value. During the Business Support Programme of STEPS, they are supported by experts in the energystorage sector from both the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany and the University of Ghent in Belgium. We asked Hendrik Schaede-Bodenschatz from Adaptive Balancing Power about their company and their participation in STEPS.
What challenges does the commercialisation of the flywheel system involve?
The flywheel is the oldest energy storage technology in the world, and yet in its current stage of development it is something new and unknown for many people. Especially due to electromobility, everyone is focused on batteries and ignores alternative technologies.The battery is truly something great, but it also has weaknesses. For these weaknesses, we position ourselves as a better alternative with flywheel energy storage.
At what development stage is your product right now?
Currently, we are entering the market for buffered high power charging stations, with a demonstrator that will be deployed in July. Subsequently, in parallel we prepare to start small batch series production in Q4.
If you want to read the whole ABP story, please click on the link below.
