Green hydrogen captures building sector: world's first emission-free home storage system market-ready

 

- HPS' Picea^(R) system provides homeowners 100% clean, year around, self-sufficient power while enabling significant cost savings on heating

- Innovation project with EIT InnoEnergy removes barriers for large-scale market adoption

- EIT InnoEnergy's engagement comes with around 3 million euros of funding

Berlin - June 17^th, 2020

Berlin-based Home Power Solutions (HPS), a European leader in home energy storage solutions, announced the broad market availability of Picea^(R), the world's first green hydrogen-based power and heating system for homeowners. This milestone was achieved through an innovation project with EIT InnoEnergy, one of Europe's largest investors in sustainable energy innovations. As part of the innovation project, EIT InnoEnergy has also provided around 3 million euros of funding to HPS.

Consisting of a battery, an electrolyser, a hydrogen fuel cell, and hydrogen storage, the HPS Picea^(R) combines several of the most promising new developments in the energy industry into one package - unlocking a level of energy autonomy never before seen in a consumer product: 100% off-grid clean and CO₂ free energy, year round, plus, up to 50% cost savings on heating by using waste heat.

With around 100 times larger storage capacity (up to 1500 kWh) at 30% of the specific cost compared to other commercially available home batteries, the Picea(R) system drastically increases the benefit of a home photovoltaic (PV) installation. While all of the technologies included in Picea^(R) are proven to be useful in their own right - many of them are proprietary to HPS - it's the seamless integration that delivers the true breakthrough - doing away with the functionality issues of rooftop PV being seasonal in nature.

The joint innovation project with EIT InnoEnergy has successfully removed barriers for making Picea^(R) commercially available at large scale. Besides the funding, this has been achieved through further extensions of HPS' intellectual property, successful implementations with pilot customers, building of a pilot production line at HPS' Berlin headquarters, onboarding manufacturing and distribution partners plus laying the foundation for the planned European expansion.

"We are extremely pleased with the huge leap forward made since starting our collaboration with EIT InnoEnergy in 2019," said Zeyad Abul-Ella, Managing Director of HPS. "Jointly, we have managed - vastly ahead of our initial schedule - to take Picea^(R) from a working prototype to a large-scale commercially available product. One of the biggest challenges of PV has always been the variability of it. With our system not only do PV installations gain short term energy storage in the form of a battery, but the on-board production of green hydrogen and an included fuel cell essentially removes the limits that once plagued PV. This breakthrough technology combined with the market access provided through InnoEnergy's ecosystem will enable us to expand quickly beyond our home market Germany."

And the timing could not be better. As the future of Europe's energy industry is more uncertain than ever, Picea^(R) will offer the opportunity for millions of households to take their energy production and use into their own hands. In Germany alone, 36% of the population lives in detached, or semi-detached homes - Picea^(R) will enable those households to strive for energy independence, while contributing to the sustainability and security of the European energy market as a whole. In Germany and selected further European markets, HPS estimates foresee a potential of up to 1.5 million installations in the homeowners' segment, amounting to a total addressable market of 37 billion euros.

"One of the biggest questions is, how can we ensure that we come out of the current pandemic and economic crisis more sustainable and resilient than we were before. With Europe setting the agenda with the Green Deal, investments in the energy efficiency of our homes should be considered top priority. And the building sector offers a huge lever to tackle exactly that challenge," said Christian Müller, CEO of EIT InnoEnergy Germany. "Working with HPS is particularly exciting because the value offered by their Picea^(R) system is so tangible. Putting - as a world's first at consumer level - battery, fuel cell and hydrogen storage technologies together in one package brings enormous benefits to homeowners, helps to bring down CO₂ emissions and has massive potential in further segments within the building sector."

The Picea^(R) system is available to owners of single-family houses in Germany today. Additionally, distribution partners like GASAG, a German energy service company, are preparing to offer Picea to their customers in the near future. Marketing will initially focus on Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A European rollout is planned for the near future, with a global launch to follow soon after. The production of up to several thousand units per year is carried out by contract manufacturer Zollner Elektronik AG.

Since its inception in 2010, EIT InnoEnergy has accelerated over 330 startups and supported the commercialization of nearly 500 products.

About EIT InnoEnergy

EIT InnoEnergy is the innovation engine for sustainable energy across Europe.

We support and invest in innovation at every stage of the journey - from classroom to end-customer. With our network of partners, we build connections across Europe, bringing together inventors and industry, graduates and employers, researchers and entrepreneurs, businesses and markets.

We work in three essential areas of the innovation mix:

- Education to help create an informed and ambitious workforce that understands the demands of sustainability and the needs of industry.

- Innovation Projects to bring together ideas, inventors and industry to create commercially attractive technologies that deliver real results to customers.

- Business Creation Services to support entrepreneurs and start-ups who are expanding Europe's energy ecosystem with their innovative offerings.

Bringing these disciplines together maximises the impact of each, accelerates the development of market-ready solutions, and creates a fertile environment in which we can sell the innovative results of our work.

InnoEnergy was established in 2010 and is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

About HPS Home Power Solutions GmbH (HPS)
HPS develops and produces integrated systems for storing and using solar energy in single- and multi-family homes. HPS stands for reliability, independence and sustainability in decentralized energy supply. The first system from HPS, Picea^(R), combines energy storage, heating support and indoor ventilation in one compact product. Thanks to its high-performance energy management system, Picea^(R) is able to meet the complete electrical energy needs of a single-family home. In addition, all waste heat produced is used to provide the house with heat and hot water, thus lowering the cost of heating. Compared to commercially available batteries, Picea^(R) has a hundred times more storage capacity with twice the output. Picea^(R) is energy efficient and provides power all year round, enabling complete energy self-sufficiency and independence from the grid. The energy produced by the photovoltaic installation on sunny days can either be used straightaway or converted into hydrogen and stored. This energy is then made available at night, or during winter when there is limited sunshine. The HPS system's fuel cell converts the energy stored as hydrogen back into electrical energy and heat as needed. HPS is based in Berlin. For more information, please visit: