The Global EnergyTech Awards from Publicis Sapient identifies and celebrates companies making moves in the sector. As the third annual event approaches, we look back at 2022’s winners.
Publicis Sapient partners with global organizations to help them create and sustain their businesses in a digital world, and nowhere is the significance of their patronage more apparent than in the Global EnergyTech awards. The annual event, which began in 2021, recognizes the companies making significant efforts to change the energy sector for the better. The 2022 awards saw six companies receive prizes, including a one-on-one advisory session with one of the competition’s judges, a workshop with Publicis Sapient on scaling and accelerating their product, and the chance to exhibit at VivaTech in 2023. As Publicis Sapient prepares for its third event, here’s a look back at the winners of 2022 and their achievements.
“For a decentralized renewable generation, the grid is greatly challenged without storage,” explains Justin Scholz, CEO of energy-storage firm phelas. “We run a real risk that the build out of renewables is slowed down if we don’t start deploying energy storage seriously.” Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES) is a game-changer in this regard. Air is cooled until it becomes liquid, reduced to around one-thousandth of the volume in the process, and then stored in a pressurized container until there is a high demand for energy, at which point it is turned back into gas and subsequently used to power a turbine to generate energy. Germany-based phelas develops and markets such systems. At the moment, it is prototyping a unique standardized, mass-manufactured, and cheap large-scale electrical storage system named Aurora that will seamlessly transfer significant amounts of energy from peak production periods to times of high demand, making it viable for widespread application. “We make 100 per cent renewable energy globally a no-brainer,” says Scholz, and being chosen as the Best CleanTech category winner can only aid phelas on this quest.
