Every year the Arctic Awards are presented to highlight good practice projects and this year, the project Future Cleantech Solutions was presented as the winner of the Arctic Award “Overcoming Critical Mass”.
The transition to electric cars is dominant in the automotive industry and among investors. But innovations around hydrogen are gaining ground, and fast. The Skellefteå based company Nordic Eco Solutions have a cutting-edge technology and is looking for land to build the first factory.
- It sounds cocky, but once the vehicles are delivered, we have made sure that the fuel and the infrastructure are ready. As we see it, electric cars are made to run on hydrogen, says Christian Hagelberg, CEO at Nordic Eco Solutions.
Smart City Sweden welcomes delegations from all over the world that are interested in investing in smart & sustainable city solutions. Some of these solutions from Sweden are demonstrated in a new short film.
This week, Smart City Sweden and Business Sweden organised a digital meeting with CLP Hong Kong to explore opportunities for Swedish companies in the Smart Grid sector.
400 billion SEK over 20 years is the investment being made by the state-owned mining company LKAB. A strategy to make the whole production line carbon dioxide-free till 2045. It is one of the biggest investments in Sweden.
The initiative for a unique test bed for commercialization of new technologies, products and services in bioeconomy has started. In the first phase a flexible pilot hall with several different test beds will be built in connection to RISE's facilities in Örnsköldsvik.
C-Green's innovative solution OxyPower HTC that transforms large amounts of sludge into an energy rich material, has made the company go from idea to the first industrial facility at Stora Enso in Finland in only five years.
- The potential is huge, in Sweden alone, there is room for more than 50 facilities and over 2.000 facilities in Europe, says Peter Axegård, CTO at C-Green.
Last week, Smart City Sweden's regional nodes East, Middle and North welcomed representatives from a Ukrainian energy company, DTEK, to join a webinar focused on the Swedish energy sector. 40 top level managers participated to learn about Swedish sustainable solutions, investigate whether it was possible to implement these innovations within their group and to find collaborations with Swedish companies.
Liquid Wind from Gothenburg has started the project planning of a production facility for electromethanol in Örnsköldsvik. The total investment can be 1.5 billion SEK and the goal is to have a decision regarding the investment during 2022.
During Monday afternoon, a matchmaking event was conducted between Swedish cleantech companies and Dutch companies working with residual streams.
The bus stop, Station of Being at Umeå University has been nominated for Beazley Designs of the Year 2020, which will be presented by London Design Museum. Station of Being is one of three nominees in the transport category.
The business idea was sprung from climate anxiety, a lot of experience of distance meetings and over twenty years of digital business development. In 2019, Anders Gunnarsson founded the company Coeo - a hybrid solution which blends together physical and digital meetings. Enter Corona pandemic and he is now the CEO who has done the unusual and removed his phone number from the company website.
- The industry is tossed upside down, we have not been able to take care of all the clients calling us, says Anders.
The Kvarken Council's project FAIR had its kickoff during Tuesday and the project Future Cleantech Solutions was co-arranging the event. The FAIR project will research possible flight routes and socio-economic benefits of implementing electric aviation in the Kvarken region. It is an exciting project that opens up for new opportunities to live and do business in our region.
This year's winners of Venture Cup was presented during Tuesday. North Sweden Cleantech presented the sustainability award, Impact Maker, which this year went to PlasticFri.
SpinChem from Umeå has nine of the ten biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world as paying customers. On top of that they are one their way to solve the problem with radioactive water from nuclear plants and similar businesses. It is exciting times, to say the least, for SpinChem which have to employ more people to be able to handle the development.
- Our goal is to create benefit for the customers, find cleaner processes and improve the world, says Emil Byström CEO.
Continuously analysing the ore and water mixture - the slurry - in a concentrator plant is important for process control – technology is coming from Skellefteå that is at the global cutting edge. The Xore company has been around for ten years and is beginning to be accepted by a somewhat conservative mining industry, which is discovering new opportunities in their technology.
"During the first half of the year, right in the midst of the corona pandemic, more quotation requests poured in than we have ever had," says Mikael Normark, CEO.
When it comes to growth and development in the field of renewable energy, the world's eyes are all on the Skellefteå region.
Tens of billions of Swedish kronor are being invested in the region; while the rest of the world is in fear of recession, people here are talking about expansion.
"I'm absolutely convinced we can become the model that shows the world how to meet the challenges of climate, a renewable society and innovative growth," says Joachim Nordin, CEO of Skellefteå Kraft.
During three webinars, audience gained insight into different parts of the industry on both sides of Kvarken. The series is called "INDUSTRY INSIGHT" and the first three webinars have provided information on Kokkola Industrial Park, Norrbotniabanan as well as public procurement in Sweden. With a total of over 400 entries, the interest has been great and for those who missed the event and understand Swedish, all webinars are now on the Future Cleantech Solutions YouTube channel.
Thanks to its unique electric systems, Elforest Technologies from Örnsköldsvik has made an impression in the cleantech field. With the international actor Axel Johnson Group as an investor, the plans are big.
- In ten years’ time, we hope to be several times bigger than we are today, says CEO Gabriel Söderholm.
Umeå Municipality has positioned itself as a leader in equal urban development in Europe. International visitors travel to northern Sweden to discover how the strategic work is carried out.
“This is thanks to a long tradition of integrating gender equality into all issues related to urban planning and infrastructure,” says Gender Equality Officer Linda Gustafsson.
More and more companies find that sustainability is a business strategic tool that provides competitive advantages. Therefore, North Sweden Cleantech and Esam are now taking the next step to make the region even better in circular business development.
- Esam has very good expertise in this area and together we can support the companies to become more competitive and efficient in their resource utilization, says Peter Hedman, project manager North Sweden Cleantech.
The winners in the Venture Cup regional finals are announced. North Sweden Cleantech was event partner and annouced the award winner for Impact Maker 2020, an award that was appointed to the startup company Blamorama Games, run by Ingrid Fridesjö and Maya Umar.
Skellefteå-based Linnovation works intensively with three innovations that are based on the same solution - knitted copper wire. Together with an integrated sensor technology, three prototypes have been made: a de-icing system for wind turbines and roofs, and a heating solution for an ambulance stretcher.
- I know that there is an incredible need for all these products, says inventor Kjell Lindskog.
Many actors in northern Sweden are currently investing in wind power and they have similar challenges. One of North Sweden Cleantech’s focus areas is to create and develop clusters within the region's main strengths. The large investments in energy and wind power are therefore given high priority when it comes to clusters.
Wärtsilä is a global leader in smart technologies and complete lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy markets, providing both manufacturing and services, with operations in over 200 locations in more than 80 countries around the world.
Wind power and hydrogen was in focus during a workshop organized by North Sweden Cleantech together with Inlandets teknikpark and Process-IT Innovations and others. Participants in the workshop were 30 people from different parts of the value chain, where representatives from North Sweden Cleantech's wind power clusters also participated, during a full-day workshop over link.
When Fredrik Sahl was on parental leave he had an idea, and now he is on his way solving Umeå municipality's problems with water leakage in the sewage. Thanks to his background as a civil engineer in energy technology and Umeå Energi's investment in the latest technology in data transfer technology, a thought became reality.
The demand for high-quality industrial lighting is increasing and Prismalence has taken market shares on the world market from Örnsköldsvik. The company has become a supplier to the world's largest crane manufacturer and opened an office in Singapore.
- We are more and more noticing that there is a demand for good light-control and light quality in extreme environments, says marketing manager Daniel Björk.
How do you build a sustainable factory prepared for the challenges that the future will bring? What are the megatrends of tomorrow that will shape the factories that we build today? What are the main issues to be confronted and what does the world of manufacturing look like in the coming decades? These are some of the topics that will be presented during the seminar Future Sustainable Factories by some very exciting actors who are taking on the challenge of building the factories of the future!
Swedish solutions in smart and sustainable cities attract a record number of foreign visitors to Sweden. Smart City Sweden displays over 100 visit objects across the country with solutions in environmental technology, mobility, urban planning, digitization and social sustainability. North Sweden Cleantech is the northernmost node in the project.
The winner of this year's Cleantech Profile is Emil Eriksson from Järven Ecotech! He was appointed by a unanimous jury during Cleantech Meetup in Örnsköldsvik on January 14.
At the annual summation of 2019, it is clear that the interest for Northern Sweden's smart solutions is big. As the northernmost node in the national project Smart City Sweden, North Sweden Cleantech has received 6 delegation visits with 28 participants from 6 different countries.
Note:
Visitors shall bear all costs related to the visit including flights, accommodation, all meals, translations etc.
International Business Developer
nina.rismalm@umea.se +46 70 256 82 84Umeå
International Business Developer
helena.nasstrom@ri.se +46 73 275 10 83Örnsköldsvik
