For the transition to renewable energies to succeed, periods of low electricity generation from wind or solar power must be bridged. Energy storage plays a key role in this. With the Sprind Challenge “Long Duration Energy Storage” The Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovations supports startups that are working on exactly such solutions.
The innovation competition, which launched in July 2022, supports teams with different solution strategies in parallel. In the now-completed first phase, five startups received €1 million each. Four of them will now advance to the second phase, where they will receive an additional €3 million, including Reverion from Munich.
The solution of Reverion
Reverion is developing power plants that are designed to achieve an efficiency of up to 80 percent when converting biogas into electricity. What sets these small power plants apart is their ability to run "reversely." This means they can generate and store a renewable natural gas substitute or green hydrogen from a temporary surplus of wind and solar power.
Building on this biogas conversion technology, the team aims to scale its prototype to a size relevant for industrial use as part of the Sprind Challenge. In the second stage of the challenge, Reverion is now testing the technology specifically for seasonal energy storage.
Jano Costard, Challenge Officer of the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovations Sprind, explains:
"Energy storage is essential for the energy transition. However, we need new and better technologies for this. With the Sprind Challenge, we have created an effective innovation competition. This enables us to help promising technologies for which there is not yet sufficient private venture capital achieve a breakthrough. By linking further funding in the second phase of the Sprind Challenge to interim results, we ensure competition among the teams and ensure that investment is made in the most promising technologies and teams."
In addition to the Sprind funding, Reverion can also rely on strong support from investors. The startup received at the beginning of this year 8.5 million euros by UVC Partners, Green Generation Fund, Extantia Capital, and Doral Energy-Tech Ventures. Biomethane trader Landwärme also participated in this round. The Munich-based company was able to seven million euros In addition, Reverion will receive 12 million euros in research funding, which will be used for the further development of the systems. The startup is a spin-off of Technische Universität München and participated in the incubation program Xpreneurs the UnternehmerTUM.
