We interviewed Dr. Cornelius von der Heydt, Head of Sales at Hydrogenious Technologies GmbH and one of the SET 2017 Award winners.
Winner of the Clean Tech Against Climate Change category, Hydrogenious provides the infrastructure for easy and safe hydrogen distribution. Hydrogenious’ Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier (LOHC) technology binds the hydrogen to a carrier oil, which can be stored and handled at ambient conditions. Hailing from Germany, this superstar start-up has won other multiple awards, and their technology is now backed with strong scientific, strategic and financial capacities to revolutionize large-scale energy and hydrogen storage. Check out more about this fantastic start-up here: http://www.hydrogenious.net/en/home/
Tell us the story behind your project/company?
Hydrogenious was founded in 2013 as a spin-off of the University of Erlangen and has thus become a prime example how world-leading university research can be commercialized to have an impact in the world. Since inception we have grown to ~50 employees and been able to close the first customer deals.
What makes you passionate about your project?
It is really two things: One is the fascination for innovation and technology and how it can impact our world; the second is the understanding of all of us that we need to change something in how our world is powered to ensure our children still live in a world worth living in from a climate perspective.
What in the energy, sustainability, and start-up world keeps you up at night?
The fact that we need to increase the speed at which we change our behavior and energy consumption to a sustainable setting. Any year lost in the transition is a year that we don’t get back.
Tell us what happened after your project/company was selected to be a winner at SET2017.
Of course, such awards are highly important for start-ups as they give them visibility and publicity, which would otherwise not be possible to get. However, we were in the middle of our first large project to deliver systems to a US customer, so there was no real time to celebrate. But we have successfully managed to deliver the systems and are already working on the next projects to bring our technology into the market.
What stands out for you when you remember SET 2017?
Surely the really international scope and dena’s global communication before and after. It was fascinating to get to know so many start-ups from Africa and Asia as well, how they have to work under completely different circumstances and I sometimes feel they do an even better job then we do.
Has SET supported your project and/or company, and how?
Definitely. As mentioned above, such awards open up possibilities for communication, publicity and public awareness that we would otherwise not have. We see that it also works as an initial proof point for some of our customers, not on a technical level but on a societal level – by using our technology they also support the fight against global climate change.
