Country: Italy

Category: Smart Cities

Name: Briareo

Project Aim: to produce a series of vertical axis micro wind turbines Dual Blade, the only one designed to be efficient in urban environments and to generate electricity with light winds.

What is Briareo?

Briareo wants to contribute to the smart management of energy distribution, relieving the network and creating a shared micro production that will make the gried more stable and reliable, making the energy production cheaper and sustainable for the consumer. We also offer a solution for those who have difficulty, due to logistical reasons, to access the national grid.

Why have you created it? 

Briareo innovation comes from its founders experience in the sailing world, from where we borrowed the aerodynamic efficiency concepts,  recently used in catamarans for the America’s Cup to the very small size vertical axis wind turbines. It is a market with great potential, but still missing an offer of a safe, efficient and affordable product.

Which problem are you aiming to solve? 

Briareo solves the problem of energy self-production, nowadays fundamentally provided by photovoltaics, by integrating perfectly the wind with the solar power to compensate the times of production lack in winter and on cloudy days. On such occasions, when the PV production is very poor, the Briareo micro wind turbines integrate the production contributing to have greater stability in the grid, reducing the imbalance of the networks and making economically viable the investment of those who decided to use renewable energy.

At what point are you? 

Briareo Launched its product on the Italian and Spanish market. Currently, it has started commercial negotiations with the markets South American markets, like Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and other countries like Iran. Next goal is to grow in North European markets, USA and Canada.

What does this award represent for you? 

This contest is an exceptional opportunity for Briareo to compete with the best European startup, to validate its intuitions and receive an objective and highly qualified assessment for its business model.