Two Greek teams of experts, members of the high-tech companies Planetek Hellas (Athens) and Helbio (Patras) are among the winners of the Horizon2020 SME-Instrument program, also known as the "European Champions League of Innovation".
Planetek Hellas' distinction in the program came from the OP3C proposal and for Helbio from the Prometheus-5 proposal.
In the first case, the Athens team aspires to introduce to the space market an electronic component (composed of hardware and software) that will be installed on specific satellites and will facilitate their operation through automatic functions that it will perform while they are in orbit around the Earth.
In the second case, the Patras team intends to introduce a combined heat and power (CHP) unit, which operates with hydrogen and fuel cells. This unit has high energy efficiency (almost three times that of conventional engines) and is environmentally friendly since it has almost zero emissions.
The Athens team is one of the 14 winners of the thematic section "space research and development", of the SME-Instrument program, out of a total of 185 nominations submitted from all over Europe. The Patras team is one of the 60 winners in the thematic section "low-carbon energy systems" out of a total of 640 nominations respectively.
The two Greek teams have already secured the first prize of 50,000 euros to finance their immediate activity, which involves writing a feasibility study for their product. They have also applied for the second phase's grand prize, which can reach up to 2.5 million euros.
Planetek Hellas operates in the field of satellite mapping, geospatial data information infrastructure and software development for space applications.
ELBIO operates in the field of hydrogen production from renewable or conventional raw materials, as well as in the field of electricity and heat production systems.
Source: protothema.gr
