CEO letter of opportunity
Otto Lundman, CEO
The world is only just waking up to what this actually means. The major players in energy have targets to drastically reduce their footprint by around 50% before 2030. Policymakers are drafting policies with hefty tariffs to make non-sustainable materials even less attractive. All of this creates an urgency like we’ve never seen before to bring to market technology like ours. Modvion towers can help energy companies reduce their emissions by around 30% by using a renewable, local material like wood.
Modvion is accelerating the transition to renewable energy and materials by building wind turbine towers with laminated wood. We enable the wind power industry to build climate-neutral wind energy, lower total costs and facilitate transportation of tall towers. We are challenging the potential within wood. This precious material should be used strategically and replace concrete and steel whenever appropriate. It simply does the job better whilst lowering levels of CO2.
The past year has been pivotal for Modvion. In 2021 we applied for four patents bring our total to eight pending and one key patent approved; protecting our design to build modular, wooden towers in a cylindrical shape. Our fantastic team has grown to more than 30 people and counting. We’ve added an all-star advisory board providing us with expert insights within wind power, forestry, energy and exports.
Vestas, the world’s leading wind turbine manufacturer, chose to become a shareholder after evaluating our technology. It’s great to have this stamp of approval from the industry leader and we’re happy to support Vestas in reaching its ambitious sustainability targets. The investment became the starting point of the valuable collaboration we now have, both on the technology side as well as commercially. The European Commission, in the form of the EIC Fund, has also taken the step to become a shareholder as part of the €6.5 million in funding granted to us in 2020.
We’ve been pleasantly surprised at the amount of interest from future customers and suppliers. To be able to act on this interest our focus is to verify our technology and demonstrate it at a commercial scale. The work is already underway with Wind of Change, the first commercial wooden wind tower built for Varberg Energi. As the value chain in wind power is quite conservative, to bring disruptive technology like ours you need close collaborations with the key players. Modvion is already working with wind and energy giants like Vattenfall, Enel Green Power, Rabbalshede Kraft and more. All this places us perfectly to be able to scale production to meet demand and deliver on large orders.
It’s an exciting time to be part of Modvion and I hope you will join us on our journey. Wind power is the future and wood is the material.
Together we can prove it to the world.
*Source: European Commission
The equation for wind power is quite simple: Bigger is better. To be able to harness more wind energy at a cheaper price one of the best ways to reduce cost is to build taller. The winds are stronger, the turbine becomes more effective and the energy produced is more cost-efficient.
But with higher towers come big challenges – in production, transport and assembly – that the industry needs to overcome. That’s where Modvion comes in. We have the solution and the know-how to build tall wind power towers made of wood.
As wind towers have risen above 100 metres in height, transportation poses considerable problems, not least that the base diameters exceed the limit for transport width in most parts of the USA and the EU. Our modular concept means the towers are delivered to site in – tada – modules! A bit like IKEA for wind turbine towers.
Although the market would like to build taller towers, the cost of building tall towers in traditional materials is too expensive. The extra height squeezes the margins to the point that energy producers end up choosing shorter, less-efficient, towers.
Our solution uses engineered wood that is lighter although as strong as steel. That means extra height no longer comes with expensive reinforcements or maintenance. Building higher finally becomes both more efficient and cost-effective. In fact, using a wooden modular solution only becomes more beneficial the higher you go.
Modvion towers are built from laminated wood, making the CO2 emissions for the tower component negative. Meaning our towers reduce the carbon footprint for the whole turbine by more than 25%. Conventional towers make up the biggest share of CO2 emissions from wind power. With steel and concrete responsible for 15% of global CO2 emissions*, changing from these emission-intensive materials has a huge impact.
The life cycle emissions from a 110m tall wind turbine tower of steel is approximately 1 250 tonnes of carbon dioxide. The corresponding tower in wood emits 90% less emissions, which means around 125 tonnes of carbon dioxide. When you also calculate that the wood is also storing carbon, the emission reduction becomes negative.
*Source: New York Times
Vestas is the world’s leading producer of wind turbines and invested in Modvion in 2021. Vestas Ventures is the platform Vestas developed to invest into external companies to challenge the status quo and achieve their long-term vision to become the global leader in sustainable energy solutions.
Established in June 2020, the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund) is a breakthrough initiative of the European Commission to make direct equity and quasi-equity investments in European high impact and deep tech start-ups and scale ups. The EIC Fund aims to fill a critical financing gap and its main purpose is to support companies in the development and commercialisation of disruptive technologies.
Chalmers Ventures incubates, accelerates, and scales-up tech companies with a sustainability profile. Chalmers Ventures are one of Sweden's most frequent tech investors, ranked top-10 globally among university incubators.
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info@modvion.com
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Transportgatan 39
422 46 Gothenburg
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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No. 959151.
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