Scheme: Ignite with Ebico
Award: Technical Scoping Support
Company overview
The First Element Group is aiming to facilitate a grassroots adoption of Green Hydrogen as a low cost sustainable fuel. They would like to enable consumers to contribute towards ambitious emissions targets and to democratise and decentralise energy supply.
They are developing a world-first Smart Tank: To safely and efficiently generate green hydrogen at the point of use: Through a process of electrolysis, the Smart Tank will generate and store green hydrogen gas.
The Smart Tank would enable the consumer to generate energy at point of use: Replacing costly and complex supply chain of fossil fuels.
The Smart Tank would be IoT-enabled in order work in conjunction with demand response algorithms and time-of-use tariffs to ensure that hydrogen is generated when grid electricity is cheapest.
Smartphone connection would provide user with convenient management of hydrogen inventory, cost and safety features
Ignite with Ebico scheme has awarded The First Element with the Technical Scoping Support package.
Challenge
Equipped with multiple Innovate UK grants to produce a fully costed bill of materials and bring its technology to TRL4, green hydrogen startup The First Element was ready to bring its tech to life. As this was to be its first prototype, TFE needed to understand the design and technical influences that would impact the end product.
Solution
We undertook a collaborative technical scoping project, supporting the hardware development and the design of the look and feel of the technology. This enabled founders Greg and Amy to visualise what was possible for the future of their technology, as they embarked upon new grant projects to further develop their business.
Outputs
The Technical Scoping Package was equipped with:
- 64 variants for key sub-assemblies
- 5 concepts created through morphological analysis, with early initial visualisation (sketches)
- Key design success criteria identified
- Concepts ranking and selection process based on success criteria
- Summary of key technical risk areas
Impact
Domestic heating concepts that can be evaluated further through the two live grants, with prototyping (Fast Start grant) and stakeholders (Design Foundations grant).