Sunlumo wins VERENA Award
CEO Robert Buchinger accepted the award during the Innovation State Prize ceremony in Vienna.
With their plastic-based ONE One World Solar System, Sunlumo won the VERENA special award powered by VERBUND, together with their partners from the Institute for Polymeric Materials and Testing at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz. Sunlumo CEO Robert Buchinger proudly accepted the award from the hands of VERBUND’s CEO Wolfgang Anzengruber during the Innovation State Prize ceremony held on Tuesday 28 March 2017 in the Hall of Sciences in Vienna.
Perg/Vienna, 29 March 2017 – Sunlumo, the solar professionals from Perg, won the VERENA 2017 special award on Tuesday night for their One World Solar Collector made from polymeric materials. Eco-friendliness and a low cost-price are distinctive features of this innovation. The solar collector is completed with a compact, standardized plastic-based pump group as well as plastic tubing and fittings: the One World Solar System is the first solar system on the market to include 100% plastic-based components and to be produced in large numbers. This solar system is a truly basic innovation. Its holistic product concept – from the raw material to the manufacturing process, from logistics to the added-value chain, and on to a highly attractive licence model – has made solar heat more affordable and accessible than ever before. “This future-oriented technology for solar-thermal applications enables the low-cost production of polymer-based collectors whilst offering a low-resource alternative to traditional collectors. Plastic-based solar systems are thus especially interesting for use in emerging and developing countries”, Wolfgang Anzengruber commented.
Innovation in the use of renewable energy
Sunlumo received this distinction for its innovation in the use of renewable energies. Another essential aspect of this prize was the cooperation between research and science. Sunlumo has a science partner on board, the Institute of Polymeric Materials and Testing of the Johannes Kepler University Linz. “Polymeric materials have a very high potential for innovation in solar engineering. They are becoming the leading class of materials in this sector and boosting their own brand penetration,” asserts Reinhold W. Lang, professor at the JKU-IPMT. VERENA was handed over at the State Prize Innovation ceremony 2017. Vice-Chancellor Dr. Reinhold Mitterlehner also honoured EV Group from St. Florian as the most innovative company of Austria. Another special prize was awarded on the same evening: the ECONOVIUS award went to bitmoving GmbH in Klagenfurt. The prize was endowed by the Chamber of Economy WKO for small and medium sized enterprises.
Stimulating research and development
The VERENA special award is new encouragement for Sunlumo to drive their research and development efforts even further. The One World Solar Collector was given the Solar Keymark certificate and the German Federal Ecodesign award in 2015. In 2016, Sunlumo won the Energy Globe Upper Austria as well as the Green Product Award in the category “Consumer Electronics”.
