SCALE-UP - Connecting innovators to corporates

The Interreg North Sea Region project SCALE-UP is a cooperation of six European cleantech clusters from Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Germany.

The project organises matchmaking events to connect small and medium-sized cleantech companies with large enterprises. The aim is to initiate joint investments, research projects or pilot projects.

Contact person for the project is Martina Christiansen.

The project is funded by the European Union - European Regional Development Fund.

On this page we publish new challenges from large corporates looking for innovative sustainable solutions. Interested start-ups or small and medium-sized companies can apply for a (digital) meeting with the corporates.

Danfoss Trata Slovenia and Blockchain Think Tank Slovenia made an agreement to collaborate on a joint project, aimed at identifying blockchain companies and projects in the wider region, that are developing technological solutions within the energy industry. The goal of the project was to select companies, that would carry out pilot projects together with Danfoss Trata and at the end evaluate possibilities for a collaborative partnership with this global company. CLEAN helped Danfoss in the process of finding relevant companies for their pilot project. Interested companies were invited by SCALE-UP, a collaborative Interreg North Sea Region Project, to submit descriptions of their technological solutions.

One of the companies who answered the public call for blockchain projects in the energy sector by Danfoss Trata Slovenia and Blockchain Think Tank Slovenia was PONTON – one of the main players for business related blockchain applications in Northern Germany. They had received information about the call from the Northern German Renewable Energy Network EE.SH.

Danfoss and Blockchain Think Tank representatives selected projects with the biggest potential for a pilot project and for a potential long-term collaboration. On February 6th and 7th the selected projects were invited to a two-day hackathon. The aim of the hackathon was to test the companies’ technological solutions together with Danfoss representatives and in the end, presenting them to the Danfoss expert commission.

Over two days the PONTON team competed at Danfoss in Ljubljana, building a functioning blockchain application. Their hard work has paid off and PONTON was selected to participate in an upcoming pilot project at Danfoss. A contributing factor to this success is the PONTON WRMHL framework. The framework makes it easy for users to build end-to-end business application utilizing blockchain technology.

Michael Merz from PONTON says: “After having hacked 24 hours (with two hours sleeping), we were happy to have been finally awarded. It was a pleasure to participate – also due to the great organization and comfort that the Danfoss colleagues prepared for the teams. We are looking forward to a great co-operation, jointly working on the pilot project”.