These London-based startups are pioneering new ways to create cleaner, smarter energy

Exploring the answers to tomorrow’s energy challenge is at the heart of Shell’s Make the Future campaign and their flagship event, Make the Future London. Shell is committed to supporting bright energy ideas and this event will excite, entertain and explore how we can be part of the journey to a low-carbon future. Make the Future London will be happening at the iconic Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from 30th June to 3rd July.

Here are the inventors you can expect to see and interact with at the event.

bio-bean
bio-bean CEO Arthur Kay was an architecture student at The Bartlett, UCL, when he was set the task of designing a coffee shop. He quickly realised that coffee was being wasted everywhere and set out to address the problem. A little research into the oily sheen that forms atop coffee left out overnight showed that what we view as grainy leftovers are in fact highly calorific and have the potential to create a power source. Kay began to wonder if the grains could be used to create sustainable energy, and the rest is cappuccino history!

Now, three years on, bio-bean is an award-winning clean technology company that recycles waste coffee grounds into advanced biofuels. Working with coffee factories, coffee shops, restaurants and offices, bio-bean collects waste coffee grounds and produces solid and liquid biofuels – biomass pellets and briquettes for heating and biodiesel for powering transport systems.

Considering around 200,000 tonnes of coffee are wasted every year in London alone, Kay realised he’d hit on a winning eco-idea. After graduating in 2013, he gathered startup funding and support from Shell through the Shell Springboard programme — which supports low-carbon SMEs. bio-bean now operates from a London HQ, laboratory and the world’s first waste coffee recycling factory. 

bio-bean has created a variety of genius ways to repurpose coffee grounds, including the creation of biomass pellets, coffee logs, biodiesel and biochemicals. In 2015 the company launched nationwide collection services and opened a waste coffee recycling factory at Alconbury Weald. The bio-bean factory can process 50,000 tonnes a year, the waste from one in ten cups of coffee drunk in the UK!

As a 2014 Shell Springboard finalist and an exciting participant in the Make The Future London line-up, bio-bean will be offering hot dogs straight from the barbecue, with a twist. The fuel used on the BBQ is made from waste coffee grounds — will you be able to taste the difference?

GravityLight
Who knew that gravity could create light? The GravityLight Foundation hopes to bring sustainable light to the estimates 1.5 billion people who lack access to electricity worldwide. Designers Martin Riddiford and Jim Reeves at London startup Deciwatt won the 2015 Shell Springboard grant with GravityLight, an invention which takes just seconds to lift a weight that powers a lamp, creating 20 minutes of light on its descent. The nifty device works using a 12kg bag threaded through a patented electricity-generating device which powers an LED light — the technology generates safe light with no risk of burns, house fires or kerosene-related illnesses. 

GravityLight could replace the biomass fuels – mainly kerosene lamps – which so many families in the developing world rely on for light. Co-creator Jim Reeves tells of the dangers of current electricity alternatives: “Millions of these people are forced into the poverty trap of using kerosene, which can consume as much as 30% of household incomes”. GravityLight reduces a family’s kerosene spend and will pay for itself within just two to three months of making the switch.

By reducing the dependence on kerosene GravityLight hopes to make a difference to world health. Currently over a million people in India alone have suffered severe burns as a result of using dangerous kerosene lamps — replacing that kerosene with gravity will create a safer, sustainable future.

You can take the GravityLight challenge for yourself at Make the Future London — using just everyday objects you can fill your own weight bag and hoist it up just as you would to power a GravityLight. It’s a race against the clock!

Pavegen
Born in a Brixton bedsit with just four employees, Pavegen develops and manufactures flooring technology that converts the wasted kinetic energy from human footfall into renewable energy. This clean tech energy source can power applications such as lighting, signage and communications networks in both indoor and outdoor environments. Started by entrepreneur Laurence Kemball-Cook in 2009, the company now has 40 permanent staff across the world, and they’re on the up! 

After securing a startup grant from the Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Award fund — and funding from the Shell Springboard 2013 finals — Pavegen installed floor tiles across 22 countries around the world in 2014. These included a “Walk the Light” experience at Heathrow Terminal 3, which powers LED lights situated along the walls of a busy corridor. Pavegen has also worked with Shell to install two football pitches – one in a Favela in Morro da Miniera, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and one in Lagos, Nigeria – with kinetic tiles beneath the pitch which, combined with solar power, powered the pitch floodlights at night.

Make the Future London will host an interactive football challenge between London and Lagos. A Pavegen eco-pitch will be installed at the event where school students from London will be given the chance to compete against opponents in Lagos. The competition will be introduced by none other than the football legend Pele in London.

If you're not a student but you still want a piece of the action, you will also get the chance to run on the Pavegen tiles to 'charge' up the countdown clock then score as many goals as possible before the charge runs out.

In addition to showcasing the bright energy ideas from these inspiring entrepreneurs, Make the Future London will play host to a range of immersive experiences designed to encourage conversation about the energy challenge. Experience the answers shaping tomorrow — #makethefuture.