The world’s leading sustainable energy conference presents the success stories of three Estonian companies

This year’s event for the promotion of entrepreneurship and sustainable energy innovation The Business Booster takes place in Paris on 3-4 October and focuses on the consumers roll at the heart of the energy transition.  The exhibition area of the conference will feature 150 top sustainable energy start-ups presenting their products, including three successful Estonian companies: Skeleton Technologies, Thinnect and Hepta Airborne.

“The Business Booster is a catalyst for innovation in the energy sector. The event brings the world’s most innovative green technology solutions to participants from across the world, but also focuses on changing the attitudes and mindset of consumers. Today, more than ever, we need to see and prioritize the role of people in the transition to clean energy, and this year we have also chosen theme as the heart of our event,” said Diego Pavia, CEO of EIT InnoEnergy.

Project manager of the Tehnopol Startup Incubator Heleri Holm pointed out that the European Union has taken a common goal of raising the share of renewable energy in final consumption to 20% by next year, and to achieve this it is important to look beyond technologies. “Estonia’s ambition is even higher than the EU average, and the goal is to make the share of renewable energy up to 25% of Estonia’s total energy consumption by 2020. Today, only 17-18% of energy used is renewable energy. We often hear that renewable energy is expensive or that in Estonia there are too few sunny days to use solar energy – in practice, the introduction of sustainable technologies today is not only environmentally sustainable but also economically viable. Therefor we have to deal with changing people’s attitudes first”, Holm explained.

Among the exponents of the conference organized by InnoEnergy, Skeleton Technologies, Hepta Airborne and Thinnect are represented from Estonia, all of whom speak powerfully in the field of energy. Skeleton Technologies introduces super capacitors, which, for example, give enormous fuel savings on buses and reduce maintenance costs due to long life – with that greater energy efficiency contributes to reducing carbon emissions in cities. Hepta Airborne introduces autonomous remote sensing drones used to monitor power lines to identify and indicate defects in the future – for consumers this means less outages and lower prices. Thinnect technology can be used in buildings to control luminaires, heating and cooling equipment for both saving energy and ease of use and efficiency.

Over 800 delegations from 40 countries are expected to attend the conference – start-ups, industry representatives, financial communities, politicians and regulators. Delegates will hear from expert speakers, witness live panel debates, join in interactive sessions – and discover over 150 cutting edge sustainable energy technologies and investment opportunities. The event also offers an opportunity for companies to take to the stage themselves to pitch to a live audience of investors and industry representatives.

Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland and former United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Change, will set the scene through a keynote address. In addition, sharing their inspiring stories with the participants, there will be

• Lord Deben, Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change
• François de Rugy, Minister of Ecology for France
• Professor Eric Stark Maskin at Harvard University and Nobel Prize Laureate for economics
• Cyrus Wadia, Vice President of Sustainable Business & Innovation for NIKE
• Ambroise Fayolle, Vice President of the European Investment Bank
• Christel Heydemann, CEO of Schneider Electric France

Further information and registration at www.tbb.innoenergy.com. Using the code: EARLY BIRD at check-out there is a 30% discount until 31 July.

The organizer of the forum EIT InnoEnergy is the largest leader of sustainable energy innovations in Europe; the company’s partner in Estonia is Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol, which shares the goal of supporting the development and sustainability of Estonian innovative companies in the energy sector. Tehnopol has been operating in the development of the Estonia green energy sector since 2010 in collaboration with PAKRI Science and Industrial Park.