Celtic Renewables Ltd, a company that envisages a future of whisky-powered cars, won the Pitch Perfect award for their inspiring presentation at this year’s Cleantech Innovate.
The company has a patented process that converts the by-products from the Scottish Malt Whisky industry into high performance biofuels like bio-butanol.
Bio-butanol has been hailed as the next generation of biofuel with 25% more energy per unit volume than bioethanol. It can also be used in engines when blended with petrol at any mix ratio.
The whisky industry annually produces 3 million tons of biological residues like pot ale and draff. This plentiful low-value sustainable feedstock combined with Celtic Renewables breakthrough technology makes the development of high performance biofuels like bio-butanol commercially feasible for the first time. The company plans to apply the concept to whisky and sprits industries in the US, China and Japan.
Mark Simmers, CEO of Celtic Renewables said “We are delighted to win the Pitch Perfect Award, it’s been another fantastic year for us. This award will add to a host of awards we have accumulated including those from The Shell Springboard Awards; The Scottish Green Energy Awards; Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership; and Rushlight Awards 2015, and hopefully there is still more to come; we will be presenting at Cleantech Innovate in Scotland on 4 June.”
The Pitch Perfect Award was presented by cleantech communications specialists Life Size Media to the company with the most compelling presentation of the day. Alisa Murphy, Co-founder of Life Size Media commented: “Celtic Renewables gave the first presentation of the day but their engaging story and clear commercial proposition remained etched in my mind right through to the end. They were very worthy winners.”
Now in its third year, Cleantech Innovate showcases early stage companies that, with the right investment, will underpin the UK’s green economy. Finalists representing a broad range of technologies across energy generation, energy efficiency, water and the built environment pitched their concepts to an expert audience of investors and industry specialists.
Catherine Hokin, Co-founder of event organisers ecoConnect explained: “The cleantech innovate programme is about commercial low carbon innovation. The London 2015 finalists were all exceptional technologies and we know that we will see this success repeated at our Scottish showcase on 4 June and as we expand the programme in 2016.”