Professor Tonio Sant (Department of Mechanical Engineering) and Dr Robert N Farrugia (Institute for Sustainable Energy) receiving the awards on behalf of the FLASC team
The FLASC team at the University of Malta and its start-up company FLASC BV has recently won the Innovator Award during Malta’s first edition of Climate Action Awards organised by the Ministry for the Environment, Climate Change and Planning.
The aim of the Climate Action awards is to recognise and celebrate achievements driven by local businesses, public and private organisations, groups and individuals towards climate action. This initiative formed part of the #ClimateOn Campaign. The team also won the prestigious Climate Crusader Award as the overall winner.
FLASC is a novel marine-based offshore energy storage technology developed by the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Faculty of Engineering) and the Institute for Sustainable Energy of the University of Malta.
"The subsea technology uses pressurized water and compressed air to stabilize the intermittent power output from offshore renewables such as, for example, green electricity from offshore wind and solar farms. A first prototype was deployed and tested in the Grand Harbour in 2018, in collaboration with Medserv plc, with the financial support received from the Malta Council for Science and Technology, Malta Marittima and the University Research, Innovation and Development Trust (RIDT)," said Professor Tonio Sant.
Prof. Sant explained that following successful patenting of the invention, the University Knowledge Transfer Office, together with the originators of the technology, setup a start-up company, namely FLASC B.V., to commercialise the technology. The start-up, managed by CEO Dr Ing. Daniel Buhagiar, is presently based in the Buccaneer Accelerator in Delft, The Netherlands.
"The subsea technology uses pressurized water and compressed air to stabilize the intermittent power output from offshore renewables such as, for example, green electricity from offshore wind and solar farms. A first prototype was deployed and tested in the Grand Harbour in 2018, in collaboration with Medserv plc, with the financial support received from the Malta Council for Science and Technology, Malta Marittima and the University Research, Innovation and Development Trust (RIDT)," said Professor Tonio Sant.
Prof. Sant explained that following successful patenting of the invention, the University Knowledge Transfer Office, together with the originators of the technology, setup a start-up company, namely FLASC B.V., to commercialise the technology. The start-up, managed by CEO Dr Ing. Daniel Buhagiar, is presently based in the Buccaneer Accelerator in Delft, The Netherlands.
Professor Sant stated, "A second and larger prototype is presently being developed by the University of Malta as part of the H2020 project MUSICA led by PLOCAN, a Spanish multipurpose centre that supports research, technology development and innovation in the marine and maritime sectors. The energy storage prototype shall be integrated in a floating multi-purpose platform close to an island in the Aegean Sea."
Further development of the FLASC technology is ongoing at the University of Malta through various research projects including the Wind4H2 and Smart PVB projects supported by Transport Malta, FLASC-Optima, funded through the University Research Excellence Award, and SEA2F, funded through the Research Excellence Programme of the Malta Council for Science and Technology (Grant REP-2021-008).
