@Enjay_Systems
•
100%
Climate Love
Climate Review Score ranking:
Enjay Systems
58 w
•
What if we told you there was an invention that could cut massive amounts of CO2 emissions, while at the same reducing your facility’s heating costs by 90%. It might sound too good to be true, but it’s not. The solution is called Lepido, and it is now being deployed by big food chains, industrial production sites, and small restaurants in several countries. But let’s take it from the start, since this whole project is actually a result of a massive failure. In the early 2000’s, our two founders, Jesper Wirén and Nils Lekeberg, were working with UV technology to clean ventilation ducts in restaurants and industrial kitchens. The main advantage of their product was that it could substantially reduce the build-up of grease layers inside the ventilation ducts of restaurants, which was very much sought-after by customers, since these duvets are major fire hazards. Business was good, and the company expanded it sales to markets in Europe, the Middle-East and the US. But although most customers seemed to be happy with the product, they always came back with the same question: ”Could your product also be used to make heat recovery possible in these environments?” This might need a bit of explanation. In office and residential buildings where the air is clean, heat energy is often recovered and used to preheat the incoming air, thereby saving a lot of energy and money. But in buildings where the air is polluted – like in kitchens and restaurants, bakeries, laundries, chemical processes and industrial buildings – the hot air goes straight out, without any energy recovery. Why? Because there hasn't been a solution available that could recover energy from polluted exhaust air. It was seen as a problem impossible to fix. So for five years, every time Jesper and Nils were asked that question, they responded “no”. Then they started rethinking their reply. ”There was a problem that needed to be fixed, and we already had the customers willing to invest in a solution, so we thought: Why not try to crack this nut?”, remembers Jesper Wirén, CEO and co-founder of Enjay. They started experimenting with a new and more effective filter that could clean the polluted air in difficult environments like restaurant kitchens. After scanning the market, consulting knowledgeable people, and spending a lot of time and money working on a prototype based on condensing power techniques, it was finally time to test the product. The result was … not so good. ”We had constructed the worst filter in the whole world. It did not soak up any grease, whatsoever”, says Jesper. After using a fair share of coarse language and banging their heads to the walls, Jesper and Nils went back to look at the prototype again. But this time from a different perspective. The product had in fact achieved something. It had managed to heat the incoming water by 7 degrees. ”It suddenly dawned on us that we had actually constructed a heat exchanger to which the fat did not stick”, says Jesper. Which happened to be exactly what their customers had been asking for, for the past five years. And so it was back to the lab again, to further work on what they no longer regarded as a filter, but as an energy recovery unit for ventilation systems in restaurants. ”We spent a lot of time and effort balancing thermodynamics and aerodynamics, to make the unit as efficient as possible”, says Jesper. Three years later, the first version of the Lepido was ready to be tested. And this time, the prototype worked great. The Lepido was not only making energy recovery in harsh environments possible. It was also making it profitable. https://youtu.be/FFwV2YLygyM?autoplay=0&rel=0 A restaurant that installs the Lepio can save an average of 85,000 kWh per year, or up to 90% of the heating cost. For the average European restaurant, this will also reduce its annual CO2 emissions by more than 30 metric tons. From a larger perspective, the climate-saving potential is enormous. Buildings consume about 30 percent of all energy used annually in the world. About 40 percent of all buildings in the world is home to some sort of process industry, which means the exhaust heat in those millions of buildings is currently considered waste. To give an example: If our solution was to be deployed in 50 % of all restaurants in Northern Europe, it would save 25 TWh of energy. That’s equivalent to around half of all the natural gas that Germany imported from Russia last year. ”We sometimes say that our solution could cut carbon emissions by 500 megatons, but that’s only counting the restaurants of the world. Then you have all the rest of the processing industry”, says Jesper. The covid pandemic made Enjays business progress slow at first, but today our solution is used by big fast-food chains in Scandinavia, such as Burger King, Max Burgers, and ChopChop. We are now also expanding into the UK and the Baltic region. Our first large-scale industrial project was when we co-designed the ventilation system for a huge pancake factory for Lantmännen, Northern Europe's leader in agriculture, machinery, bioenergy and food products. This facility alone saves 1,5 million SEK (€133,000) per year in heating costs thanks to the heat recovery made possible by Lepido. ”We are now in a position where we get several new inquiries every week”, says Jesper. We are also happy about our new partnership with We Don’t Have Time. This was a result of us joining – and winning – Dragonfly’s Den, a pitching contest for climate solutions, organized by We Don’t Have Time during the UN climate conference COP27 in November last year. Watch Nils Lekeberg, co-founder and vice president of Enjay making his pitch at Dragonfly’s Den during COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. ”Those kinds of recognitions mean more than one might think for a small green tech startup like ourselves. It gives us exposure and credibility, and suddenly the phone starts ringing. 100 percent of the leads we get comes from communication”, says Jesper. We plan to use our partnership with We Don’t Have Time to spread the knowledge about our technology. The more people that know about us, the faster we can stop the ongoing waste of energy currently going on. It’s also a great platform to showcase our end users such as restaurants, laundries and production facilities. They deserve some climate love as they are the first ones to choose to invest and believe in our solution. ABOUT ENJAY - Enjay is a Swedish Greentech company specializing in energy efficiency in hostile environments. - Enjay’s first innovation, Lepido, is a heavy-duty heat exchanger for polluted exhaust air. It makes energy recovery in impossible environments not only possible but also profitable. - The Lepido heat exchanger has received numerous awards and acknowledgements, such as the Horecava Innovation award 2022, Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge 2020 (where we finished second), Solar Impulse Efficient Solution 2020 and WWF Climate Solver 2018. - Enjay Systems is aiming for a turnover of ten million SEK for 2023 (around €900,000). The goal is to double this for 2024, and again for 2025.
dickson mutai
5 w
•
Enjay unveils Lepido, a revolutionary energy recovery unit poised to reshape the future of emissions reduction. Unlike traditional methods that attempt to filter out soot and grease particles, Lepido operates seamlessly in rugged restaurant environments, recovering energy while allowing potentially clogging particles to pass through effortlessly. Currently, over 40% of global energy consumption is attributed to buildings, contributing significantly to CO2 emissions. Lepido presents a game-changing solution, capable of reducing a typical restaurant's yearly CO2 footprint by approximately 40 metric tons. Enjay envisions widespread adoption of this technology, estimating that by implementing Lepido in the world's 15 million restaurants, global CO2 emissions could be slashed by up to one percent by 2050. Enjay's achievements extend beyond conceptualization, with notable recognitions such as being named a Climate Solver by WWF in 2018 and securing positions in prestigious lists like Global Cleantech's Top 100 Companies. With Lepido already integrated into Burger King Scandinavia's operations and various other establishments, Enjay is poised for further expansion internationally, with plans to extend its reach beyond commercial kitchens to sectors like laundries, marine industries, malls, and bakeries. For those seeking more information on Lepido and Enjay's innovative solutions, signing up for their newsletter offers an avenue to stay updated on their groundbreaking developments. https://content.enjaysystems.com/articles-english/how-we-plan-to-eliminate-one-percent-of-global-co2-emissions
How we plan to eliminate one percent of global CO2 emissions
We have developed Lepido, an energy recovery unit for the future!
https://content.enjaysystems.com/articles-english/how-we-plan-to-eliminate-one-percent-of-global-co2-emissions
148 more agrees trigger scaled up advertising
•
•
4 w
Enjay's Lepido is a game-changer in the quest for a greener future! ♻️🌟 Its innovative energy recovery unit not only reduces emissions but also operates seamlessly in rugged environments.
•
•
5 w
This is a positive step toward environmental sustainability and innovation.
•
•
5 w
Innovation is the game changer in the fight against climate change. This is a great step.
Enjay Systems
25 w
•
In collaboration with We Don’t Have Time, Enjay was chosen to feature in a Changemaker video. With these videos, We Don’t Have Time wants to spread outstanding examples on innovative solutions that can make a big impact in the transition to a low carbon world. Our Changemakers’ video showcases how our proprietary heat exchange technology works, and how at scale it could be used to cut global emissions by 1%. From humble beginnings in a Burger King franchise in Malmö, to the industry-changing potential of Enjay’s technology, let’s take a closer look at how our technology can transform energy efficiency across industries. https://youtu.be/jRWxTHp6cLo Efficiency born from an energy crisis Jesper Wirén, Founder & CEO of Enjay Systems, took us on a tour of one of the first Burger King restaurants in Malmö, Sweden to adopt the heat exchanger technology we offer at Enjay, and as explained in a recent article of ours, this technology couldn’t have come at a better time for local businesses in Europe. Many were feeling the pinch as a result of the energy crisis fostered by the war in Ukraine, and were desperately looking for means of making their operations more energy efficient and cost effective. As it turns out, this heat inefficiency has been a long-standing problem for a variety of businesses, but it required the shortfall of energy caused by the energy crisis to truly showcase just how inefficient most businesses operations are. As Jesper points out: “There is an increasing demand for energy production in the world today. Three quarters of all that energy is being wasted out into the atmosphere. Experts say that that [wasted] energy could heat up all of Europe alone.” Reusing energy rather than supplying more This is a phenomenal amount of energy that could be put to better use and in many ways, it’s a no-brainer. For any process, it’s always better to find ways to reuse resources rather than source new ones - and in the world of sustainability and emissions-reductions, it’s been a cornerstone. After all, there has been a massive increase in the number of recycling or reuse solutions in other markets and industries, from textile innovations like Renewcell, to government-led initiatives like Sweden’s Pant system, which “recycled 84.9 percent of its aluminum cans and PET bottles via the pant system in 2016”. Yet for the longest time now, the ability to recycle and reuse energy has not been given its due consideration, which is surprising considering that “the world wastes 67% of the energy it produces, often in the form of heat.” This is at the heart of what Enjay is trying to solve with their technology. Rather than generating energy in a more efficient manner, the technology instead captures energy that has already been generated and then redirects it for reuse in the building. Traditional heat exchangers vs Lepido© As Jesper points out, there are some buildings, such as office buildings, where heat is reused smartly, however for the biggest emitters, such as restaurants, supermarkets, heavy industry, and factories, very little of the heat that is generated gets recovered, instead “all of that hot air is just getting extracted out into the canopies” and then into the atmosphere. “When it comes to process ventilation within fast food, like in [Burger King], or industrial laundry, or heavy industry, [heat] is not being recovered at all.” The reason for this is because the heat exchangers (the systems used by businesses to trap, current, and reuse heat generated by a building) have had a critical design flaw. A traditional heat exchanger is filled with fins that are used to trap and transfer the energy that is pumped into the heat exchanger, however, the gaps between each of these fins is so small that when other particles in the air pushed into the heat exchanger get in there, they get stuck. Over time, this forms a “tarmac” that depreciates the heat exchangers ability to trap and then reuse any heat generated, whereas in Enjay’s more spaced out Lepido technology, there is “a unique air flow pattern where most of the particles can pass through the heat exchanger instead of sticking through the coils”. A 98% reuse of energy in the form of heat The difference in heat conservation is staggering, as 98% of the heat that the building generates gets reused to continue heating the building without the need to waste more energy to do so. As this is possible for “one kitchen”, while still having applications for a variety of different buildings and industries, there is incredible potential at scale. In fact, for heavy industry, it can have “up to 20-30 times higher the effect of savings”, per building that our heat exchangers are used for. And it’s an incredibly enticing offer for businesses as they are not losing anything by transitioning to this technology, due to the fact that the reduction in CO2 emissions made by using these heat exchangers directly correlates to money saved by that business. “When you talk about potential, if all restaurants should recover their energy from our system, we would cut 1% of the calculated emissions by 2050… and that is just for restaurants”, Jesper points out, explaining further that the reductions would be even greater if other industries applied this technology, too. If you want to learn more about how the heat exchanger technology works, we'll be part of a Changemakers Panel that is going live on December 8th from COP28!. You can register below and get the chance to see how we're creating change alongside our peers live! https://www.wedonthavetime.org/events/meetthechangemakers
•
•
24 w
Enjay's solution is a promising step towards reducing global emissions, particularly in the fast food and large industry sectors. It is encouraging to see companies taking responsibility for their environmental impact and actively seeking solutions to mitigate it. However, it is important to note that a 1% reduction in emissions, while a positive step, is just the beginning. More significant and ambitious efforts will be needed to address the urgent climate crisis we are facing.
•
•
25 w
Such numbers in emissions reduction are astronomical and we'd certainly welcome this move.
•
•
24 w
Enjay's technology is a win-win for businesses and the environment.
Enjay Systems
45 w
•
Enjay was recently the subject of a BBC episode who wanted to cover exactly how our technology is being used to reduce operational heating waste by 90-95%. Or as the BBC report put it: “Enjay has found a way to use greasy hot air from kitchens to warm up other parts of a restaurant, which helps cut costs and carbon emissions.” It was almost an overnight sensation, which just goes to show how strongly industries all over the world are considering energy efficiency as a crucial part of their operations. And for good reason, even at home in Sweden it has been a challenge for franchises as big as Burger King. In the average Swedish home, energy costs nearly doubled, but for industries that require significantly more energy expenditure just to operate, the energy costs spiked so much it became difficult to stay afloat, let alone turn a profit, as covered when speaking to restaurant owners in Malmo. “It has been hard. We have very high bills and we have a lot of chillers and freezers and a lot of hot equipment and of course the warming of the lobby and facilities.” When approached with Enjay’s solution, restaurant owners immediately recognized its potential, with the franchise owner stating: “It’s no discussion, we see the saving and the return of investment which is quite fast… During December and January was one of the worst in Swedish history with the energy costs. Not having this product would have increased our costs [a lot].” - Magged Khalidy. Even further afield, in countries like Canada, there is an added utility to this technology because it saves on emissions just as much as it saves on costs. Following the airing of the BBC program, we received many emails from business owners in Canada and the United States who expressed immense interest in our technology because it would help them meet emission targets they need to hit as part of their construction and operational guidelines. Nick Stark, Mechanical Engineer Executive Vice President at HH Angus & Associates, a group of energy consultants was one of the professionals who recognized this technology’s potential: “Over my four decades of being involved in ventilation design, I had tried a few ways to recover heat from messy or contaminated exhausts without success… However, with the move to more electrification, we have been under increasing pressure to bring heating loads down as we were running into electrical service capacity problems. It was clear to me that this product had great potential.” This is far from just a cold climate solution, either. Enjay has been seeing interest from companies as warm and dry as Australia, who need to heat up their facilities when it gets cold overnight, or as in the case of HH Angus & Associates, comply with emission regulations. With compliance to emission regulations for production and construction also coming into place around the world, the fact that this technology cuts emissions makes it all the more valuable. Ultimately, what this demonstrates is that as the world transitions to electrification and greener energy practices, the ability to reduce your energy consumption by as much as 90% will be invaluable - and the market is responding in kind. The only barrier to entry for our solution going global now is regulation and permissions in different countries. But given the swell of interest that we’ve seen from businesses all over the world, we already have “ambassadors” or “fans” advocating on our behalf to get the regulations in place so they can access this technology as fast as possible. As our own Klas Oskarsson pointed out, “We are looking forward to having the product available in North America after the inevitable regulatory approvals are sorted out.” At scale, the environmental benefits speak for themselves: “We’re confident that a solution like this could, if implemented worldwide, cut global emissions by as much as 1%.”. To learn more about out heat exchanger technology - go to our website below! https://www.enjaysystems.com/
•
37 w
This has such big potential! Get all fastfood restaurants onboard.
•
45 w
Green technology is the best and causes no pollution
•
•
45 w
Green Tech is the present and future
Enjay Systems
56 w
•
CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT: Gullmarsstrand is a hotel on the West coast of Sweden that has a long history of sustainability and resource efficiency. The founders are constantly working to integrate new technologies and educate their customers on how to have the biggest positive impact on the environment. One of these technologies is the heat exchanger developed by Enjay, so we sat down with Lars Nilsson, one of the founders of Gullmarsstrand, to hear his thoughts on sustainability in the hotel business. This is the first of a series of articles where we highlight Enjay customers and let them share their views on sustainability and how they work with different solutions like Enjay’s heat exchangers to reduce their emissions and succeed as companies. Hi Lars! Please tell us about yourself and Gullmarsstrand. I am one of three brothers who have been working in Fiskbergskil on the West coast of Sweden for 44 years, building up a significant and renowned hotel business. Over the years a lot has happened in the world and in our lives, but we have always had sustainability in mind from the very start. Our business is built around taking pride in being sustainable, and that is what we want to inspire our staff to do. You say that you have always had sustainability in mind. How did that begin? Today, sustainability is an existential issue on everyone's minds. Our sustainability journey began in 1989 when we started our professional lives. Growing up, we were always taught to take care of what we had. Our grandmother taught us to preserve water when washing and doing the dishes, and that became a way of life for us. We want to teach others that way of life through our business, especially now that overconsumption has driven us into a climate crisis. How do you do that? We have, consciously and unconsciously, built a culture for our about 100 employees where they are proud to do things in a sustainable way. Thanks to this, they always try to take care of our things and buy products that last. For example, we just polished and pigmented our restaurant tables made of massive ash wood so that they last longer and we don’t have to buy new tables. We also make sure to adopt new technology to be more sustainable. 20 years ago, we installed a geothermal system that reuses the cold air that is about to be pumped into the ground for air conditioning in our hotel rooms. This is only one of many examples of how we can combine financial gain with environmental gain to create truly sustainable solutions. That is great to hear! And speaking of new technology, you are also working with us at Enjay to reduce your energy use. Please tell us about that. Last year we decided to renovate and expand our kitchen, and we ran into a few issues. We realized that we were pumping 2000-2500 liters of warm air out of the kitchen in order to keep it ventilated. The problem with this was that the air from the kitchen came with a lot of fat, making it hard to reuse in other rooms and clogging up the ventilation system. I read about Enjay and the new Swedish innovation that could solve this issue and ran some numbers, and found that, since we were renovating the kitchen anyway, the cost of implementing this system would be earned back within 2 years through the energy savings. We went for it and installed the system in May of 2022, and so far it has reduced our energy costs for the kitchen by 50-60% while being more gentle with our ventilation system. Finally, Lars: As a hotel business, you have a lot of customers coming through your establishment. How do you influence them to become more sustainable? Customer behavior is always hard to influence. We are trying to help them make greener decisions in a few ways, one of which is putting posters by our breakfast tables that say “Eat all you like, but don’t take more food than you can eat.” to prevent food waste which is otherwise a massive problem for buffet-style restaurants. We have also developed a system where the customer can hang a sign on their hotel room door saying “I want to go green”, which means that they don’t need any washing or cleaning. This helps the cleaners save resources by not cleaning or washing things that they don’t need to. Thank you, Lars Nilsson from Gullmarsstrand hotel. We are happy that we could make your hotel more sustainable and profitable by reducing your energy use. If you’re reading this and want to know more about Gullmarsstrand, check out their website in preparation for your next visit to Sweden!
•
•
56 w
Thank you for sharing this! This is very interesting and I will definitely consider it when planning my next vacation! 😀
•
56 w
Very good sustainable measures.
•
•
•
56 w
Super inspiring!
Enjay Systems
64 w
•
During the UN climate conference COP27, Enjay participated in the Dragonfly’s Den competition at the COP27 Climate Hub, an on-site and digital broadcast hosted by We Don’t Have Time from Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. Nils Lekeberg, Co-founder and Vice President of Enjay Systems joined the broadcast from Malmö in Sweden to talk about heat recovery in polluted air streams, like in restaurants. Energy efficiency in buildings is crucial to solving the climate crisis. For every kWh of energy that we never use, we can prevent the environmental damage that comes from producing that energy. This is even more crucial as we are moving away from fossil fuels. As an example, one major way of increasing energy efficiency is by using a method called heat recovery, which means reusing the excess heat that is created from for example cooking food is reused to keep buildings warm. In Germany, heat recovery in offices and residential buildings saved about 55 TWh of energy. That same year, Germany bought 49 TWh of natural gas from Russia. In other words, without heat recovery in buildings, Germany may have needed twice the amount of natural gas from Russia. Enjay is making use of this technology in an area where it has previously been impossible: What is called polluted air streams. For example, in restaurants, the warm air coming from the kitchen has previously been considered too polluted to be reused. With Enjay’s new heavy-duty heat exchanger, restaurants can reuse that heat to keep their dining room warm, for example, and in doing so lower the energy needed for heating by 90%. This solution is ready to deploy, and there’s no drawback to implementing it. “The customer drive really is the wallet. What we have created is an economic incentive to help strive for the 1.5°C limit.” said Nils Lekeberg in his pitch. When asked about the payback period, he said: “If you install our technology in the new building stage, the alternative cost is very close to zero. If you do it as a retro-fit, it takes you about 18 months to pay it back.” https://youtu.be/JHAGR_QdfXQ?t=33568 Rewatch the COP27 Climate Hub anytime on We Don’t Have Time Play.
•
61 w
This should be adapted on a larger scale
•
•
•
63 w
Thanx Marine, We share your hope.
•
•
64 w
This is such a great innovation! Let's hope restaurants start using this!
Shared by Enjay Systems
Adam Wallin
76 w
•
At the Dragonfly's Den on the COP27 Climate Hub, November 9: Nils Lekeberg, Co-founder & Vice President of Enjay pitched their solution of heat recovery. By designing a heat exchanger for polluted air streams, heat that used to be seen as waste can now be used to save 90% of energy if deployed in a restaurant. This also reduces costs significantly, so there is an economic incentive to be a part of solving the climate crisis. Vote for Enjay Systems by Agreeing to this post.
103 more agrees trigger scaled up advertising
•
65 w
Great news
Enjay Systems
85 w
•
Right now, there is a massive waste of energy going on. Millions of buildings around the globe ventilate hot air out from the building, while in the same time use energy to heat the cold supply air going into the building. In buildings where the air is clean (housing, offices, commercial areas etc.) the energy is recovered and used to preheat the incoming air. But in all the buildings where the air is polluted (kitchens/restaurants, bakeries, laundries chemical processes and industrial buildings) the hot air goes straight out without any energy recovery. Why? Because until now the existing technology has been unable to recover energy from polluted exhaust air. Enjay is a Swedish greentech company specialized in energy efficiency. We develop tech that can recover energy that currently is being wasted. Our first innovation is a heat exchanger especially developed for polluted exhaust air. It makes it possible to recover the energy in the hot air going out from a kitchen/bakery/laundry etc. and use this energy to heat up the complete building. For a restaurant, using our tech cuts the demand for external energy for heating with 90%, saving around 85.000 kWh per restaurant/year. Our innovation is now being used in restaurants, schools, hotels and laundries in primarily the Nordic countries. But we want to do more, because every property in Europe who uses our tech lowers the annual CO2 emissions by 20 to 40 tonnes per year. So please help us spread the news to all restaurants, laundries and bakeries out there, that wasting energy is no longer an option.
•
•
•
83 w
Thank you Sarah!
•
•
84 w
Very important! At home wasting energy has never been an option, and that's because in France energy has always been very expensive, while we build terribly insulated houses. But it's good that this idea is now coming to Sweden, so much waste of energy could be fixed with simple solutions or more complex ones like yours!
Write or agree to climate reviews to make businesses and world leaders act. It’s easy and it works.
Certified accounts actively looking for your opinion on their climate impact.
One tree is planted for every climate review written to an organization that is Open for Climate Dialogue™.
•
57 w
Supergenious
•
•
58 w
wow this is such a great innovation and has a cool story behind it! Is it already in use in some restaurants?
•
•
•
56 w
@marine_stephan Hi, Yes! we are up and running on 8 European markets where we recapture excess heat from restaurants, schools, hotels and even food processing factories.