Imagine a ceiling panel offering lighting, efficient cooling and improved acoustics all in one. Or an app that calculates the energy use of single appliances in your home as well as the cost of their power consumption at any given moment. And how about an environmentally-friendly process to insulate buildings using digitalization and robotics? These were among the innovations in the running for the PERPETUUM Energy Efficiency Prize. Dr. Camilla Bausch of Ecologic Institute headed the jury to choose the winner of the competition.

The awards were presented at the Annual Conference of the Deutsche Unternehmensinitiative Energieeffizienz (German Industry Initiative for Energy Efficiency - DENEFF). The winning product was selected from 10 short-listed innovations, which were presented during the conference. This year’s special criterion for the competition was "co-benefits". The jury was challenged to identify an innovation providing not only an impressive contribution to energy efficiency, but also a product or process, which provided further advantages to the user.

After intense discussions, the Jury presented the award to interpanel, a product which provides "healthy room climate through multifunctional ceiling systems". Interpanel has developed a ceiling system that simultaneously regulates room illumination, cooling, and acoustical absorption. Key to the solution is an innovation which lowers the dewpoint.

The audience voted for Fresh Energy as their favorite innovation. Fresh Energy is an app presenting information about the energy use of single appliances in ythe household and links this usage to the cost for energy consumption of each appliance. Customers using the app can adjust their user behaviour based on the information collected, resulting in savings in both energy and money. The app also identifies dwindling consumer items and can place new orders when needed.  Data protection is, of course, key in this context.

The Newcomer Award was presented to the trainees at Diebold Nixdorf, who exchanged existing old contactors with new energy efficient ones. As a result of their initiative, the organization will save approximately 200 000 kWh of energy on an annual basis – and further improvements are still being made.

Along with Dr. Bausch, the 2018 jury included Hanna Decker, Business Editor at the Frankfurter Allgemein Zeitung, Matti Malkamäki, Founder and CEO of Aurelia Turbines (winner of the 2017 PERPETUUM Energy Efficiency Jury Award), Dr. Martin Pehnt, Scientific and Managing Director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg (ifeu), Prof. Dr. Peter Radgen, Professorial Chair of Energy Efficiency at the Institute of Energy Economics and Rational Energy Use at the University of Stuttgart and Dr. Karsten Sach, Director General of Climate Protection, Europe and International at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB).