Nurturing innovative energy venture startups

Building on the success of a series of regional EVA Innovation Days in Hull, Cardiff and Southampton, its recent EVA Expo was the initiative’s largest event yet and brought together hundreds of climate tech innovators, investors, corporates and public officials at the Royal Institution in London.

“Our ports are a lot more than gateways for trade, they are also enablers of the energy transition. Our EVA initiative re-frames how ABP’s port infrastructure, land and commercial ecosystem can add value to both our existing customers and to future customers as well,” said Henrik L. Pedersen, CEO, ABP.

”Over the past year, we have been delighted to see so much interest from organisations across the heavy industry, energy generation and transport sectors.”

Strategic collaboration

As part of the packed agenda on the day, guests across the startup, VC, corporate VC and civil service communities heard from two keynote speakers – Juergen Maier, Chair of GB Energy and Kanishka Narayan, MP for Vale of Glamorgan.

The day also featured a series of expert panel discussions exploring the different stages of the lifecycle of a startup – from technology development, through early deployment into full commercialisation and then industrialisation.

The EVA Expo also featured a selection of pitches by promising startups in the clean tech space, including Seabound, Blastr Green Steel and HiiROC. Earlier this year, ABP announced its intention to explore a potential collaboration with Seabound and STAX Engineering to capture ships’ emissions at berth at the Port of Southampton.

More recently ABP, HiiROC and PX Group have signed a strategic collaboration agreement to develop a new hydrogen production plant at Saltend Chemicals Park to meet local industrial demand. The proposed plant will use HiiROC’s proprietary technology to produce affordable, low carbon hydrogen.

ABP’s Energy Ventures Accelerator was launched in 2024 and has been supported by Plug and Play UK. The programme provides a way for ABP to explore partnership opportunities with high potential clean energy hardware startups.

EVA complements ABP’s sustainability strategy, ‘Ready for Tomorrow’, which sets out ABP’s target of achieving Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions from its own operations by 2040, as well as supporting ABP customers’ own decarbonisation ambitions.