DesignPro expanding its hydrokinetic operations

Ireland-based company DesignPro has informed it is setting up a dedicated unit focused on the commercial development of its hydrokinetic range of devices.

Having secured funding to carry out a €2.7 million hydrokinetic project, DesignPro said it is expanding its operations with a separate unit focused solely on commercialization of hydrokinetic devices.

The 27-month project, backed by European Commission’s Horizon 2020 funding program, will see the development of both 25kW and 60kW run-of-river hydrokinetic turbines using GKinetic’s technology.

The project kicked off on July 1, 2017, with 5 new hires and a total of 50 jobs in the pipeline, DesignPro said.

Also, DesignPro was recently awarded ‘Champions of EU Research’ certificate for reaching the pinnacle of European research as part of its Horizon 2020 project, and having the second highest scoring application for a Phase 2 small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) project in Ireland, the company said.

Roisin McCormack, Sales & Marketing Manager at DesignPro, said: “For us the SME Instrument offered the support and funding to achieve our goal much quicker than we would have been able to without H2020. The application process is by no means easy and you should expect to put in a few months minimum of hard, focused work.”

To remind, GKinetic hired DesignPro to build its prototype device, which was later deployed in Limerick Docks, Ireland.

The two companies will be working together in the research and development aspects of the €2.7 million project using the opportunity to collect valuable data that is expected to enable scaling up of hydrokinetic devices to utility size machines.