Enexor builds a clean energy future for communities worldwide with help from Google Cloud

Editor’s note: Earth Day reminds us that we all can contribute to creating a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable future. Google Cloud is excited to celebrate innovative startup companies developing new technology and driving sustainable change. On this year’s Earth Day we’re highlighting Enexor BioEnergy and their initiative to produce clean, sustainable energy from plastic and agro-waste with the help of Google Cloud solutions.  

Picture a world without electricity where billions of people burn dangerous fuels and trash from landfills to cook meals and heat their homes. Children constantly cough, choking on toxic smoke that lingers in houses and sickens entire families. Because there are no pumps or purification plants, contaminated water is hauled in buckets from dirty rivers and polluted wells. Without power or lights, hospitals and emergency medical clinics can only provide basic services during the day. 

Although it is 2022, this harsh life is a reality for billions of people living in developing countries around the world.

Producing clean energy from plastics and organic-waste

This Earth Day, let’s imagine what life would be like in these countries if people had access to safe and inexpensive bioenergy. In this world, indoor air is fresher. Clean water runs from faucets, while homes, businesses, and schools have electricity. Doctors and nurses have the power to treat patients 24 hours a day and save lives with advanced medical equipment. Local economies boom and entrepreneurs thrive.

This is the sustainable future Enexor BioEnergy and its partners are building—one village at a time. With the Enexor Bio-CHP™ system, we produce clean and sustainable energy from discarded plastics, organic, and biomass-waste such as rice and corn husks, seaweed, coconuts, and other biomatter while offsetting significant Carbon emissions. The Bio-CHP can be commissioned and easily installed in just a single day, with multiple systems installed side-by-side when more power is needed. By being offered under its novel Energy-as-a-Service business model, Enexor ensures that the Bio-CHP can generate immediate environmental positive impact and customer adoption.

Each Bio-CHP unit generates enough energy to power over 100 homes—and provides much-needed renewable electricity and thermal power for schools, businesses, manufacturing facilities, water pumps, Wi-Fi systems, and telecommunications towers. The Bio-CHP creates clean energy by safely oxidizing plastics and biomatter in a secure container using a high-temperature system to power a micro-turbine. This produces bioenergy, significantly reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

By solving a community’s waste issues while providing more affordable renewable energy, the Bio-CHP also creates new economic opportunities and improved outcomes where it is installed. This includes using its inexpensive power to expand local services and offerings, and empowering local community clean up efforts by incentivizing waste collection via blockchain-enabled digital currencies and services such as PayGo. Additionally, the Bio-CHP is an ideal solution for businesses who desire to maximize their own sustainability efforts, gain greater energy resiliency, and save money on their current energy and waste costs.

Engaging in Google for Startups Accelerator: Climate Change

When developing the Bio-CHP, we realized we needed a reliable and experienced partner to help us incorporate the best in class machine learning and artificial intelligence into our technology. That’s why we joined the Google for Startups Accelerator and participated in the Google for Startups Accelerator: Climate Change.

The accelerator introduced us to other companies working to create a sustainable future and opened new opportunities for collaboration and partnerships. The accelerator also continues to give our small team access to the best of Google Cloud’s people, programs, and solutions. We especially want to highlight Google Cloud’s dedicated startup experts and the incredible technical support they provide, as well as the Google Cloud research credits we used to explore new solutions. 

As an example, Enexor is developing a predictive maintenance tool that automatically adjusts Bio-CHP operations to match fuel composition. Another tool in development proactively identifies and flags potential Bio-CHP system and component failures—before they occur.

Google Cloud’s dedicated startup experts work closely with Enexor to develop predictive models for these tools and Enexor also used the Google Cloud research credits that were provided to build these advanced models on TensorFlow, Vertex AI, Cloud CDN and AutoML. Since each system is remotely monitored from Enexor's global headquarters in Tennessee, predictive maintenance tools also increase the safety, reliability, and efficiency of Bio-CHP in off-grid locations.

Generating 13 billion kWh of clean power by 2040

In the future, Enexor plans to explore additional Google Cloud solutions such as BigQuery to crunch larger datasets, Google Data Studio to build dashboards, and perhaps even Google Cloud Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to more efficiently process machine learning (ML) workloads.

These solutions will help Enexor to achieve three primary goals by 2040: to generate 13 billion kWh of clean power, reduce 120 million tons of CO₂, and provide one million people with access to clean and sustainable energy. With each Bio-CHP system, Enexor annually reduces up to 2,000 metric tons of CO₂ equivalent emissions by decreasing methane emissions released from landfills, offsetting fossil fuel-based power generation with carbon credits and minimizing waste disposal transportation emissions. 

Enexor is now preparing to deploy the Bio-CHP in Accra, Ghana where it will convert organic and plastic manufacturing waste into sustainable energy. Enexor is also looking forward to working with the local Accra community and NGOs to collect discarded plastics and organic waste diverting it from ending in the rivers and oceans and instead using them as renewable fuel sources. We can’t wait to see what we accomplish next as we celebrate Earth Day 2022 and think about the sustainable future Enexor is helping to empower. 

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