About us
NextFuel AB offers innovative and highly scalable industrial technology for converting fast growing grasses and other types of inexpensive and abundant biomass into a clean copy of coal.
NextFuel AB is headquartered in Stockholm with branches in Oslo and Vienna. Our first factory is situated in Austria.
NextFuel was established in Scandinavia in 2016 (formally re-named to NextFuel in 2017) to bring this innovative fuel technology to the global market, and is the sole owner of the patents and technology. Our roots go back to an international consortium established by Wild and Partner, Andritz Group and Polytechnick with research grants from the Austrian state/EU. This R&D lead to a technological breakthrough that has been developed and tested over a six-year period. The consortium company ACB is now owned by NextFuel AB and the key personnel from this consortium have been joined by other co-founders with extensive background from energy, marketing and other start-up companies.
NextFuel made the first public appearance at Arnold Schwarzenegger's R20 Regions of Climate Action (Austrian World Summit) in May 2018, and was there chosen as one of ten best practice projects. NextFuel received a high compatibility score with the United Nations Development Goals in this report from the summit.
Elisabeth Köstinger, Austrian minister for sustainability and tourism, and president of the European Environment Council, learns more about NextFuel at COP24.
NextFuel presented the fuel for the first time at the United Nations Climate Summit in Poland (COP24) on December 12 2018.
In the weeks leading up to the COP24 presentation, NextFuel was featured in several medias around the world, and picked up a few awards. The New Economy ranked NextFuel as a top 5 innovative alternative to fossil fuel in this article, while renewable energy magazine, Edie, picked NextFuel as one of their top green innovations of the week. Business Worldwide Magazine gave their 2018 «Clean Technology CEO of the Year Award» to the CEO of NextFuel AB.
COO Henning Hverven presenting NextFuel at Green Awards May 2019.
In May 2019 NextFuel finished as one of the top 3 cleantech startups in the world at the Green Awards, which is considered the most prestigious award in the world for cleantech companies.
NextFuel has been featured in several medias all around the world, and was in the autumn of 2019 the top story on the BBC radio show World Business Report, and in addition our COO was interviewed on the BBC World News television show “Talking Business with Aaron Heslehurst” (see below).
In January 2020, Indian tech magazine Dataquest ranked NextFuel as one of the most important technology innovations in the last decade. In June 2020 NextFuel was ranked as one of the top 50 future growth businesses in the Nordic, by Techarenan. The same summer Japan’s largest financial newspaper, Nikkei, featured NextFuel in a story about the world’s leading carbon capture technologies.
CEO Stefano Romano (left) receive first prize in Dagens Industri's ranking of innovative renewable energy companies in Sweden.
CMO Audun Sommerli Time (3rd left) receive second prize in Cleantech Scandinavia’s ranking of innovative cleantech startups in Northern Europe.
In November 2021 NextFuel won the largest energy award in Sweden (The E-Prize) when Dagens Industri (Sweden’s largest business newspaper), Aktuell Hallbarhet and E-On picked NextFuel as the most innovative renewable energy company in Sweden.
The same month a jury of global energy companies, VC’s and government agencies at Cleantech Scandinavia’s Cleantech Capital Day voted NextFuel to second prize in their ranking of the top cleantech startups in Northern Europe.
In 2022 NextFuel was featured as one of the “Jewels of the Energy Industry” by the largest Austrian newspaper, Kronen-Zeiten.
Europe's largest torrefaction plant, based on NextFuel's unique technology, is currently under construction and is expected to start operating during the coming months.
NextFuel, our industrial partners, and local licensing clients, have started working on several large scale commercial projects in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. Additionally, we have other potential projects in the pipeline, for clients within the utility-, steel- oil-, chemical- and cement industry. All are currently paying us to test the fuel.
In January 2022 our European client completely funded their first large 60 000 tonnes annual capacity NextFuel factory (20 million euro). Production is expected to start during the coming months. This first European project has received a lot of attention during the construction phase. For instance in November 2024 Forbes wrote an article about the latest progress.
If you are interested in testing the NextFuel™ briquettes produced at our factory in Austria, or want test briquettes made from your local raw materials, or are considering becoming a NextFuel licensing partner in the future, just contact us for more information.
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Partners
NextFuel AB is the technology provider of the unique and patented NextFuel technology. We work closely with several industrial partners when delivering our solution to clients all around the world. Three of our most important partners are the companies below.
Andritz Group is a globally leading supplier of plants, equipment, and services for several industrial sectors as well as for biomass pelleting. The publicly listed technology group is headquartered in Graz, Austria, and has a staff of approximately 29 000 employees and operates more than 280 sites in over 40 countries. Andritz is NextFuel’s main supplier of torrefaction reactors and process technology.
Polytechnik is one of the leading suppliers for biomass combustion plants globally and famous for the planning and delivery of turn-key plants. The Polytechnik group with headquarters in Weissenbach, Austria, employs around 230 people and operates four ISO 9001 certified production facilities as well as more than 15 engineering, sales and service subsidiaries throughout Europe and four centers overseas. Polytechnik delivers the energy system for the NextFuel process.
C.F. Nielsen is a company with a history of more than 125 years and is recognized as the leader in mechanical briquetting. They are headquartered in Bælum, Denmark and have several hundred briquetting presses in operation spread over all 5 continents. C.F Nielsen delivers the densification equipment for the NextFuel process.