10 BERLIN REGULATORY SANDBOXES AWARDED CONTRACT FOR CONCEPT PHASE

On 14 May, ten competitors were selected for the first phase of the call for funding applications entitled “Adding Value Through Innovation in the District”. Over the next six months, they will be able to continue developing their concepts for regulatory sandboxes in Berlin. With this pilot programme, the Senate Department for Economic Affairs, Energy and Public Enterprises (SenWEB) aims to implement new concepts from the field of research and development more swiftly.

In mid-October 2023, a total of 56 applicants answered SenWEB’s call for applications for its funding programme entitled “Adding Value Through Innovation in the District” (“Wertschöpfung durch Innovation im Quartier”) and submitted their ideas for regulatory sandboxes. Ten of them have now been selected for the first phase of the competition: over the next six months, they will be able to continue developing their concepts for regulatory sandboxes in Berlin; each concept will receive funding of up to €100,000.

In accordance with the requirements of the tender, the selected projects each look at one of five fields: “Creating a Climate-friendly Energy Supply (esp. Heating) and Water Management System”; “Mobility and Logistics” (incl. micrologistics); “Organising Climate-neutral Materials Cycles and Supply Chains”; “Optimising the Utilisation of Space (Multicoding)”; and “Soft infrastructures” (esp. health and safety). During selection, the senate department considered initiatives with a potential for added value and transferability in particular.

With this pilot programme, SenWEB aims to implement new concepts from the field of research and development more swiftly and purposefully by testing and readying them for the market under real-world conditions.

Dr Jane Ulle, head of the Industry and Innovation department within SenWEB, presented the documents to the ten applicants during a kick-off event on 14 May. State Secretary Michael Biel was delighted with the high participation rate in the call for funding applications, stating that this shows the creativity and level of performance of Berlin’s businesses and scientific community – especially when the two work together. “As different as the concepts and approaches of the selected contributions are, they all have one thing in common: they want to test solutions for very concrete needs in our city and, in doing so, improve our daily lives and our future,” Biel said.

The decision on which two to three of the projects funded so far will enter the implementation phase is expected to be made in November 2024; the ten finalised concepts will be evaluated by experts in the course. Each finalist will receive funding of up to €3,000,000 over a period of three years, with the state of Berlin’s total budget for the project amounting to around €7,000,000.

We would like to congratulate everyone involved on this successful kick-off and wish you all the best of success for your work over the next weeks and months!
 

THE TEN PROJECTS SELECTED FOR THE CONCEPT PHASE
 

B(e)Ware
The B(e)Ware project aims to test planning and construction processes around reused construction materials. Within the regulatory sandbox, local waste will be returned to the value chain in the construction sector as high-quality support structures.
Project partners: The Natural Building Lab at TU Berlin (project coordinator); NBL Studio

FRIEDLICH
The FRIEDLICH project aims to develop and test solutions that will allow different road users to share pedestrian areas peacefully (“friedlich”) through the AI-supported influence of small electric vehicles with automated speed reduction.
Project partners: HFC Human-Factors-Consult (project coordinator), INSEL-PROJEKT.BERLIN

GEISIR
Municipalities in Germany are facing the challenge of how to accelerate the transformation of the heating supply. The GEISIR project has opted to decouple planning procedures between infrastructural redevelopment and the heating supply by testing the proactive installation of wastewater heat exchangers in the window of opportunity provided by the redevelopment of sewage pressure pipelines.
Project partners: The Berlin Water Works (project coordinator), the German Sewage Cleaning Company Berlin (“Deutsche Abwasser-Reinigungs-GmbH Berlin”)

HyAirLogic Lab
The HyAirLogic Lab project aims to test solutions to sustainably shape the mobility and logistics sector. In the regulatory sandbox, the project team will test hydrogen-fuelled freight drones (eVTOLs – electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft) as well as the infrastructure and acceptance required for their use. The project will also take a closer look at issues surrounding certification and the design of the legal framework.
Project partners: HWRBerlin School of Economics and Law (project coordinator), NEX Aero, BAM (“Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung”, Federal Institute for Material Research and Testing)

IWIQ
The IWIQ project aims to contribute to a viable water supply and to the heating transition.  In the possible regulatory sandbox, the project team will recycle grey water from households while at the same time recovering heat for an existing building for the first time.
Project partners: KWB (“Kompetenzzentrum Wasser Berlin”, The Berlin Centre of Water Expertise) (project coordinator) and Nolde – innovative water concepts (“Nolde– innovative Wasserkonzepte”)

KWArtier
The KWArtier project aims to test solutions for providing districts with an independent climate-neutral heating and cooling supply. The concept the project team aims to realize in the regulatory sandbox is a cold local heating network that connects heat sources and consumers and operates a thermal storage facility.
Project partners: HWR Berlin School of Economics and Law

MiNTEins
The MiNTEins project aims to test new forms of communication for emergency forces in disaster and emergency situations. The regulatory sandbox will help the project team find solutions for sharing infrastructures and commercial networks at local and urban level.
Project partners: NKMG (project coordinator), IABG, the Berlin Senate Department for the Interior and Sports

MobLog
The MobLog project aims to test solutions to optimise the delivery of goods to a range of different recipients in densely populated districts. Within the regulatory sandbox, the project team will smartly connect road, rail and water traffic flows.
Project partners: Werner-von-Siemens Centre for Industry and Science (project coordinator), T-Base Consulting, Gestalt Robotics

U-Space Berlin
The U-Space Berlin project aims to test a sustainable last-mile logistics solution for parcel deliveries in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district. The aim of the regulatory sandbox is to develop scalable and data-based business models to integrate drones into logistics and transportation concepts in urban spaces.
Project partners: Startup Colors/Applied Data Incubator (project coordinator), Dataconomy Media

WohnZukunftII
The WohnZukunftII project aims to test emission-saving options for generating heat in the districts. Within the possible regulatory sandbox, the project team will implement decarbonisation solutions that use deep geothermal heating input and digital efficiency processes, for example.
Project partners: CO2zero (project coordinator), green with IT, eZeit Ingenieure