Did the EIC Accelerator Pay Off for COSBI's River Turbine?

Most hydropower needs a drop: a dam or a weir that piles water up so it can fall through a turbine. HyKinetics is built for water that simply flows. It is a three-blade axial turbine hung under a floating barge, meant to turn the current of a river or an irrigation canal into electricity without civil works. Its maker, COS.B.I. Costruzione Bobine Italia S.r.l., known as COSBI, won the European Union's backing for it in the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 round of 5 June 2019, according to the European Commission's list of selected companies, which names COSBI in Milan as the only company on the project.

The project, HyKinetics, ran from 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2023 with an EU contribution of €1,534,487.50 towards a total cost of €2,192,125, according to CORDIS. It promised prototypes, field validation, certification and a product launch "just after the project". The closing CORDIS report says the prototypes were built and tested. More than three years later, no installation, customer or sale of the turbine has been made public.

Who COSBI Is, and Why the Website Says Rebecchi

The Commission's list gives COSBI's website as rebecchigroup.it, and that is not an error. COSBI is one of three companies of the Rebecchi Group, a family engineering business that Pietro Rebecchi founded in 1970 and that has worked from a single plant in Cadeo, near Piacenza, since 2008, according to the group's own history. The group describes COSBI, originally a maker of coils ("bobine"), as its assembly and services company, next to PR Carpenteria for steel fabrication and TP Officine Meccaniche for machining. The HyKinetics website calls the turbine "a project by COS.B.I. S.R.L. – A Company of Rebecchi group S.R.L." and gives the same Milan seat and Cadeo office.

The turbine is a side line for COSBI, not the company itself. The Italian business register lists COSBI under the manufacture of metal structures, according to aziende.it, which reproduces Registro Imprese data. The EU's VIES VAT system confirms that the VAT number is valid under the name COS.B.I.COSTRUZIONE BOBINE ITALIA S.R.L. at Via Orti 1 in Milan.

Where COSBI Stands Now

COSBI is an active company. Its 2024 accounts show revenue of €1,244,109, up 6.7% on 2023, a profit of €12,543 and 10 employees, down from 12 in 2022 and 2023, according to aziende.it. The same register summary lists 11 public aid measures from 2021 to 2026. The largest is €105,832 granted on 8 August 2025 by Invitalia, the national development agency, under a scheme for small firms to patent and commercially exploit their patents. The latest is a social security relief for new permanent hires, dated 3 February 2026. A second, independent source for the accounts could not be accessed: other Italian register sites refused automated requests.

The accounts are those of a small engineering contractor, and they do not separate turbine sales from other work. Nothing in them, on the HyKinetics website or in the group's pages points to a turbine order.

The Technology: Power Without a Drop

Conventional small hydropower needs a head, a height difference, and therefore a weir, a channel or a pipe, along with permits for the works. A hydrokinetic turbine sits in the current and takes energy from the water's speed alone, as a wind turbine does from air. COSBI's design puts a three-blade axial rotor under a floating platform anchored to the bank, with the generator and cabling submerged, so that nothing has to be built into the river bed. The company claims the blade shape starts producing at a water speed of 1 metre per second and reaches a yearly output of up to 4,000 kWh per installed kW.

The efficiency claim varies between the company's own EU filings. The 2018 Phase 1 project summary on CORDIS gives a power coefficient of "up to 40%", while the Phase 1 report and the Phase 2 summary give "up to 37%". No independent measurement has been published. COSBI's brochure says each plant can deliver from 1 to 200 kW and that plants placed in series can reach hundreds of kW.

The approach is not unique. Another EU-funded company, DP Renewables, has tested 25 kW and 60 kW hydrokinetic turbines on the Garonne in France and in Orkney, according to a CORDIS results summary. COSBI's distinguishing points are the axial rotor, the floating mount and an automatic lifting system that the CORDIS report says adjusts the turbine's depth to water levels.

Two Patents Behind the Turbine

The idea predates the EIC award by years. COSBI filed a European patent application for a "hydroelectric turbine with horizontal axis" on 4 June 2015, granted as EP3152436B1 on 13 February 2019, according to Google Patents. The group dates the HyKinetics project to 2015 as well. A second application, a system for controlling the water flow through a hydroelectric turbine with an Italian priority of 29 July 2020, was filed during the EIC project and granted as EP4189231B1 on 28 August 2024, with unitary effect. Both name Fabio Rebecchi as inventor. The 2025 Invitalia aid for patent exploitation fits this record, although the register summary does not say which patent it covers.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

COSBI first won €50,000 in 2018 for an SME Instrument Phase 1 feasibility study. Its report says a first 20 kW prototype had been tested for a year on the Po, Italy's longest river, and that two more sites downstream of hydropower plants in Italy had been selected "for the installation of n.10 MVP prototypes". It forecast a cumulative income of €15.9 million for COSBI from HyKinetics by 2025.

The Phase 2 project was signed on 2 December 2019. Its four objectives, as listed on CORDIS, were to manufacture five prototypes, install and validate them at selected sites, obtain the certifications needed for sale and cut production costs, and prepare a product launch right after the project. The prototype count is not consistent: the objective says five, while the editorial summary on the same CORDIS page says the project "will install and test 10 prototypes" downstream of dam-based power stations.

A third of the grant went to a sister company. CORDIS lists PR Carpenteria SRL, at the same Via Orti 1 address in Milan, as a linked third party with a net EU contribution of €437,500, leaving €1,096,987.50 for COSBI. PR Carpenteria is a separate company with 2024 revenue of €3,041,373 and 14 employees, according to aziende.it, and its VAT registration at the same address is valid in VIES.

The final periodic report, covering January 2022 to June 2023, says COSBI "performed the complete manufacturing of the planned HyKinetics prototypes", that "the installed prototypes have been tested", and that field data allowed a technical and economic assessment. It reports a supply chain study and an industrialisation plan, and says customer engagement produced "new, significant opportunities" in Italy and the EU. It does not say how many prototypes were installed, where, or what they produced. The results page lists two deliverables, "Validation tests results" and "HyKinetics Certification", the latter described as the work needed for CE marking. Neither document could be opened for this article, and no CE marking has been announced.

1. Manufacture the prototypesDelivered"Complete manufacturing of the planned HyKinetics prototypes", per the CORDIS report; the number is not stated.
2. Install and validate at demo sitesPartlyTested with field data, per CORDIS; no site, output or test result is public.
3. Certification for saleUnverifiedA certification deliverable is listed but could not be read; no CE marking announced.
4. Industrial production planDeliveredSupply chain report and industrialisation plan, per CORDIS.
5. Product launch after the projectNot achievedNo customer, order or commercial plant announced by October 2026.

CORDIS gives 30 June 2023 as the end date, 42 months after the start, and does not record an early termination.

The Money

HyKinetics was a grant-only award, so no equity was involved. COSBI does not appear among the roughly 315 companies on the EIC Fund's list of invested companies, checked across all 16 pages. No outside investor, funding round or acquisition is public, and the CORDIS search shows no EU project for COSBI beyond the two HyKinetics grants.

Why Europe Should Care

The EU's revised Renewable Energy Directive, Directive (EU) 2023/2413, entered into force on 20 November 2023 and sets a binding target of at least 42.5% renewable energy in gross final energy consumption by 2030, according to the European Commission and REHVA. Turbines that add output in existing canals and below existing plants, without a new dam or works in the river bed, could add renewable power where building new hydropower is hard. COSBI's EU application claimed that fitting them below all hydropower plants in the EU could add more than 17 TWh a year. That figure is the company's own estimate and has not been tested independently.

The Verdict

COSBI and the Rebecchi Group have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company publications and EU project data, linked throughout.