PepsiCo's crisp factory in Broek op Langedijk, in the Netherlands, fries its snacks with heat from a 25 MW gas boiler. Replacing it with wind and solar power means storing energy for when the sun and wind are absent, and storing it as heat. Kraftblock, a company from Sulzbach in Saarland, stores electricity or waste heat as heat in containers filled with a material made from upcycled industrial by-products, and releases it when a plant needs it. The EIC-funded version was designed for temperatures up to 1,300°C.
The company applied to the EIC under its registered name, NEBUMA GmbH, and has traded as Kraftblock GmbH since 2020. The European Innovation Council granted €1,788,062 towards a €2.55 million project to build a container-sized storage module. Shell Ventures then led a €20 million round. Today one Kraftblock system is reported running, at Tata Steel in India. The larger one it announced for PepsiCo in the Netherlands in 2023 has not been publicly declared operational.
Company file
- Legal entity
- Kraftblock GmbH (formerly NEBUMA GmbH), Saarbrücken HRB 101387
- Headquarters
- Sulzbach, Saarland, Germany
- Co-founders
- Martin Schichtel (CEO), Susanne König (CFO)
- Product
- Containerised high-temperature thermal energy storage
- Projects
- Tata Steel (India), PepsiCo with Eneco (Netherlands)
- Series B investors
- Shell Ventures (lead), Finindus, Moore Strategic Ventures, A&G, TechEnergy Ventures, Future Industry Ventures
- EIC project
- KRAFTBLOCK, 1 Mar 2022 to 31 Dec 2024, closed
- EIC funding
- Grant only
Where Kraftblock Stands Today
Kraftblock's best evidence is in India. Tata Steel has used a 20 MWh Kraftblock system at its Jamshedpur steelworks since May 2025, capturing waste heat from a sinter plant and reusing it in place of gas, according to Canary Media and Modern Power Systems. The system is projected to avoid up to 110 GWh of gas and about 22,000 tonnes of CO₂ a year. In April 2026 Tata Steel reported a year of operation.
The Dutch project is less clear. In 2023 PepsiCo and the utility Eneco announced that a Kraftblock system would replace gas for the fryers at PepsiCo's crisp plant in Broek op Langedijk, and Eneco said work on the first of two storage units would start in May 2023. Kraftblock's project page describes a first phase of 70 MWh at 800°C, saving about 8,500 tonnes of CO₂ a year, but still gives "Beginning of 2025" as its timing. We found no announcement that the system has entered operation.
The Technology: Heat Kept in Slag
A Kraftblock unit heats air, either with an electric heater running on cheap renewable power or with a factory's waste heat, and blows it through a container of heat-storing material. When heat is needed, air is blown back through to recover it. The storage material is made from upcycled industrial by-products, according to the EIC award, and the CORDIS summary describes storage at up to 1,300°C with conversion back into heat and electricity. For PepsiCo the system is designed to run at 800°C.
"...the resilience and solid business of Kraftblock and proves our great potential."
Martin Schichtel, CEO, on the Series B, via TechEnergy VenturesWhat the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows
The project ran from March 2022 to December 2024. The CORDIS report is technical and specific. It says the team designed a container system meeting a target of 30 MWh at 1,300°C for a 40-foot container, and a 20-foot prototype with a honeycomb brick reached a gross capacity above 35 MWh for a full-scale module. The material passed softening tests at 1,500°C, and 4,700 charge cycles showed no degradation. A charging system was integrated at the Dillinger/Saarstahl steel mill in Saarland, and patent applications were filed.
- A container module at 1,300°CDelivered30 MWh target met in design; prototype above 35 MWh gross, per CORDIS.
- Durable storage materialDelivered4,700 cycles without degradation in testing.
- Industrial deploymentPartialTata Steel running since 2025; the 70 MWh PepsiCo system not announced as operating.
- Power generation from stored heatNot shownBoth public projects deliver heat; no electricity output reported.
What Has Happened Since the Award
The Money
The Series B, led by Shell Ventures with Finindus, Moore Strategic Ventures, A&G Energy Transition Tech Fund, TechEnergy Ventures and Future Industry Ventures, was reported in August 2023 by TechEnergy Ventures and EU-Startups. It was to fund a larger team and more production capacity. The EIC award was grant-only, with no equity.
What cannot be checked
Kraftblock's accounts are filed in Germany but not freely displayed, and we found no further funding round announced since 2023. Whether the company has the money to finish the PepsiCo project and build more, and what those systems cost per megawatt-hour, is not public.
Why Europe Should Care
Heat storage is one of the few ways to let a factory run its high-temperature processes on intermittent renewable power, and Kraftblock builds it partly from European heavy industry's own waste. That its first reported industrial success is at an Indian steelworks, not a European one, is worth noting for a technology the EU paid to develop.
What the project promised
Scalable, modular, cost-efficient storage at up to 1,300°C that returns heat and power, made from upcycled by-products.
What the record shows
A tested container module, a working 20 MWh system in India and a €20M round, but the flagship European project is not yet reported running.
The Verdict
Proven once, waiting on the big one
The EIC project delivered its engineering targets and, on the evidence of Tata Steel, a product that works in heavy industry. The test of the business is scale: the 70 MWh PepsiCo system was meant to show factories they can swap gas boilers for stored power. More than three years after it was announced, that proof is still missing from the public record.
Kraftblock has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.
