Teklab's EIC Accelerator Bet on Evaporator Control, Revisited

Teklab, a maker of infrared liquid level sensors in Modena, was selected in the 5 June 2019 cut-off of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the Horizon 2020 forerunner of today's EIC Accelerator, for TEM, a control system meant to make the evaporators in supermarket display cabinets use less electricity. The European Commission's list of the June 2019 winners names TEKLAB SRL of Modena as the only company on the project. The grant agreement was signed on 31 October 2019, and the EU contributed €1,409,685.38 to a €2,013,836.25 project that ran from 1 November 2019 to 31 October 2022, according to CORDIS.

Four years after the project closed, Teklab is a healthy company: its filed accounts show revenue of €4.40 million and a profit of €727,884 in 2024, according to Top Aziende, and it is exhibiting at Chillventa in Nuremberg from 13 to 15 October 2026, according to its news page and the trade fair's exhibitor listing. TEM is not among the products it shows there, and it is not in the refrigeration range on its website.

Where Teklab Stands Now

Teklab is active and profitable. Its revenue grew from €2,438,365 in 2019 to €4,402,998 in 2024, a rise of 81%, with dips in 2020 and 2023, and it reported a profit in each of those six years, according to the filed accounts published by Top Aziende. The business data service Atoka gives revenue of €4.6 million on data for 2025 and 25 employees; Top Aziende lists 21. Neither source breaks revenue down by product, and no source found for this article puts a number on TEM sales.

What Teklab sells is visible. Its website leads with the TK4 oil level regulator, now offered as a UL-recognised component for the North American market, and its refrigeration range is made up of oil level regulators and level switches for compressors and receivers, rated up to 140 bar, according to the company website. At Chillventa 2026 the company presents the TK4 Modbus regulator, liquid level switches and an ATEX-certified electro-optic switch, according to the exhibitor page. In September 2026 it also exhibited at the FMI Energy and Store Development Conference in Orlando, a food retail event, according to its news page.

The Technology: Flooding an Evaporator Without the Plumbing

The evaporator is the cold coil inside a refrigerated display cabinet. Most cabinets use dry expansion evaporators, which are cheap but leave part of the coil surface doing little work; flooded evaporators keep the coil wetted with liquid refrigerant and cool better, but need refrigerant recirculation, more refrigerant and a more complex layout. Teklab's 2017 Phase 1 project summary describes TEM as a feeding system that keeps the benefits of flooded evaporation "without the need of liquid recirculation", using Teklab's liquid level sensors and proprietary control algorithms. The Phase 1 report says the system can be fitted to new cabinets and retrofitted to existing ones, and works with any refrigerant, including CO2.

The claims are ambitious. The Phase 2 objective on CORDIS promises energy savings of up to 15%, which it scales to 17.25 TWh and 14.15 million tonnes of CO2 a year if applied across the EU, and a payback of 1.5 years for retailers. The Phase 1 summary adds targets of 25% less refrigerant charge and 20% lower system complexity and manufacturing cost. Teklab's TEM product site compares TEM with night curtains, glass lids, efficient fans and suction heat exchangers and calls it "definitely the best value for money". None of these figures has been published in an independent test, and no paper or patent on TEM could be found.

What the EU Paid For, and What the Record Shows

TEM received EU money twice. A Phase 1 feasibility study under the SME Instrument topic for low-carbon energy ran from August to December 2017 with an EU contribution of €50,000 towards a €71,429 budget, according to CORDIS. In its report Teklab said it had run two pilot tests and planned to "start selling our TEM system by mid-2020" at about €200 a unit, growing "from 5,000 units the first year to over 50,000 units sold by 2024" for an additional cumulative turnover of €22.5 million and gross profits of €9 million. The Phase 1 project summary on the same page gives a different figure: €12.3 million of additional accumulated gross profits by 2024.

The Phase 2 project was to turn the concept into "an actual industrial product and start introducing it into the market", according to its final periodic report, which covers April to October 2022 and is the only report CORDIS publishes. It says Teklab built a demo unit, installed a pilot unit on its own premises to test and refine the design, and brought industrialisation activities "to a good stage". It also says that "in response to the market demand, we decided to address more resources for further enhancing the design of the product", and speaks of a successful market introduction "once we'll be ready". The only result CORDIS lists is the project website, tem-ref.com, which says "2020: We create TEM" and describes a case study for a hypermarket with about 300 cabinets and savings of more than €50,000 a year. That case is presented as expected figures, not as a real installation, on the case study page.

1. TEM defined as a tested industrial productDeliveredDemo unit and on-site pilot, per the 2022 report.
2. Market introduction during the projectPartlyShown at AHR Expo and EuroShop in 2023 and AHR Expo in 2024; never listed in the catalogue.
3. Sales from mid-2020, 50,000 units a year by 2024Not achievedNo sale, customer or price announced.
4. 15% energy saving, 25% less refrigerantUnverifiedCompany figures only; no independent test published.

After the Project: Trade Fairs, Then Silence

Teklab did take TEM to market events. Its news page announced that it would show "our innovative and disrupting TEM technology" at the AHR Expo in Atlanta in February 2023, at EuroShop in Düsseldorf from 26 February to 2 March 2023, and at the AHR Expo in Chicago in January 2024, according to the company's news archive. That is the last mention of TEM there. The company's announcements for Chillventa 2024 and 2026 talk about level control, and the 2026 exhibitor listing names three products, none of them TEM. The R&D page of Teklab's website still says the company "is developing" TEM as a new solution.

The size of the original promise stands out against the accounts. The €22.5 million of extra TEM turnover forecast for the years to 2024 is more than the whole company's revenue from 2019 to 2024, which adds up to €20.23 million in the filed accounts. A forecast in a grant application is not a contract, and Teklab grew strongly anyway; but the growth it shows came while TEM was absent from its product range.

Why It Matters for Europe

The problem TEM targets is real and regulated. Supermarket cabinets, beverage coolers and other refrigerating appliances with a direct sales function have had EU ecodesign rules since Commission Regulation (EU) 2019/2024, with energy labelling alongside, as the Commission's summary sets out. The regulation's recitals put the EU's use by these appliances at 65 TWh in 2015 and the possible savings at an estimated 48 TWh a year in 2030, according to the published text. The revised F-gas Regulation (EU) 2024/573, in force since 11 March 2024, cuts the supply of HFC refrigerants to zero by 2050, while food retailers already use CO2 and hydrocarbons as refrigerants, as Germany's environment agency explains. TEM was designed for exactly that shift: less energy, less refrigerant charge, and compatibility with CO2. Teklab also promotes its sensors at natural refrigerant events such as ATMOsphere America, according to its news page. A small Italian supplier of refrigeration components is part of the European supply chain the rules depend on, but the energy savings TEM promised exist only on paper as long as the product is not sold.

The Verdict

Teklab has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.