Nina Heine

Description of the project / start-up

Status of the project / start-up: Projekt wird gerade umgesetzt / Startup ist gerade in der Gründungsphase

Nina solves with her team the water and energy crisis by turning wastewater treatment plants into hydrogen-producing power plants.

Everyone has the right to clean water. Nevertheless, more than two billion people worldwide do not have access to clean drinking water. Sewage is one of the biggest challenges to the supply of drinking water. However, the disposal of wastewater is expensive and energy-intensive and therefore unattractive - 80% of all wastewater is not treated. Yet wastewater contains up to 3x more energy than is needed to treat it. Nina and her team are developing an off-grid container solution that can harness this energy, e.g. in the form of hydrogen. This turns the sewage sludge contained in the wastewater into a valuable resource and at the same time reduces the biomass that has to be disposed of. The special feature: Shit2Power focuses on small sewage treatment plants that have not yet used any form of energy recovery.

Why does her project / start-up promote digitalisation?

Wastewater treatment is an old economy in need of fresh thoughts and technology to be maintained and scaled with digital twins.

Her SaaS solution translates in sludge as a service. Allowing wastewater treatment plants positive results from day one without heavy investments in the first plays.

The DFLA stands for new ideas and paths for today's but also for the generations of the future. What paths would the nominee like to pave for future generations?

Nina wants to turn wastewater treatment plants into power plants. She considers wastewater as a resource and aims to secure water by leveraging energy production from wastewater to incentivize local wastewater treatment globally. In that way she aims to secure water as a human right and support UN SDG 6 water, sanitation & hygiene SDG 6 (water sanitation + hygiene). Nina believes that software and hardware must go hand in hand especially with the climate crisis at hand, clever built and easy to maintain hardware monitored by software are key to interconnect the virtual and non-digital world.