Our Industrial Workshop in Copenhagen was a great day for Thermoelectrics in Europe!
As you can guess, we clearly want to significantly increase the use of thermoelectrics, particularly in Europe. So, we organized an Industrial Workshop to create a more effective European value chain for these materials. We aimed to highlight thermoelectrics as a key tool for achieving sustainable energy efficiency in Europe. We feel that the tecknology lacks this acknowledgment from the main energy/sustainability institutions yet. The event was titled “Restructuring the EU Value Chain on Thermoelectrics – From supply chain to end user“, showing clearly what our ambition is.
We worked with the M-era.Net project THERMOS, the Eurostars project FLEX-TEG, and our local partner TEGnology to invite all relevant stakeholders. This included existing thermoelectric device users, potential new users, industrial companies, startups, and research groups. We reached out directly to these groups and advertised online. Full details, including the final program with all speakers, can be found on a dedicated page on our website. This page served to advertise the workshop and attract more registrations.
The workshop was free and held at the Clarion Hotel near Copenhagen Airport – a convenient location accessible to international attendees. We even had speakers and participants from Korea!

The one-day event had two main parts. The morning featured a plenary session with invited speakers, followed by afternoon breakout sessions focusing on different aspects. We also included dedicated networking and matchmaking time during a break at the end. Closing remarks were delivered by H. Yin of TEGnology, who was the main organiser of this great day.
The workshop was a great success, with more than 70 participants – a strong turnout for the relatively small thermoelectrics community. We had speakers from major players like the European Energy Research Agency, the Japanese National Institute for Materials Science, and Korean institutions like KAIST and Hanyang University. Additionally, the German Space Center, TU Vienna, and several companies participated in the breakout sessions. All three projects involved (START, THERMOS, and FLEX-TEG) presented their work.
The afternoon breakout rooms allowed for deeper dives into specific areas with four additional speakers and discussions in each room. Lunches and breaks provided opportunities for attendees to connect, reconnect, and build relationships – a valuable aspect, especially for our consortium colleagues working on utilizing START’s future results.
The workshop was a clear success, and we’re considering a follow-up event in the future. START is committed to improving the entire thermoelectric supply chain, beyond just our tetrahedrite solution!
Special thanks to the photographer, Emil Backhausen, all the photos that you can see here have been taken by him over the long day.