Nuclear Start-Up Spotlight: Kärnfull Energi

Nuclear start-ups are catching the attention of investors with a sustainable energy agenda. We meet John Ahlberg, co-founder of Kärnfull Energi, which is offering 100% nuclear electricity to consumers in the Nordics.

Nuclear has been hitting the headlines.

At the start of the month, the European Commission firmly nailed its colours to the mast with the inclusion of nuclear in the EU’s sustainable finance taxonomy. Subsequently, President Emmanuel Macron announced a huge new-build programme for up to 14 new reactors as part of France’s efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Within the innovation space, there also appears to be a shift in investors’ attitude to nuclear. Until recently nuclear was a sector investors shied away from, but a growing realisation of its potential to help achieve a sustainable energy mix is turning that attitude on its head.

The first movers have largely been private investors, but there are signs that both VCs and corporates’ interest is being piqued too. Over the last six months or so, several nuclear start-ups have secured high-value funding rounds. They include Commonwealth Fusion Systems ($1.8 billion), Newcleo ($118 million) and Marvel Fusion (€35 million; $40 million).

We’ll be hearing from Marvel Fusion and Seaborg Technologies in other episodes of this series, but first we speak with John Ahlberg, co-founder of Swedish Kärnfull Energi, which is bringing nuclear-based electricity direct to the consumer.

What is Kärnfull Energi’s offering?

Kärnfull is the Nordics’ first 100% nuclear electricity provider – making waves with a simple and fast sign-up process, a fully digital UX, 24/7 customer support, science donations per kWh delivered – and above all, a highly competitive hourly-based flexible contract for households and SMEs. We’re currently in Sweden and Denmark, with more to come.

How are you genuinely contributing to the successful transition to a low-carbon future?

We’re helping rational environmentalists (‘ecorationals’) to vote with their wallets, minimise their costs and emissions, and power their lives with Swedish nuclear with an amazingly low carbon footprint of 2.5 g of CO2/kWh (life-cycle analysis, EPD 2021).

We certify our delivery via Guarantees of Origin (GoOs), issued by Swedish nuclear plants and thus driving funds towards the sector. We’re also part of the UN initiative 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy hoping to improve the local-procurement and time-limit aspects of future GoOs.

To top it off we earmark a sum of money per kWh delivered to our Kärnfull Prize, which goes to science projects within next-gen nuclear.

Have you read?
Marvel Fusion’s nuclear technology gets thumbs up
Equinor Ventures increases investment in fusion

What have been your milestones so far and what is the next one?

There have been many, but our 2019 launch and the local and international attention around that is of course a key moment. Adding the likes of Steven Pinker, Kirsty Gogan and José González to our advisory board another. We’re now delivering millions of kWh to many thousands of customers every month and we’re likely one of the quickest growing cleantech start-ups around.

Opening in Denmark – and the uptake there – was the highlight of 2021, but it’s also awesome to see us top-ranked on Trustpilot and to find us in the top-ten most followed and liked suppliers on e.g. Facebook – not least considering there’s 140+ competitors in Sweden and that pretty much all of our growth has been organic and via word-of-mouth referrals.

Accepting Midroc Invest’s offer to become part of their cleantech portfolio at a very solid valuation was also a big step and sets us up nicely for our future expansion.

We’ve got some very big milestones up ahead for 2022, amongst them the launch of a new app and plans to move into new markets.

As a nuclear start-up, what specific challenges do you face?

Well, for us it was key to not become a party-political initiative and to avoid being perceived as part of that whole circus. We could likely have won more customers early on if we had jumped on that bandwagon, but that was always a no-go for us. That’s why we don’t follow or retweet anyone.

We’re rooted in a ‘Hans Rosling-esque’ approach instead, all about facts, science, long-term visions and fossil-free tech neutrality. Which is pretty far from politics and four-year terms. By avoiding those quick win shenanigans and staying true to ourselves we believe we can build a brand for decades instead of years.

Watch the Energy Markets interview with John Ahlberg from Kärnfull Energie

Why is it important that nuclear is part of the EU Taxonomy on Sustainable Finance?

Easy, because it’s proven to be a key decarbonisation tool, providing 24/7 carbon-free energy. If lobbyists had just stayed out of the picture, and the Commission listened to their own experts as well as the IEA and UNECE it’s pretty obvious it should be included – and not just as a transition tool.

The Joint Research Centre did a great job in analysing the concerns raised by the TEG [Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance] around risks and waste management, and their report clearly showed that the do-no-significant-harm (DNSH) issues were no larger for nuclear than for any other included energy sources. I only wish they would have done the same DNSH scrutiny of the others, especially natural gas.

What words of wisdom do you have for start-ups at the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey?

Find your niche, become super-knowledgeable and trust your instinct. For us, the pre-analysis part was instrumental – plotting a timeline and thinking through possible market developments. Already way back in 2018, following the IPCC report estimating a 5-9 x increase in nuclear energy, we were making scenarios on how the narrative around the tech would evolve across the EU with ETS, Paris goals, taxonomy and mega-electrification. Plotting out the bizarrely dogmatic and political closures of Swedish and German reactors on that timeline helped us foresee when price spikes would likely occur and how that would impact dinner-table discussions around Europe, for example.

About the Start-Up Spotlight
Initiate's Start-up Spotlight aims to profile some of the most innovative start-ups and other small ventures in the energy transition space, and also generate greater awareness of the amazing innovative solutions and thinking that promise to make a genuine impact as we shift to a low-carbon future.

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