Oxhy’s “Origin” project wins the STEP Lazio grant competition
A new experimental development program to deploy a compact 10 kW ORC system for recovering energy from waste heat
Oxhy is pleased to announce that it has been awarded the STEP Lazio grant for the project “Origin – Organic Rankine Innovative Generator for Industrial Needs”, ranking 11th out of 22 selected projects.
The public ranking is available here: https://fesr.regione.lazio.it/app/uploads/2026/04/Copia-15493-1.pdf
The project is an experimental development program with a total value of approximately €613,000 and represents a strategic step in Oxhy’s industrial growth trajectory.
Origin focuses on the development, engineering, and validation in a real-world operating environment of an innovative ORC – Organic Rankine Cycle system for recovering energy from low- and medium-temperature waste heat.
With this project, Oxhy aims to contribute to one of the key challenges of the industrial energy transition: transforming heat flows that are currently lost into usable electrical energy, thereby reducing waste, emissions, and operating costs.
The problem: a large amount of industrial energy is still being wasted
In many industrial processes, a significant portion of the energy used is dissipated as waste heat. This occurs, for example, in furnaces, cooling cycles, pasteurization processes, heat treatments, incineration plants, anaerobic digesters, and many other manufacturing and energy applications.
A significant portion of this heat falls within a low-to-medium temperature range, which is not efficiently utilized by solutions currently available on the market. Traditional ORC systems, in fact, are frequently designed for larger-scale plants, featuring centralized configurations, high costs, and operational requirements that limit their application in distributed settings or at small and medium-sized industrial facilities.
The result is that a great deal of potentially recoverable energy continues to be lost to the environment.
The solution: a compact, modular, and decentralized ORC
The “Origin” project was launched to address this limitation through the development of an advanced, compact, and modular ORC system, designed to operate within a temperature range of approximately 60°C to 350°C.
The goal is to create a solution capable of capturing heat flows directly at the source, enabling distributed power generation that can be installed at industrial facilities, energy infrastructure sites, treatment systems, and production settings where waste heat is available.
The system will be designed for a target power output of 10 kW, with an architecture intended to be scalable and adaptable to various industrial applications.
Technical objectives of the project
The program is expected to last 24 months and aims to advance the technology from its current TRL 5 to TRL 7, that is, to demonstrate the system in a real-world operating environment.
The project’s main objectives include:
- engineering development of the complete ORC system;
- construction of one or more 10 kW pre-industrial prototypes;
- validation on a test bench and in a real operating environment;
- achieving a conversion efficiency of 15%;
- demonstration of operational continuity exceeding 200 hours without failure;
- collection of technical and performance data for the subsequent industrialization phase;
- definition of technical and production specifications for future commercial developments.
The completion of TRL 7 will constitute a key milestone for the transition to the subsequent phases of industrialization, production, and market introduction.
The industrial sectors involved
“Origin” is designed for a wide range of sectors where the recovery of waste heat can generate economic, energy, and environmental value.
Key application areas include:
- the steel industry;
- the glass industry;
- the cement industry;
- the chemical and petrochemical industries;
- the food industry;
- the paper industry;
- the textile industry;
- the automotive and heat treatment sectors;
- waste treatment and wastewater treatment plants;
- decentralized energy production facilities.
In all these sectors, the ability to recover energy from currently underutilized heat streams can help improve overall process efficiency, reduce net energy demand, and support companies’ sustainability goals.
An important step in Oxhy’s growth journey
Winning the STEP Lazio tender confirms the validity of Oxhy’s technological and industrial vision: to develop innovative solutions for capturing, converting, and utilizing energy that is currently lost.
With “Origin,” Oxhy strengthens the ORC component of its technology portfolio and takes a concrete step toward creating more compact, efficient, distributed, and sustainable energy systems.
Origin is the starting point for a new generation of industrial energy recovery systems. For Oxhy, this marks a fundamental milestone in the company’s journey: from applied research to industrial validation, from proprietary technology to the market, and from wasted energy to a new resource for industry.