Innovative technology, research and team spirit were celebrated once again as Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland TEK and Tekniska Föreningen i Finland TFiF chose the winners of the second ITU Technology Awards.
“Finland lives and breathes innovation. There were a total of 54 nominees for this year’s ITU Technology Awards, which all demonstrated ambition and an extremely high professional standard. The winners of the Breakthrough and Cornerstone Awards are excellent examples of technologies that combine high performance, scalability and practical value for society”, says TEK’s CEO Jari Jokinen.
“The team that won the Forerunners Award are not only keeping morale high within their own division but also boosting performance across the entire company. It feels wonderful to give recognition to these distinguished professionals in the field of technology and natural sciences”, says TFiF’s CEO Annika Nylander.
There are three categories of ITU Technology Awards: The Breakthrough Award is given to a person, team or work group behind an act, idea or innovation that creates something new in the field of technology, the Cornerstone Award to a person or work group that has made a particularly outstanding contribution to research in the field of technology and natural sciences, and the Forerunners Award to a work community or team in the field of technology that shows a particularly strong spirit of working and achieving things together.
The winners were chosen by a jury of experts. Get to know the winners of the 2026 ITU Technology Awards below.
Thermal energy from hot sand: Polar Night Energy wins this year’s Breakthrough Award
Polar Night Energy's Sand Battery – the winner of this year’s Breakthrough Award – provides a solution for storing thermal energy. Sand Battery stores renewable energy as heat in sand or similar material, which enables longer storage and usability periods than electric batteries. The patented closed-loop heat transfer mechanism stores thermal energy in solid material such as sand. Solid materials are slow to release heat, which helps to keep heat loss from the system low.
The first pilot was built in 2019, and the world’s first commercial Sand Battery was assembled in 2022. According to the company, it went ‘viral’ straight away. The innovation was featured on, for example, the BBC and the CNN.
Photo: Mikko Paajanen (CEO, Loviisan Lämpö) and Liisa Naskali (COO, Polar Night Energy). Photographer: Kalle Särkkä.
The system can be charged using electricity from the grid or locally produced energy, like wind and solar.
”The Sand Battery delivers affordable energy, such as clean and cost-effective process steam or district heating, as it makes it possible to take advantage of low spot prices and to make additional profits from Fingrid’s reserve markets,” says the company’s co-founder and CEO Tommi Eronen.
Polar Night Energy’s technology has already been integrated into district heating systems across Finland. The world’s first Sand Battery was installed at the Vatajankoski power plant in Kankaanpää in 2022.
”We are currently building a two-megawatt Sand Battery for Lahti Energia in Vääksy and a pilot plant of our own in Valkeakoski, where we intend to test the Sand Battery’s ability to convert heat back into electricity.”
Taking the performance of electric motors to a new level: ABB’s SynRM-VSD work group wins the Cornerstone Award
ABB has developed a synchronous reluctance motor (SynRM) and variable speed drive (VSD) package that gives a significant boost to the energy efficiency of electric motors. According to the Cornerstone award jury, this proves that businesses, too, engage in cutting-edge research.
Improving the energy efficiency of electric motors has a huge impact on the climate; in the EU, for example, electric motors account for more than half of all electricity consumption. Induction motor technology has been the most commonly used technology in electric motors for decades.
”The operation of a synchronous reluctance motor is based purely on guiding magnetic flux and there is no squirrel cage, which results in less loss and higher efficiency and therefore better energy performance”, explains ABB’s Global Product Manager Ari Tammi.
Photographed from left: Ari Tammi, Jouni Ikäheimo and Tero Känsäkangas holding SynRM motor's rotor plates. Photographer: Christoffer Björklund.
”Reaching the highest efficiency levels using induction motors is becoming more and more difficult and less and less cost-effective all the time, but synchronous reluctance motors are an excellent solution to this problem. Meeting energy performance criteria is easier with synchronous reluctance motors than with induction motors, which allows customers to switch to processes with lower emissions.”
Developing the SynRM-VSD package has required a vast amount of research, testing and prototypes before the technology could be commercialised.
”We have achieved a high level of market adoption with our SynRM-VSD system in a matter of a few years, and our turnover from these motor-drive packages now exceeds EUR 10 million. New uses for the technology are being discovered all the time, including water-cooled SynRM and SynRM for explosive atmospheres”, Tammi explains.
Team spirit across eight locations: Sitowise Ltd Landscape wins the Forerunners Award
Sitowise Ltd Landscape, which has offices in eight different towns and cities in Finland, has built a strong team spirit. The Forerunners Award jury praised Sitowise Ltd Landscape for fostering a positive atmosphere at work and for actively contributing to making the industry better.
Sitowise Ltd Landscape is the landscape architecture division of a diversified consultancy firm, employing just over 40 landscape architects and designers as well as other professionals.
Back in 2008, the landscape architecture team consisted of around ten people – now, it is one of Sitowise’s largest divisions. In 2018, Sitowise acquired the landscape architecture practice MA-Arkkitehdit, which raised the number of staff to above 30 and inspired the landscape architecture team to draw up a division-specific strategy that factored in not just sales and marketing but also well-being at work and stress management.
”We brainstormed about how we could make our basic processes more efficient and what would be the best ways of working. For example, all our projects end with a debriefing where we review what went well and look for areas where we still have room to improve and how. We also actively learn from each other otherwise: recent graduates give presentations based on their master’s theses, and we have a channel called Ammattikysymykset (‘Professional Q&A’) in our Teams environment, which is a lightning-fast way to get help with technical questions”, explains Ismo Häkkinen, Leading Consultant and Project Manager at Sitowise Ltd Landscape.
The team’s commitment to environmental and social sustainability has also set an example for the whole company.
”Our landscape architects have been promoting nature-based storm-water management since the early 2000s, which has turned Sitowise into Finland’s leading consultant on nature-based storm-water management solutions. Sitowise Ltd Landscape has led the way and educated others as sustainability has gradually been incorporated into all Sitowise operations.”