The Lech River near Augsburg will soon host a small, quiet school of fish that never stops moving. They are Energyfish, floating micro-hydropower turbines from the German startup Energyminer, and their approval for a swarm installation there marks a quiet but significant step for a company betting it can turn rivers into baseload power plants without building a single dam [Munich Startup, 2026].
Founded in 2021 by a trio of engineers from the Technical University of Munich, Energyminer is built on a simple, stubbornly physical premise: there is a lot of kinetic energy flowing unused down the world's rivers, and the right hardware can harvest it without the ecological and political baggage of traditional hydro [Munich Startup, March 2023]. Their answer is the Energyfish, a scalable, floating turbine unit designed to be deployed in groups of 50 to 100 to form what the company calls a swarm power plant [b2match / SustainableSolutionsMatch, 2025]. The company sells these complete plants, primarily to utilities, project developers, and industrial customers looking for local, continuous renewable power [b2match / SustainableSolutionsMatch, 2025].
The hardware wedge
Energyminer's differentiation is almost entirely in the physical design of the Energyfish. The goal is a device that is both effective and ecologically benign, avoiding the fish mortality and sediment disruption that plague conventional hydropower. The design includes a protective screen to prevent fish from entering the turbine and a flood-resistant mode where the unit can submerge itself to the riverbed to continue operating [LinkedIn / Dr.-Ing. Richard Eckl, 2026]. The company claims the units are engineered for low maintenance and can even perform self-cleaning by briefly running their rotors in reverse [Infinity Plane Press, 2025].
To refine this hardware, the founders have leaned heavily on cloud-based simulation and design tools, using SimScale for computational fluid dynamics and Onshape for collaborative CAD work [SimScale, 2023] [Onshape, 2026]. This digital-first development approach is a practical choice for a small team, allowing for rapid iteration on turbine blade shapes and hydrodynamic performance before committing to steel and composite. The output is a product meant to be installed quickly; the company states a swarm of ten units can be deployed in about three days [Open Energy Information, 2026].
From pilot to power plant
Traction for a hardware climate startup is measured in permits and installed units. Energyminer's path has followed a classic German engineering progression: a small pilot, followed by regulatory approval for larger, commercial-scale installations.
- The pilot. The company first proved the concept in the Auer Mühlbach, a stream in Munich [Munich Startup, 2026].
- The first swarm. In 2025, the city of Augsburg granted approval for the first small swarm power plant in Bavaria [top agrar, 2025]. This was followed by approval for a larger swarm installation in the Lech River near Augsburg [Munich Startup, 2026].
- Scaling up. The most significant vote of confidence to date is the approval for a swarm power plant at St. Goar am Rhein on the Rhine River, a site planned to consist of 124 Energyfish units [Munich Startup, 2026].
The team and the treasury
The founding team brings deep technical credibility. Dr. Richard Eckl and Dr. Georg Walder, both graduate engineers, began discussing the concept in 2020 and formally founded the company the following year [DEVELOP3D, 2026]. They are joined by Chantel Niebuhr, listed as CTO [LinkedIn / Chantel Niebuhr, 2026]. The founders' prior venture was INVENOX [gate Garching EN, 2023].
To fund their development, Energyminer closed a €900,000 seed round in 2023 [Munich Startup, 2023]. Investor Capacura is listed as a backer [PitchBook].
| Founder | Role | Background |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Richard Eckl | Co-Founder, Managing Director | Graduate engineer (TU Munich), former INVENOX founder [gate Garching EN, 2023] |
| Dr. Georg Walder | Co-Founder, Managing Director | Graduate engineer (TU Munich), former INVENOX founder [gate Garching EN, 2023] |
| Chantel Niebuhr | Co-Founder, CTO | Listed as CTO [LinkedIn / Chantel Niebuhr, 2026] |
The incumbent in the room
The most credible counterfactual for Energyminer is not another startup, but the sheer inertia of the status quo. For a utility, the alternative to a swarm of novel turbines is often to do nothing, or to pursue a larger, centralized renewable project like a solar farm or wind park. Energyminer's answer rests on its unique value proposition: baseload power. Solar and wind are intermittent. A river, by contrast, flows continuously. If the Energyfish can deliver reliable, predictable output at a competitive levelized cost of energy (LCOE), it carves out a different slot in a utility's procurement portfolio.
The next twelve months
The coming year will be about moving from approved sites to energized, revenue-generating ones. The St. Goar installation, with its planned 124 units, is the key milestone to watch. Successful deployment and operation there would provide the first real-world data on the performance and economics of a full-scale swarm. It would also serve as a reference site for sales conversations across Germany and beyond.