KONE Oyj

Their core work

KONE is one of the world's leading manufacturers of elevators, escalators, and automatic doors, headquartered in Helsinki, Finland. In the H2020 context, KONE appears as an industrial end-user and technology adopter — bringing real-world building and urban infrastructure environments to research consortia rather than conducting fundamental research itself. Their participation spans advanced manufacturing (printed electronics for built environments) and smart energy communities (bi-directional EV charging, energy storage, peer-to-peer energy in buildings). As a major player in the built environment sector, KONE's core value in research projects is its ability to validate and pilot technologies at scale in real commercial building contexts.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

KONE's two H2020 projects reveal a clear shift from advanced manufacturing technology to sustainable built-environment energy systems. In the 2017-2020 period, their focus was on hybrid printed electronics manufacturing — pilot lines, open-access fabrication, and materials for building and automotive applications. By 2019-2024, their attention had moved entirely to energy community concepts: solar thermal, geothermal, EV charging integration, second-life batteries, and peer-to-peer energy transactions. This trajectory mirrors the broader industry shift toward buildings as active energy nodes rather than passive consumers, consistent with KONE's strategic interest in smarter, greener building ecosystems.

KONE is moving toward positioning its building infrastructure as an active participant in urban energy systems — a strong signal for future collaborations around smart grids, EV integration in buildings, and zero-carbon community projects.

How they like to work

KONE participates exclusively as a consortium partner, never as coordinator — a pattern typical of large industrials who contribute real-world deployment environments rather than leading the research agenda. Their two projects involved very broad consortia (48 unique partners across 14 countries), suggesting they are comfortable operating in complex, multi-stakeholder innovation projects. This profile makes them an attractive industrial validator for research-led consortia that need credibility through large-scale real-world testing.

KONE has built connections with 48 unique consortium partners across 14 countries through just two projects — an unusually wide network for such a small project portfolio, indicating participation in large, pan-European consortia. Their collaborative footprint spans both the Digital and Energy pillars of H2020, giving them cross-domain visibility.

What sets them apart

KONE is one of the few global elevator and building mobility companies active in EU research, making them a rare bridge between vertical transportation infrastructure and broader smart building and energy innovation. Unlike universities or research institutes, they bring an installed base of thousands of buildings across Europe — a real-world testbed that most research partners cannot offer. For consortium builders targeting zero-carbon buildings or smart energy communities, KONE offers both industrial credibility and deployment scale.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SPARCs
  The largest of KONE's H2020 projects by funding (EUR 776,606) and scope, covering an ambitious mix of energy technologies — solar thermal, geothermal, EV charging, second-life batteries, and peer-to-peer energy — across real community-scale deployments running through 2024.
• InSCOPE
  Placed KONE in a printed electronics pilot line consortium targeting building applications — an unusual technology frontier for a mobility company, signalling early-stage exploration of next-generation surface-integrated electronics in built environments.