In the heart of Serbia, in Novi Sad, a new team is reimagining how we heat our homes and power our institutions. Rehemp, founded by Dr. Mirjana Kranjac and Hadzi Zoran Jovanovic, is leading a quiet revolution, turning industrial hemp into a clean, CO₂-neutral energy source.
With climate challenges mounting and fossil fuels still dominant, Rehemp’s mission is both timely and urgent: to harness the power of biomass in a way that’s fast-growing, sustainable, and truly circular.
“We wanted to create something that contributes to real environmental change—something practical and scalable,” explains Dr. Mirjana Kranjac.
Rehemp joined the EIT Jumpstarter 2024 programme under the EIT InnoEnergy category and quickly found themselves in a nurturing ecosystem of experts, mentors, and like-minded innovators. The team secured 3rd place and a €2,500 award, but the impact of the programme went far beyond prize money.
“It helped us a lot during all the workshops and meetings where we exchanged ideas and learned from others. We felt supported and that somebody recognised our ideas,” says Dr. Mirjana Kranjac.
The programme sharpened their pitching skills and strengthened their business fundamentals, setting a strong foundation for future investor conversations.
The concept is simple yet innovative. Rehemp buys industrial hemp from local farmers, then separates the inner core from the fibre using a decorticator. This inner part is then compressed into pellets using the same process used for wood.
The result? A renewable energy source that outperforms traditional wood pellets in both quality and efficiency, as confirmed by lab testing in Vienna. One hectare of hemp yields up to 7 tonnes of pellets, and 3 tonnes is enough to heat one farmer’s household through one winter. The vegetation period is only 4 months. Even better, the ash left behind can be reused as fertiliser, closing the sustainability loop.
The EIT Jumpstarter journey gave Rehemp a significant visibility boost. They were invited to speak at multiple conferences, featured in the media, and opened early conversations with potential investors. Despite a discouraging tax penalty upon returning from the final event in Budapest, the team remained undeterred.
The team has to find financials to buy a necessary machine, a decorticator. Their next major step is to launch a pilot household using Rehemp pellets—a crucial step in proving both the performance and viability of their solution in a real-world setting.
In the next five years, Rehemp aims to expand across the Western Balkans, with sights set on the broader EU market.
Their customers include distribution networks, the same as for wooden pellets, and their users are farmers seeking affordable, ecological heating solutions, than other households, public buildings, hospitals, schools, and power plants.
Their ultimate goal? To make hemp pellets a mainstream energy option, supporting both climate goals and rural economies through a reliable biomass value chain.
The new concept is presented to partners of the EAGER project, financed through the Interreg Europe program. This project promotes the use of agriphotovoltaics -APVs. Joined work resulted in a new business model that allows industrial hemp can be grown below the solar panels, and this multiplies the profit for the farmers.
As the world looks for urgent energy alternatives, Rehemp offers a bold, nature-based solution rooted in science and community. To learn more about their journey—or to start your own—visit the EIT Jumpstarter programme or connect with Rehemp on LinkedIn.
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