CleanTech.Org

Following on the success of the launch of Viridis Africa 2011, where more than 20 major investment opportunities were presented to prospective investors, Viridis Africa is now soliciting business plans in the clean tech industry from entrepreneurs seeking funding to turn their projects to account.

Viridis Africa as its name suggests in Latin, is about investment into "green" sustainable technologies and projects, presented by entrepreneurs and corporates who are seeking funding to introduce clean technology solutions and services.

Principals who would present their business opportunities at this clean technology venture capital, private equity and debt financing event would have the audience of numerous local and foreign investors, stratified according to their sectoral interest and investment criteria.

This year Viridis Africa will introduce foreign companies who wish to deploy their technology solutions encapsulated into regional commercial ventures, seeking local business partners and co-investors.

It is expected that numerous parties from USA, Europe, China, and India will be attending the event to obtain a firsthand overview of clean tech opportunities in the region.

Investors would include venture capital, private equity, project and corporate finance outfits and private investors focused in environmental technologies. They would also include international funding agencies, major Asian industrial conglomerates, technology specific investment funds and major companies who seek strategic alliance and acquisitions.

The following are some of the clean tech sub-sectors in which principals may consider their company or clean tech initiative being presented:

·         Clean Energy Generation: Wind, solar, hydro, biofuels, geothermal, clean coal technologies

·         Storage: Fuel cells, advanced batteries, hybrid systems

·         Infrastructure: Management, transmission

·         Efficiency: Building efficiency, smart grids, waste heat recovery

·         Water & waste water: Water treatment, water conservation, waste water treatment, desalination

·         Recycling & waste: Recycling, waste treatment, organic matter, plastics

Presenters will have the opportunity to introduce their investment case to interested parties throughout the lifecycle of their business, i.e. from conceptual, early stage / startup through to established business.

The event will also introduce parties with complementary technologies and business models to one another to explore mutually beneficial opportunities.

In the main the conference and its exhibition will endeavour to bring about a vibrant “market platform” for entrepreneurs and corporates to propose and conclude investment deals with funders. 

Although the event is to be held once a year, it is designed to give the participants long term continuity vis a vis  the provision of web-based interaction platforms, inducing social networks such as the Sub-Saharan Africa Sustainable Energy group  on Linkedin.com.

In addition it is intended to hold Viridis Africa within individual countries in Africa, as and when greater interest and support is gained in a particular country.

The deadline for business proposal submission is 30th of August 2012 and should be forwarded to suza@viridisafrica.com.

An executive business summary of the proposed clean tech technology, project or company is required in order for the organiser, Spindle Communications, to match the business proposal with the appropriate theme and funders. Importantly participants need to indicate the funds they seek and the principal terms for investors’ participation.

Visit www.viridisafrica.com for more information.

Hertz Global EV and its partner Evatran are showcasing the first wireless charging system for electric vehicles (EVs) in the car rental industry this week at the New York Auto Show taking place at the Jacob Javits Center. The first car rental company to introduce EVs on three continents, Hertz is on the ground floor of Plugless Power EV recharging technology and the Company’s goal is offer customers the cutting edge in EVs and recharging options. The Plugless Power trial, the first of its kind in the world, will help to establish the U.S. as the EV market leader. The trial will follow Hertz, and leaders from other industries, as it trials the Plugless Power system. Hertz is the first car-rental company to deploy EVs and PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric) on three continents — in the U.S. (available in New York, Washington, D.C., LA and San Francisco), the U.K. (available in London), and China (available in Shenzhen). Hertz is introducing multiple groups of consumers – urban drivers, university students, travelers and corporations – to all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Hertz plans to increase its global EV presence by deploying vehicles in other regions in the coming months.


Plugless Power™, developed by Evatran™, is the first electric vehicle (EV) charging system on the market to offer customers a simple way to charge their EVs with the ease of hands-free technology. Utilizing inductive power transfer, Plugless Power streamlines the charging of electric vehicles by eliminating the cord and the plug. More information can be found at: www.pluglesspower.com

On the 16^th and 17^th of October 2012 the Viridis Africa conference is to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa.  The event is dedicated to the introduction of clean technologies and associated business/investment opportunities.

The intention of Viridis Africa is to bring together investors and entrepreneurs from Africa and rest of the world, to jointly explore commercial initiatives in green technologies.

 The program includes presentation of specific projects or business initiatives, ranging in size and scope and encompassing most of the priority areas such as bioenergy, hydro, wind power, green chemistry, recycling, water treatment, desalination, amongst others.

 According to conference organiser, Suza Adam, managing member of Spindle Communications, “principals who would present their business opportunities at this event would have the audience of numerous local and foreign investors. Investors would include venture capital, private equity, project and corporate finance outfits and others dedicated to the clean tech sector. Also included are major companies who seek strategic alliance and acquisitions.”

 New technologies currently being developed by academic and research institutions will also have their opportunity so as to introduce potential business opportunities through the commercialization of the above.

 “Additional business proposals are invited from clean tech sub-sectors including clean energy generation (wind, solar, hydro, biofuels, geothermal, clean coal technologies), storage (fuel cells, advanced batteries, hybrid systems), efficiency (smart grids, waste heat recovery), water & waste water (water treatment, water conservation, waste water treatment, desalination) and recycling and waste (recycling, waste treatment, organic matter, plastics) etc.” says Adam.

 The event will also introduce parties with complimentary technologies and business models to one another in order to explore mutually beneficial opportunities.

 “In the main the conference and its exhibition will endeavour to bring about a vibrant market trading place for entrepreneurs and corporates to propose and conclude investment deals with funders”, concludes Adam.

 Although the event is to be held once a year, it is designed to give the participants long term continuity vis a vis  the provision of web-based interaction platforms, inducing social networks.

 For more information about the conference: please visit us at www.viridisafrica.com.

From industry publications to national press, the Government’s decision to reduce subsidies for solar panels on homes has generated wide coverage and condemnation over the government’s rushed attempt to stem the increasing number of solar installations. The industry has pointed to a resulting risk to thousands of jobs, damage to the whole industry, and “huge economic uncertainty”. The recent challenge by Friends of the Earth and two solar companies, Solarcentury and HomeSun, has culminated in the High Court ruling that the decision was ruled “legally flawed”.

While we have heard many arguments against the Government’s action, some in the industry have put forward a different point of view, suggesting that, while the Government’s handling was clumsy, the funding could indeed be better used to achieve more widespread energy saving measures for householders with no subsidies required.

In his blog for HVR Magazine, consultant Mike Malina writes: “The problem with this [solar PV funding] is it’s not equal and those at the poorer end of society see few of the benefits...

“Gimmicks to provide a bit more ‘green bling’ have negatively impacted on areas where the money could have been spent, for example, providing more targeted lower carbon and energy saving measures like insulation, controls and making sure householders’ heating systems were set up correctly and re-commissioned for optimal performance.”

HVR Magazine editor Ian Vallely, commenting on the Feed-in Tariff, blogs: “The starting point should be reducing the demand for energy in the first place by fitting effective insulation (the Green Deal has an important part to play in this respect); next, use energy more efficiently; thirdly, supply energy from renewable sources; and finally, ensure that any continuing use of fossil fuels employs clean technologies and is as efficient as possible.”

This is reinforced by Mark Northcott, MD of Remeha Commercial, who argues in an article on Future Technologies in H&V News 14 December that “We live in a frugal economy where, despite our social and political responsibility to provide affordable food and fuel, in Europe the cost of fuel continues to spiral ever higher… In my view, it is essential that any low carbon and low NOx technology we use from now on is both affordable and replicable. It’s important too that when developing or producing new technology, we examine our fuel resources and use the fuel as cleanly as possible. Gas is still the cleanest fuel available, offering the shortest payback and cheapest installation costs, allowing us to fulfill our responsibility to provide affordable energy...

“Renewables are an important part of the mix, but it is important that this technology should be truly sustainable both environmentally and financially. Technology that relies on Government grants is almost certainly doomed to failure.”

All these industry experts argue for improved energy efficiency, for technologies that offer significant energy savings to householders and businesses to achieve our carbon reduction targets - and all this with a short financial payback.

The great news for householders is that what might sound like a future technology is in fact here already.

The GasSaver is a patented energy saving device that sits on top of your boiler and captures the heat otherwise lost from even high efficiency A-rated condensing boilers up the flue. It then uses this captured energy to help heat hot water for your home.

In real terms, it gives you a typical annual saving of 37% of the energy otherwise required to deliver hot water. Or, to put it another way, the GasSaver delivers more usable hot water than a typical solar hot water system, just by extracting all the energy from the gas that you have already paid for.

Over the next 4 years it could save customers £1 billion in gas bills, reduce carbon emissions by 1 ¼ billion tonnes, reduce poverty, and save water as hot water arrives at the tap sooner.

The GasSaver is manufactured in the UK, recommended by the Energy Saving Trust, approved under the Water Regulations Advisory Scheme (WRAS), recognised under the Government’s SAP scheme and can be used to count towards the energy rating of a dwelling.

A fitting New Year’s resolution would be to make this existing British technology standard in new boilers. It’s win win all round, after all.

The Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™ is held annually since 2008 in honour of Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, for Planet Earth & Future Generations. Asia's first and most prestigious sustainable/cleantech venture competition is being held 22 - 25 September, 2011 at India's flagship institute: IIT Madras, Chennai, India. The competition is conducted with the authorization of the office of H. E. The Honorable Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States. Read Carnegie Mellon University's story on Oopali Operajita and the history and origin of the competition, which she founded in February 2007, here: http://tinyurl.com/4462kno. View the competition galleries for 2010: http://tinyurl.com/35dh48d; and 2009 :http://tinyurl.com/2br2k2z

The competition is for MBAs, Science & Technology undergraduate (final year) and graduate students who create new, sustainable and clean technologies and bring them to market through innovation and entrepreneurship.

Collaborators this year are the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CEI), at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, The Indus Entrepreneurs, (TiE) the world’s largest network of entrepreneurs, the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), India's largest industry body; and The Indo-German Centre for Sustainability at IIT Madras.

Bamboo is a tropical plant species that grow at tremendous speeds. Incidentally the utilization of available species for Engineered products and Bio based materials would be an appropriate CLEANTECH manufacturing. Here is a new interesting Development of Bamboo Mat based Composite for Boat construction:


Bambo Mat system being Woven around a Template for Dinghy


Fully Shaped Bamboo Mat Woven Dinghy Design


The bamboo Mat Woven Dinghy being hybridized with Glass-Composite Skin


The Fully Hybridized "SKIN-COMPOSITE" Bamboo-Mat System Dinghy


Checking Buoyancy and Balance


The Finished "Ready-for-SEAWORTHY" Trial Bamboo-Mat Molded Dinghy


The Bamboo-Mat Hybrid Molded Dinghy Taking a First SEA RIDE

The material system was seen to be excellent for MONOCOQUE body Constructions ... and it is being planned to design and fabricate Automobile Body as well as Lightweight Aircraft.

Please visit the following sites for more details:

1. http://agrobiogenicscleantechpvtltd.com/new-technology/

2. http://agrobiogenicscleantechpvtltd.com/lightweight-aircraft/

3. http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/70223/Optimized-Engineering-Materials-Through-Cleantech

4. http://agrobiogenicscleantechpvtltd.com/technology/

Certain Technical Details on material property comparisons are available here:

http://zerowastezerocarbon.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/environmentally-neutral-engineering-composites-for-boats-and-aircrafts/

......

Dear all,

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There are two don't miss conferences in cleantech each year, one put on by IBF & Clean Edge, and the other in both Spring and Fall by the Cleantech Group. We brought you a members discount to the CleanTech Investor Summit by Clean Edge last month.

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Regards,

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Chairman
Cleantech.org

The Hidden Cleantech Revolution: Five Priorities for Securing America's Energy Future -- without Breaking the Bank
By John Moore and Toby Shute 

 

Free full-text download available at http://hiddencleantech.com/

The most difficult aspect of our society's energy challenge for most people to grasp is the sheer scale of energy demand, the massive investment sunk into existing infrastructure, and the timeframe required for substantive change.  In thinking about the evolution of energy technology, most of us are thus subject to the classic error articulated by futurologist Paul Saffo: confusing a clear view of the future with a short distance.

Seeking to avoid that trap, The Hidden Cleantech Revolution: Five Priorities for Securing America's Energy Future -- without Breaking the Bank, a slim volume written by Acorn Energy CEO John Moore and Motley Fool energy analyst Toby Shute, focuses not on long-term breakthrough technologies or future regulatory changes, but rather on immediate opportunities for modest improvements.  By changing the inflection of the energy productivity curve right now, the authors argue, we can reap large cumulative impacts over time.  It's the miracle of compound interest translated from financial to energy planning.

That's why Moore and Shute talk about a "hidden cleantech revolution" --  some of the innovations they highlight are hidden in plain sight, overlooked because individually they are not game-changers, not exciting new technology, not disruptive.  But from the perspective of entrepreneurs and investors, energy and utility executives, or regulators and environmental policy-makers, these innovations in the aggregate have the potential to make a huge difference within the next decade.

And that's the driving energy behind this refreshingly brief, clear, and focused volume -- the authors want to make sure that potential near-term improvements and economic gains are not left in the shadows, while unwarranted attention is lavished on unproven or uneconomic technologies that might have an impact in the future.  As the authors stress, "Hope is not a strategy."

Moore and Shute leverage their deep experience with the real world of energy innovation to highlight a range of opportunities that can improve our existing energy infrastructure, production and distribution processes, largely through the application of information technology.  IT has already driven revolutionary change in industry after industry, but as yet has had little penetration in energy.  I especially like the references to Kevin Kelly's ideas about the "internet of things," that is, creating more effective and responsive systems by interconnecting and adding intelligence to the existing world of isolated 'dumb' devices like those making up our electrical grid or oil and gas pipelines.

The focus on wringing near-term improvements out of our existing infrastructure is clearly reflected in the structure of the book, which is organized around five strategic 'national priorities': 

• Getting more from the Grid
• Getting more from Oil and Gas
• Getting more from Coal
• Getting more from Nuclear
• Safety, Security, and Resilience

Notably missing is the usual discussion of such high-profile topics as bioenergy, solar, wind, or electric vehicles.  Not that the authors don't think these topics are important for the future, just that unresolved technical, economic, and regulatory issues drive higher risk and longer lead times for deployment at scale.  On the other hand, as their fifth National Priority indicates, they pay more attention than usual to opportunities associated with extending the life of our aging and vulnerable infrastructure.

Their focus on realistic short-term opportunities puts the authors on the same wavelength as Stuart Brand in his recent Whole Earth Discipline,  which emphasizes "ecopragmatist" solutions, or Robert Bryce in Power Hungry, with his 'N2N' (or natural gas to nuclear) policy.  The emerging consensus, as I see it, is that we need to become tougher and more hard-nosed in thinking about how to make immediate progress on every front possible, at the same time that we encourage visionary long-term approaches to changing the status quo.

One of the best features of the book is its simple rating system for the near-term potential of the various opportunities examined.  For each technology, the authors examine its potential to improve how clean, safe, reliable, and affordable our energy production and distribution systems are.  They then weight the result both by the extent to which the technology is already proven, and how widespread its deployment within the next 10 years could be.  A small table makes these ratings explicit at the head of each relevant chapter.

Though the precision of these energy impact ratings is low, the trade-off is that they are clear and transparent, suitable for comparative discussion and debate.  And they work well enough to highlight some counter-intuitive results, such as:

• Some 'killer apps' that have garnered attention for their long-term potential, such as smart-meter deployment and grid-scale batteries, get extremely low scores for near-term value due to their current economics or technical maturity.
• Some 'hidden' opportunities that most people have never heard about, such as computer modeling for vegetation management in electrical transmission right-of-ways, or mega-project management software for nuclear plant construction, get very high marks due to the potential for widespread and economic implementation right now.

My favorite example was what the authors called 'the seeing bit.'  By using high-speed down-hole communications in concert with real-time seismic modeling, drilling accuracy can be improved enough to drive an estimated 15% improvement in oil recovery from existing fields.  A classic transformation of capabilities arising from the synergy of many small innovations, enabled by improved IT to tie them all together.

As the authors point out, knowledge is power -- literally!  Our current energy infrastructure is so enormous and so inefficient, that knowledge, in the form of improved IT and near-term cleantech developments, can provide us with more new usable power than any comparable brute force investment in basic capacity.  And collectively, these near-term improvements can start changing our energy productivity trend line now.

Greening My Life: A Green Building Pioneer Takes On His Most Challenging Project
By David Gottfried

It takes courage for a public person to open up their personal lives and share what really motivates and gives them satisfaction.  David Gottfried, is the founder and guiding spirit of the US Green Building Council, the LEED building rating system, and the World Green Building Council.  Gottfried's first book, 'Greed to Green: The Transformation of an Industry and a Life,' goes into detail on these achievements, and talks about how his involvement with the green building movement changed his professional life.

In 'Greening My Life' he follows up by providing a very personal and candid picture of what it took for him to launch these groundbreaking organizations.   This was an effort that left him feeling exhausted and alone, completely at odds with the spirit of the green revolution he was trying to drive.

'Greening My Life' is organized around Gottfried's 'Six Steps to a Green Life,' a personal rating system he developed to help him achieve a more balanced and satisfying personal life.  As we follow him through the process of restructuring and greening his own life, we are challenged to think about what living well might mean for each of us, both on a personal scale, and in terms of making a contribution to saving the planet. 

Gottfried's example is worth following ... I hope more high-impact figures will find the courage to share their own personal motivations, difficulties, and triumphs!

Would love to hear members thoughts on their top prediction for cleantech in 2011

Who IPOs?
What happens with climate change policy after Cancun?
Where do oil prices go?
What's the next big thing in cleantech?
Etc.


My 5 cleantech wishes for 2011