Staff analysis

What is it going to take to get consumers and businesses to engage in their utility bills and pay attention to saving energy? And why isn’t it happening yet on a broad basis in the United States?

The average consumer doesn't know what they pay per watt, only how big their bill is every month.

Other countries, especially in Europe, are leaps and bounds ahead of America when it comes to energy management and smart metering, and being more aggressive at trying to understand the future impact of electric vehicles, for example, on the grid.

The market drivers for investing in recycling and waste management technologies have been getting stronger over the years. Yet data shows venture capital investors have been shying away from the sector.

Source: Cleantech Group Venture Capital Database

Despite that it accounts for 3 percent of global emissions, shipping has largely been exempt from emission reductions requirements to date.

The lack of interest in reducing emissions from shipping has also been expressed in the venture capital community. Germany-based SkySails – a maker of towing kite propulsion systems for today’s modern maritime shipping industry – received $10.3 million of venture capital funding way back in 2006. California's KiteShip, pursuing a similar idea, won an award at the California Cleantech Open, also in 2006. Since then SkySails, in particular, has been making gradual commercial progress.

M.R. Ragaswami, founder of the Corporate Eco Forum, has an intriguing new blog post titled New vs. Now: Grasping the Real Green Opportunity. He argues there is a significant market opportunity for solutions that retrofit existing buildings, vehicles, and equipment vs. requiring a replacement path:

Beyond all the discussions about emissions reductions and capping and trading at the COP15 climate change meetings this December, expect to hear a persistent sub-theme about tech transfer between developed countries and lesser developed ones.

And the topic of cleantech intellectual property rights (IPR)—and who should own them—is only going to become more of a focus as clean technologies are asked to scale, particularly in the developing world.

The transition to a low carbon economy will lead to a more decentralised energy infrastructure whereby energy will be generated from far more locations – such as from domestic roof-top solar panels. This contrasts with the current infrastructure which entails electricity being generated and distributed from a few centralised power plants.

If you couple this with the fact that many of the main sources of renewable energy generation are intermittent, then one cannot escape the conclusion that the amount of energy-related information that the world will need to process is going to jump to unheard of levels.

Interesting nuggets remain to be found in last quarter's cleantech venture data.

For instance, as a percentage of early stage deals done in last quarter's cleantech venture data (3Q09), alternative energy ventures—in particular solar, followed by energy efficiency and materials—received the largest share of early stage venture deals done.

This tells us a few things when compared to this quarter’s main investment trends:

A recent solar advancement out of Georgia Institute of Technology may be innovative, but it is by no means novel.

Researchers said they’ve come up with a three-dimensional photovoltaic system that could allow PV systems to be located other places besides rooftops. The technology uses zinc oxide nanostructures grown on optical fibers and coated with dye-sensitized solar cell materials.

The researchers said the technology enables PV generators to be foldable, concealed and mobile. According to Professor Zhong Lin Wang, optical fiber could conduct sunlight into a building’s walls, where the nanostructures would convert it to electricity.

Backpackers and outdoors enthusiasts are likely familiar with Switerland’s Katadyn, which makes water filters, tablets, and water treatment products such as pumps. Established in 1926, the company is a global leader in portable water treatment, with its ceramic filters.

It also specializes in desalination, currently making various portable pumps aimed at the boating community, especially for emergency drinking needs, Katadyn’s Chairman Adrian Schmassmann told the Cleantech Group this week at the company's Zurich headquarters.

Duebendorf, Switzerland-based Flisom’s CEO Anil Sethi released new details that his company accomplished a world record last week with its copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells, boasting more than 16 percent conversion efficiency.

It’s one thing to do it in the lab, he told the Cleantech Group yesterday. It’s a completely different story to scale that up and still achieve the same efficiencies. But that’s what it appears the Mumbai-based Tata Group is paying Flisom to do.