From making biofuels out of algae to producing concrete that absorbs carbon dioxide, our comprehensive has it all on the sectors, businesses and ideas at the forefront of the clean technonlogy revolution.
Businesses with a bright future: to be on the cleantech list, companies must be independent, for-profit and not listed on any major stock exchange. Photograph: Oxford Scientific
This is the second year of the Cleantech 100, first published in 2009 as a joint venture between the Guardian and the Cleantech Group as a true representation of global innovation and private company creation.
This year, we asked: which 100 of today's private cleantech companies are the most likely to make the most significant market impact over the next 5-10 years? Hundreds of worldwide cleantech experts – including companies themselves – nominated the list, which also included so-called "passive" nominations and validations derived from analysing market data, taking votes of confidence in a company's ability to achieve high growth and high-market impact from market transactions such as investment rounds, and major customer and partnership announcements.
To be on the list, companies must be independent, for-profit, cleantech companies that are not listed on any major stock exchange.
In 2010, 4,616 nominations were received from 3,260 unique sources, resulting in a longlist of 3,138 companies. A weighting and filter system was then applied to collate the results, score each company, and reduce the candidates to a shortlist of 218 companies to present to an expert advisory panel in a second stage of the process. Here members of the expert panel combine their votes with scores carried through from the first stage. Ultimately firms are scored on three key criteria: their innovation, their market's size and growth, and the company's ability and resources to execute its technology. The result is this authoritative guide to the best 100 companies in cleantech.
Clearly, there are many, fine companies who are not on the 2010 list. They may be waiting to be discovered, they may be out of favour this year for whatever reason or they may simply have just missed the cut. Only so many companies can be on the list.
Neasa MacErlean
Energy Generation
Biofuels
Agri.capital
Münster, Germany
Product description: biogas
Employees: N/A
Year founded 2004
agri-capital.de
Agri.capital operates about 40 biogas energy plants on farmland sites in northern and east Germany. The plants, which use gas produced by the breakdown of organic matter without oxygen, generate a source of heat as well as electricity. The heat is piped to nearby buildings, such as schools, swimming pools, hospitals, private homes and other users. The company also has five bio-methane refineries, which are involved in the production of natural biogas. This gas can then be used as a green alternative to natural gas. The company specialises in the planning, building, financing and operating of decentralised plants for the production of renewable energy from biomass.
Amyris Biotechnologies
California, USA
Product description: cellulosic ethanol
Employees: 270
Year founded 2003
amyrisbiotech.com
Having started by working on anti-malaria treatments, this company is now researching a range of chemicals and fuels which it hopes to develop as alternatives to traditional petroleum-dependent products. These include flavourings and fragrances as well as industrial and automotive oils and lubricants. The business is hoping to take some of its synthetic biology products to the market next year or soon after.
Chemrec
Stockholm, Sweden
Product description: biomass
Employees: 30
Year founded 1987
chemrec.se
Sweden could cut 10% of its total CO2 emissions by adopting this new recycling technology, according to Chemrec. The company is working with the paper industry to convert one of its main emissions, black liquor, into biofuels that could be used to replace petrol. If adopted by all Swedish paper mills, the technology could provide enough biomethanol and "bioDME" fuel to keep half the Swedish truck fleet on the road.
ReVolt Technologies
Energy storage
Staefa, Switzerland
Product description: advanced batteries
Employees 36
Year founded 2004
revolttechnology.com
This Swiss-based company claims to be revolutionising battery technology by finding a formula for creating zinc-air batteries, prolonging typical battery life two or three times for a typical user. The new style batteries could sell at about half the cost of lithium-ion batteries, and while initial production is aimed at small batteries used in hearing aids for example, future use could include laptops, power vehicles and electric vehicles.
Coskata
Illinois, USA
Product description: cellulosic ethanol
Employees: 50
Year founded 2006
coskata.com
General Motors and Total are two of the investors in this company, reflecting the potential significance of its end-result product, ethanol, for the motor industry. Based near Chicago, the company has developed a biofermentation process, centred around proprietary micro-organisms, which converts agricultural and municipal waste into fuels and other useful chemicals. It is manufacturing from a Pennsylvania plant and believes its prices are very competitive.
Enerkem
Energy generation
Montreal, Canada
Product description: cellulosic ethanol
Employees: 80
Year founded 2000
enerkem.com
One of the world's first industrial-scale biofuel projects using household and other municipal waste as the main input ingredient will launch next year in Edmonton, Canada and the driving force behind the process is Enerkem. The company already operates two bio-refineries in Canada, and is supported by a £14m government grant for its Edmonton project along with a £32m grant from the US Department of Energy for an identical project due to launch in Mississippi in 2012. Edmonton expects to output enough ethanol to cater for all the city's car drivers, recycling heavy-duty household waste on an unprecedented scale.
Gevo
California, USA
Product description: biomass
Employees: N/A
Year founded 2005
gevo.com
Isobutanol is an efficient type of alcohol-based fuel which has a higher energy content per gallon than many first-generation biofuels. Gevo is developing ways to convert waste and other raw materials into isobutanol and other biofuels so that they are ready to use as part of the motor fuel mix, or in other chemical applications.
Green Biologics
Abingdon, UK
Product description: cellulosic ethanol
Employees: 23
Year founded 2004
greenbiologics.com
Green Biologics claims to have "transformed the economics of renewable biobutanol production" by using a range of advanced fermentation techniques. It also designs bio-refineries, which it says can help customers achieve lower production costs. Based in Oxfordshire, it serves clients worldwide.
Joule Unlimited
Massachusetts, USA
Product description: grain ethanol
Employees: N/A
Year founded 2007
jouleunlimited.com
Joule is pioneering the production of an ethanol fuel which it calls "liquid fuel from the sun". The result would be an "abundant, sustainable, cost-competitive supply". The process brings together numerous breakthroughs in genome engineering, bio-processing and hardware to convert sunlight and waste CO2 to create diesel fuel. Its solution, it says, would have "industry-changing potential across multiple markets that derive products from petroleum; replacing a finite, unstable resource with one that can sustain virtually unlimited production".
Ls 9
California, USA
Product description: cellulosic ethanol
Employees: 50
Year founded 2005
ls9.com
LS9 has discovered and engineered a new class of enzymes as well as their associated genes which the company calls DesignerMicrobes. These enzymes convert raw materials harvested from renewable sources into patent-pending "UltraClean" fuels which have a higher energy content than normal ethanol or butanol. LS9 says UltraClean's fuel properties "are essentially indistinguishable from those of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel". The same technology is proposed for the production of industrial and consume chemicals from sustainable sources.
LanzaTech
Auckland, New Zealand
Product description: cellulosic ethanol
Employees: 35
Year founded 2005
lanzatech.co.nz
Within a year, this small New Zealand company is due to be running a demonstration plant in Shanghai with Chinese steel company Baosteel. They will be testing LanzaTech technology through which carbon monoxide emitted in the steel manufacture process is converted into a feedstock to create biofuels which can then be used to power vehicles. It may be possible to capture and convert more than 90% of the energy emitted. LanzaTech says it can use "any" biomass resource, including tyres, to produce biofuels.
Sapphire Energy
California, USA
Product description: algae biodiesel
Employees: N/A
Year founded 2006
sapphireenergy.com
Sapphire Energy is producing "green crude oil", a biofuel that could run on the same distribution structure as existing crude. The fuel, produced from algae, has been used in a test flight on a Boeing 737-800. The company is also opening a bio-refinery in New Mexico where it will demonstrate the full process from algae-growing to fuel production.
Solazyme
California, USA
Product description: algae biodiesel
Employees: 80
Year founded 2003
solazyme.com
This San Francisco-based company helps produce biofuel and chemicals for the cosmetics and animal-feed markets but it is now working to increase the uses to which its algae-based fuel can be put. It is about to ramp up its production for demonstration and commercialisation purposes. Algae are an efficient base ingredient; many of today's fossil fuels themselves originated from algae.
Synthetic Genomics
California, USA
Product description: advanced processes
Employees: Not available
Year founded 2005
syntheticgenomics.com
In a joint programme with ExxonMobil, Synthetic Genomes has opened a greenhouse where researchers from both companies will test the commercial viability of algae-based biofuels. Using genome science, this company is starting in the fuel and energy sector but sees a wide range of possible areas of focus in future, from the development of vaccines to water purification.
Virent Energy Systems
Wisconsin, USA
Product description: biogasoline
Employees: 80
Year founded 2002
virent.com
Working with collaboration partner Royal Dutch Shell, Virent has opened a demonstration plant where it is converting plant sugars into gasoline and gasoline blend components. The plant is being used to demonstrate production at commercial levels for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Rather than producing lower-energy ethanol, Virent is concentrating on producing fuel with the same structure and properties as traditional fuel.
ZeaChem
Colorado, USA
Product description: cellulosic ethanol
Employees: 32
Year founded 2002
zeachem.com
ZeaChem expects to get yields from its ethanol output which are up to five times as high as corn-based ethanol yields and three times higher than other cellulosic production methods. It believes that its patented process, combining biochemical and thermochemical techniques, offers high yields at low costs.
Geothermal
Potter Drilling
California, USA
Product description: geothermal hardware
Employees: 19
Year founded 2004
potterdrilling.com
Geothermal energy from heat stored under the earth's surface currently provides less than 1% of world energy, partly because it is difficult to access. Potter Drilling is developing a relatively cheap, specialist drilling system (called "spallation", a technique that erodes rock without making direct contact) which would enable drilling to a depth of 10km. "Virtually all of the US" would become potential drilling areas, according to the company, if drilling could be made economic to this depth.
Marine
Aquamarine Power
Edinburgh, UK
Product description: marine/wave
Employees: 45
Year founded 2005
aquamarinepower.com
The long-term strategy of this Scottish company is to build a series of wave farms around the world using its flagship product, a hydro-electric wave energy converter called Oyster. The first demonstration-scale project was launched off Orkney in November 2009 when Aquamarine began supplying power to the National Grid. It has also developed a modelling system in order to identify the best marine locations for wave energy production.
Solar
Amonix
California, USA
Product description: solar/concentrated PV
Employees: 400
Year founded 1989
amonix.com
Amonix designs and manufacturers concentrated solar power systems, which require no water to make energy. Plastic collect sunlight and concentrate it to 500 times its usual intensity on to very small, highly-efficient solar cells. Building on more than 20 years of experience and 16 field-testing sites, Amonix believes it uses land more efficiently to produce more energy per acre than any other solar technology systems.
BrightSource Energy
California, USA
Product description: solar heating
Employees: 240
Year founded 2004
brightsourceenergy.com
Solar energy firm BrightSource believes it is breaking records for the temperatures it reaches in the solar heating tower technology that it is testing. Temperatures reach 550C when the sun is reflected from thousands of mirrors on to a water boiler which is located on top of a tower. The higher the temperature the more efficient the system, which pipes the resulting superheated steam into a turbine, which finally converts the energy into electricity.
Solarcentury
Energy generation
London, UK
Product description: solar systems
Employees 110
Date founded 1998
solarcentury.co.uk
The solar panel market has been transformed in the past twelve months, and Solarcentury is one of the UK's largest solar suppliers and fitters to have taken advantage. The introduction of feed-in tariffs has been the driving force behind the change, through which utility companies are required to pay residential and other small-scale generators for the renewable energy they produce. Solarcentury estimates that the capital investment of between £10,000 to £12,000 to install panels pays for itself in around eight years.
Calisolar
California, USA
Product description: cells and modules
Employees: 300
Year founded 2006
calisolar.com
The main specialist material used for manufacturing solar cells is currently silicon. Calisolar has developed a way of using non-pure silicon in the process, which is both cheaper and avoids supply problems. It is selling the product already and says it has kept its cost down by the takeover of a specialist silicon company, 6N Silicon. It claims to have achieved energy efficiencies in its solar modules which are 16% above the industry average.
Enecsys
Cambridge, UK
Product description: solar systems
Employees: Not available
Year founded 2003
enecsys.com
Many homeowners consider investing in solar panels but reject the idea due to the costs. Enecsys cannot reduce the capital outlay but says that a specialist component it makes, its micro-inverter, "typically results in an improved energy harvest of approximately 15% to 25%". This device replaces the standard inverter used by most manufacturers and which is, according to Enecys, "the single most common cause of failure in solar PV systems".
Enphase Energy
California, USA
Product description: solar systems
Employees: 120
Year founded 2006
enphaseenergy.com
This company provides solar energy management systems to homes and business users, helping them to monitor their systems 24-hours a day and to receive performance information on each panel or module. Like Enecsys in the UK, Enphase produces a "microinverter" device which, it believes, can improve performance by up to 25%. It also claims that its inverter product "provides greater production in low-light conditions".
eSolar
California, USA
Product description: solar thermal
Employees: 135
Year founded 2006
esolar.com
eSolar is working on technology using towers and mirrors to generate concentrated solar energy. Its California neighbour and fellow cleantech company, BrightSource Energy, is testing similar technology. As eSolar explains, "small, flat mirrors … track the sun with high precision and reflect the sun's heat on to a tower-mounted receiver, which boils water to create steam. This steam powers a traditional turbine and generator to produce energy." Clients include California's largest electricity utility company, Southern California Edison.
Heliatek
Dresden, Germany
Product description: solar cells
Employees: 40
Year founded 2006
heliatek.com
With the cost of solar photovoltaics (PVs) still putting off many potential ordinary investors, Heliatek is developing a low-cost, organic, lightweight type of solar cell. The company believes it is the world leader in one of the two main ways of producing organic PVs (using vacuum-deposited small molecules to absorb light and covert it to direct current). It aims to become the first company to mass produce them and says that achieving high sales volumes will lead to "very low production costs".
MiaSolé
California, USA
Product description: solar/thin films
Employees: 315
Year founded 2001
miasole.com
There is a race on to bring the costs down on solar photovoltaic panels. Santa Clara-based MiaSolé hopes to get to the finish within two years through high-volume manufacture of its Cigs (copper indium gallium diselenide) thin-film semiconductor panels. Thin-film cells can be produced using only 1% of the (expensive) semiconductor material of traditional crystalline silicon-based cells. A combination of copper, indium, gallium and selenide is more efficient, says MiaSolé, than using two other thin-film components (cadmium telluride and amorphous silicon).
Petra Solar
New Jersey, USA
Product description: solar systems
Employees: 165
Year founded 2006
petrasolar.com
This company works primarily with utility companies, installing its solar panels on their streetlights and electricity poles. The panels can be remotely upgraded if the technology needs to be modernised in the future. The technology also allows utility suppliers to invest in smart-grid equipment at the same time.
Solar City
California, USA
Product description: solar systems
Employees: 700
Year founded 2006
solarcity.com
San Francisco's Grace Cathedral and the Department of Homeland Security are among the clients of Solar City, one of the largest, full service US solar installation companies. It offers a leasing scheme to private homeowners, who can install a system with no up-front cost and go on to fund their leasing payments from the income they receive for selling their home-produced energy.
Suniva
Georgia, USA
Product description: cells and modules
Employees: 160
Year founded 2007
suniva.com
Based on nearly two decades of research at Georgia Tech's University Centre of Excellence in Photovoltaics, Suniva manufactures monocrystalline silicon solar cells. Claiming to have reached "superior cell performance and efficiency", the company is working on various possible areas of improvement including the conversion of light at the blue end of the colour spectrum. Its says its mission is to make solar photovoltaics "even more sensible".
SunRun
California, USA
Product description: solar systems
Employees: 70
Year founded 2007
sunrunhome.com
More than 5,000 people have bought solar systems for their homes by entering into a financing agreement with SunRun. The precise nature of the deal depends on which state they live in as regulations change at state borders. But they either pay a monthly sum to SunRun for their electricity ("generally lower than what you are paying your utility today") or they pay a leasing fee. Similar schemes are starting in the UK.
Tigo Energy
Calfornia, USA
Product description: solar systems
Employees: Not available
Year founded 2007
tigoenergy.com
Working with commercial, residential and utility scale customers, Tigo Energy sells a solar system through which the performance output of each individual panel is measured and reported back for analysis to a central "Energy Maximiser". Its hardware also increases the safety aspect of panel installation and replacement. For utility scale users, Tigo believes it can improve energy output by up to 20%.
Waste heat
O-Flexx Technologies
Duisberg, Germany
Product description: waste heat
Employees: 10
Year founded 2000
o-flexx.com
"Thermoelectrics" could become as significant as solar photovoltaics "in the very near future", according to this German company, which is focusing on generating energy from waste. By exploiting simple differences in temperature between various heat sources, O-Flexx is working on systems through which electrical energy is produced without the need for a traditional turbine generator system. While still in product development, the company has a broad portfolio of patents and a network of R&D partnerships.
Wind
ChapDrive
Trondheim, Norway
Product description: wind power components
Employees: 20
Year founded 2006
chapdrive.com
Based on its research and development in the Norwegian Sea, ChapDrive believes it is two years away from producing a 5MW wind turbine for Norwegian energy company Statoil. Commercial production of its specialist hyrdraulic gearboxes could then begin a year later. Offshore, sea-based wind turbines are notoriously expensive to fix permanently in place and to maintain but ChapDrive is working on driving down the cost by making them more reliable and less likely to tilt.
Waste-to-energy
Harvest Power
Massachusetts, USA
Product description: waste-to-energy
Employees: 60
Year founded 2008
harvestpower.com
North America's largest food-waste compost facility is located in Richmond, British Columbia, in western Canada. It is run by Harvest Power, using technologies of high solids anaerobic digestion and biomass gasification to make the composting process clean, odourless and efficient. The company works with many communities all across North America (on what it describes as "urban mining" schemes) to produce energy and compost from waste.
Buildings
Calera
California, USA
Product description: building materials
Employees: 200
Year founded 2007
calera.com
Through Calera's Map (Mineralization via Aqueous Precipitation) processes, massive volumes of carbon dioxide and other emissions are captured and converted into water and materials that can be used in the building trade. These materials meet strict industry standards and can be used instead of concrete. Each tonne of gas emissions can be turned into five tonnes of building material, according to the Los Gatos-based company.
Climate Well
Hägersten, Sweden
Product description: heating and ventilation
Employees: N/A
Year founded 2001
climatewell.com
Families can save up to £160 a month through cutting their energy costs by about 85%, say the pioneers of the heat pump system developed at Climate Well. So far the company has set up sales teams mainly in countries where heating and cooling are priority issues, such as Australia, India and Spain. The technology is based on a patented "triple-state absorption" process which can turn heat into cooling without electricity.
EnOcean
Oberhaching, Germany
Product description: building automation
Employees: 50
Year founded 2001
enocean.com
More than 100,000 buildings are now using EnOcean technology, through which lights are dimmed and temperatures altered through a system of miniaturised energy converters, ultra-low-power electronic circuitry and wireless signals. When small fluctuations take place, such as temperature changes, enough energy is produced to power the transmission of radio signals to order a response in building-automation equipment. Tiny "telegrams" are sent of just one millisecond in duration, and repeated to ensure that the original order does not get missed.
Ice Energy
Colorado, USA
Product description: heating and ventilation
Employees: 80
Year founded 2003
ice-energy.com
Businesses which employ traditional air conditioning systems may be able to cut their peak-time energy consumption by more than a third through the use of "Ice Bear", an energy storage system from Ice Energy. The system helps utilities too, which are trying to manage their peak demand. Several US utilities participate in the Ice Energy scheme and pay the costs of the Ice Bear equipment on behalf of users.
Serious Materials
California, USA
Product description: building insulation
Employees: 200
Year founded 2002
seriousmaterials.com
A new range of windows has just been unveiled by this company, offering passive heating and cooling and the blocking of 99.5% of ultraviolet light. Other products and services include window design to maximise the ability to use daylight, doors which reduce noise transmission, building sound-proofing and environment-friendly alternatives to gypsum plaster.
Lighting
Adura Technologies
California, USA
Product description: smart lighting systems
Employees: 32
Year founded 2004
aduratech.com
Traditional buildings are lit by lights which stay switched on until someone switches them off. Adura has developed wireless lighting control systems which flick the lights off when the zones they illuminate are empty. This system can reduce energy consumption by 30%. The core technology is now being extended to link in other building devices.
Bridgelux
California, USA
Product description: solid state lighting
Employees: 138
Year founded 2002
bridgelux.com
Bridgelux predicts that its latest low-energy lighting product, LED Arrays, will break through the existing cost barriers to encourage wider adoption of solid-state lighting by making it cheaper. As well as addressing pricing issues, the company's products aim to increase energy efficiency and improve other technical light factors such as colour consistency and beam uniformity. Local authorities are among its clients, using its technology for street lighting and other large public spaces.
d.light design
India and Hong Kong
Product description: smart lighting systems
Employees: 80
Year founded 2007
dlightdesign.com
Kerosene lamps, the lighting used by millions of people who have no access to electricity, are a dangerous source of illumination as they can easily cause fires. This is one reason why d.light, a maker of solar-powered portable lights, is hoping to reach 10 million users by the end of this year, building up to 50 million by 2015. Its Kiran lamp operates for eight hours when fully charged.
Digital Lumens
Boston, USA
Product description: smart lighting systems
Employees: 20
Year founded 2008
digitallumens.com
Digital Lumens combines software and hardware to reduce the energy use of lighting by up to 90% for some of its industrial customers. Systems include sensors, built-in intelligence and programmes which can respond automatically to lighting and sunshine conditions. Its "LightRules" software, for instance, is aimed at facility managers wanting to map out overall lighting needs and energy resources.
Lattice Power
Jiangxi, China
Product description: solid state lighting
Employees: N/A
Year founded 2006
latticepower.com
LED (light-emitting diode) has been available as a lighting system for nearly 50 years, but is still somewhat limited in everyday life to certain applications such as traffic lights and remote controls. Chinese company Lattice Power aims to become one of the world's leading LED chip suppliers, under the mantra "more light less heat". It is fully operational, has a growing customer base, emphasises collaboration with other players and wants to create a "solid-state lighting industrial cluster establishment" in the Jiangxi capital of Nanchang.
Lemnis Lighting
Barneveld, Netherlands
Product description: solid-state lighting
Employees: 50
Year founded 2006
lemnislighting.com
Crops use only a certain part of the light spectrum to stimulate their growth. Lemnis Lighting, a worldwide provider of LED lighting, has now branched into greenhouse lighting to produce more efficient illumination which uses only those light wavelengths. Lemnis calculates that its lamps cut energy use by 90% compared with traditional lights. LED lights are more expensive than the alternatives but can last 35 times longer.
NovaLED
Dresden, Germany
Product description: solid state lighting
Employees: 100
Year founded 2003
novaled.com
NovaLED claims that its organic LED lighting innovations could introduce "a new way to use light for decorating and creating personalised surroundings". Light could be transmitted from organic LEDs in a variety of brilliant colours, on paper-thin material and with far greater flexibility than is possible using technology currently on the market. Organic LEDs can be made on material a few nanometres thick. NovaLED, which is already in production, says that cost-efficiency can be improved on in comparison with rival energy-saving bulbs.
Energy monitoring
Alert Me
Cambridge, UK
Product description: home automation
Employees: 45
Year founded 2006
alertme.com
A manufacturer of smart-home energy management devices, Alert Me can help homeowners monitor their consumption in real-time and then reduce it. Its products are on sale for just under £50, and work through a broadband connection. While they measure energy usage overall in homes, they can be combined with "smart plugs" to measure the consumption of individual devices. Their kit can also be used to identify usage at any stage over the past month, and to make historical comparisons.
Amee
London, UK
Product description: carbon accounting
Employees: 18
Year founded 2007
amee.com
Carbon calculators are one of the products of this UK- and US-based company. It specialises in verifying and calculating greenhouse gas emissions. Its systems can be used by businesses and other organisations which want to calculate, control, compare and reduce their emissions. The software supports record-keeping standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the Carbon Reduction Commitment. Calculators can be provided to employees who want to track their own footprints to reduce or offset the emissions they generate.
Hara
California, USA
Product description: carbon accounting
Employees: 50
Year founded 2004
hara.com
The Californian city of Palo Alto gives its municipal departments information on their energy and water usage and greenhouse gas emissions. The departments now manage and budget for their own emissions, allowing the city as a whole to control the size of its ecological footprint and become more efficient. The city uses systems from Hara which provides software, consultancy and training to its clients.
PassivSystems
Newbury, UK
Product description: home automation
Employees: 50
Year founded 2008
passivsystems.com
Households could typically cut 18% off their energy bills by having energy usage adapted to fit household habits, says PassivSystems. Its PassivEnergy product is professionally installed and replaces the controls for heating and hot water management. Instructions can be sent to the system through the web. Efficiencies come by the system adapting to specific conditions including the temperature outside the house and the times at which people return home and leave.
Smart grids
CPower
New York, USA
Product description: smart grid
Employees: 90
Year founded 2000
cpowered.com
CPower works with clients in North America and the UK to reduce their energy bills through a combination of techniques including consumption monitoring and benchmarking, energy efficiency, applying for government grants and liaising with utilities. For instance, it believes it can make significant savings for clients by looking at their "peak load management" – trying to ensure that they are consuming the least amount of energy possible at times when suppliers are experiencing peak demand and, therefore, charging top prices.
eMeter
California, USA
Product description: smart grid
Employees: 150
Year founded 1999
emeter.com
This Californian company helps utilities get the best from the data management initiatives that make up their smart-metering programmes and smart-grid operations. The firm helps them analyse the data they receive in real-time, particularly to plan for times of peak demand and to engage with users about energy efficiency. eMeter can work with large and small companies alike, on a range of issues from the practicalities of meter installation to the technical issues surrounding legislative change.
Grid Net
California, USA
Product description: smart grid
Employees: 100
Year founded 2006
grid-net.com
This company aims to produced the smartest smart-grid solutions possible, by using broadband to connect different parts of the energy system (utilities, routers, energy storage devices, etc). It offers government-grade security in these processes. It has been giving away its hardware for free to participants as a way of establishing long-term contracts.
Landis+Gyr
Zug, Switzerland
Product description: smart grid
Employees: 4,800
Year founded 1896
landisgyr.com
Switzerland-based smart-energy company Landis+Gyr operates in more than 30 countries on the parallel projects of smart grid and smart-metering facilities. At the moment, among many other schemes, it is rolling out smart meters with one of the largest Finnish utilities, working in Spain and Portugal (two of Europe's fastest growing smart-grid markets), starting a smart meter project in Texas and collaborating on technology issues with Siemens.
Opower
Virginia, USA
Product description: smart grid
Employees: 110
Year founded 2007
opower.com
Opower uses behavioural science methods to encourage consumer uptake of its energy efficiency programmes. The company works on behalf of utilities on consumer schemes. It claims an 80% participation rate in its flagship schemes, compared with 5% in "typical" campaigns from other companies. It uses patent-pending software. Consumers receive messages spelling out how they compare with efficient users and which also give specific tips, such as optimal temperatures for air conditioning.
PowerSense
Holte, Denmark
Product description: smart grid
Employees: 20
Year founded 2006
sensethepower.com
PowerSense is working with utilities around the world, installing "supervision and control" smart-grid systems on their medium voltage power distribution grids. Information is given to the provider about load currents, power levels, voltage quality, disturbances in the grid and distances to faults. Contracts announced in the past year include installations in the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia, and a strategic partnership in China.
Silver Spring Networks
California, USA
Product description: smart grid
Employees: 500
Year founded 2002
silverspringnet.com
Whether they know it or not, one in five US households is connected to their utility suppliers through smart-grid systems provided by Redwood City-based Silver Spring. A problem for some utilities who want to use a smart grid is that they have already built parts of their own infrastructure which may conflict with an external system. Silver Spring says it can deliver systems which work with whatever configuration of advanced metering, demand response and other technology is already in place
Tendril
Colorado, USA
Product description: smart grid
Employees: 88
Year founded 2004
tendrilinc.com
A digital clock is the simple, central product which Tendril has designed to help household customers manage, reduce and make cheaper their energy use. Built into the clock are real-time information flows about energy usage (including real-time pricing data) and the ability to respond. Warnings are given, for instance, on pricing changes. Customised energy plans can be developed by users who are able to receive instructions about, for instance, reducing heating levels during times of high pricing (peak demand).
Trilliant
California, USA
Product description: smart grid
Employees: 400
Year founded 1985
trilliantinc.com
In the city of Ontario, Canada, there is a smart-grid system connected by 1.4m smart meters and other devices. This is the result of a Trilliant contract. The company works around the world, providing flexible smart grid and metering solutions through its "SecureMesh" products. Meter equipment in homes does not just register energy consumption but can also feed back information immediately on outages.
Manufacturing
Avantium
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Product description: advanced bio processes
Employees: 110
Year founded 2000
avantium.com
This well-known research company uses biomass as a replacement for oil to create green building blocks (which it calls Furanics) for materials and fuels. Now working with 70 client companies around the world, including market leaders, Avantium produces Furanics for car parts, clothing, carpets, water bottles and a wide range of plastics and fuels. It calls Furanics "a sleeping giant which can create a truly green economy".
Elevance
Illinois, USA
Description: renewable chemical products
Employees: 60
Year founded 2007
elevance.com
Elevance uses technology, which was recognised in the 2005 Nobel prize for chemistry, to make a range of waxes, oils, candles, industrial petroleum, lubricants, disinfectants and other products. The "metathesis catalyst" technology makes the treatment processes used on raw materials shorter and less wasteful and, therefore, more environmentally-friendly. The company is also planning to open a bio-refinery next year which will produce biodiesel and other fuel and chemical streams.
Kebony
Oslo, Norway
Product description: sustainable lumber
Employees: 50
Year founded 1997
kebony.com
When wood is treated with Kebony, a proprietary wood modification technology, it becomes more weather-resistant and more likely to last longer. So say the Norwegian inventors of this treatment which is itself made from liquids in biowaste material. Despite the wind, snow, ice and other rough weather conditions in Norway, most Norwegians choose wood as a building material. The product is being sold through outlets in the USA, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Spain and, of course, Norway.
Metalysis
Rotherham, UK
Product description: specialty metals
Employees: 50
Year founded 2001
metalysis.com
Refining titanium is still a slow, complicated process, despite the fact that the metal is one of the most prized in the world in certain applications. This South Yorkshire company is aiming to simplify the refining procedure by working on technology developed at Cambridge University in the 1990s. On commercial production levels, the process would cut costs and reduce environmental impacts.
Novacem
London, UK
Product description: carbon-negative cement
Employees: 15
Year founded 2007
novacem.com
Cement is one of the most significant industrial emitters of carbon, responsible for 5% of man-made carbon emissions. Novacem, a spin-out from Imperial College, has developed a non-carbonate raw material for cement, magnesium silicate. In its relatively low temperature production process, more CO2 is absorbed than is emitted. It recently announced plans to build a semi-commercial plant.
Novomer
Massachusetts, USA
Product description: polymers
Employees: 25
Year founded 2004
novomer.com
Producing nappies from carbon monoxide is one of the unlikely-sounding but technically feasible outcomes of the technology being developed at Novomer. Its catalyst technologies catch carbon dioxide and monoxide and convert them into acrylic acid, polypropylene carbonate and other chemicals and plastics. These can then be used in a range of products from glues to plastic bottles to nappies.
Simbol Mining
Texas, USA
Product description: metals
Employees: N/A
Year founded 2007
simbolmining.com
Simbol Mining hopes to have developed a low-cost way of extracting lithium in time for the expected expansion of the number of people buying electric vehicles, which are mainly powered by lithium batteries. In 2012 it expects to complete the building of a pilot plant at Salton Sea, California, where it will demonstrate how it extracts lithium and zinc from water in geothermal wells. The international lithium market is a volatile one, with Afghanistan and Bolivia holding significant resources.
Wastewater treatment
Aqwise
Herzliya, Israel
Product description: wastewater treatment
Employees: 30
Year founded 2000
aqwise.com
This Israeli company has sold its products around the world, in particular to clients in the municipal and industrial sectors. Its Agar (Attached Growth Airlift Reactor) product is a biological wastewater treatment which varies the amount of oxygen in the water in order to increase the speed at which it can be treated. The method can be adapted to process different kinds of waste in varying conditions. It is often used by organisations which have to retrofit existing treatment centres.
Emefcy
Caesarea, Israel
Product description: bio wastewater treatment
Employees: 10
Year founded 2007
emefcy.com
Emefcy is designing electricity generation equipment by copying natural chemical reactions. Its "Megawatter" fuel cell product can use wastewater to generate electricity or produce hydrogen as the organic matter in the waste starts to degrade. The technology, which is still in development, will reportedly work with wastewater of high salinity and high sulfate concentration.
Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies
Vancouver, Canada
Product description: wastewater treatment
Employees: 25
Year founded 2005
ostara.com
Coming from a region that leads the world in waste treatment, Ostara extracts 90% of phosphorous and 20% of ammonia from wastewater while it is being treated. It converts them into an environment-friendly, slow-release commercial fertiliser. Meanwhile, the wastewater treatment plants work much more efficiently, since the removed chemicals, phosphorous, in particular, contribute to the build-up of cement-strength scale within the water treatment pipes. Ostara began fertiliser sales at the end of 2009.
Water management
TaKaDu
Yehud, Israel
Product description: Water monitoring SaaS
Employees: 21
Year founded 2008
takadu.com
With up to 30% of clean water lost in leaking transportation pipes, TaKaDu uses advanced algorithms to detect when pipes are carrying less water than expected and may be leaking. Getting the data on pipe performance requires analysis of smart meter and smart grid information. The company also advises utilities on ways of improving efficiency from pump operation to the deployment of repair crews.
Water treatment
AquaZ A/S
Nordborg, Denmark
Product description: purification
Employees: 12
Year founded 2006
aquaz.dk
AquaZ is developing an alternative method to the traditional, expensive, way of purifying seawater. It believes it can increase the efficiency of desalination plants by between five and 10 times. Instead of using a membrane which operates along the usual lines, ie rejecting larger non-water molecules by size, AquaZ uses its "aquaporin" membrane technology to sort molecules based on their electrochemical properties. This process requires lower energy levels and is, consequently, much cheaper than traditional desalination processes.
WaterHealth
Water
Andhra Pradesh, India and California, USA
Product description: WaterPurification
Employees 300
Year founded 2003
waterhealth.com
With up to 2 billion people in the world not having access to safe drinkable water, this private enterprise raises its money for community water centres through commercial loans and invests in the purification centres on portable platforms in both urban and rural areas. Communities typically foot 40% of the cost – between £13,000 and £23,000 each – and WaterHealth funds the rest, maintaining the centres and charging a small amount for the water.
Oasys Water
Massachusetts, USA
Product description: desalination
Employees: N/A
Year founded 2000
oasyswater.com
Focusing its work in fresh water-scarce areas such as the Mediterranean, Oasys has developed and patented a cost-effective form of the desalination procedure of reverse osmosis. The Oasys "Engineered Osmosis" platform uses membranes and low-grade heat – rather than electricity – to perform reverse osmosis. This brings "significantly lower cost" to customers, it says. An outcome of the Engineered Osmosis procedure is osmotic power, a form of hydroelectric generation.
NanoH20
California, USA
Product description: desalination
Employees: 30
Year founded 2005
nanoh2o.com
If NanoH2O's technology is made to work on a commercial scale, water shortage problems around the world will be greatly reduced as sea water is desalinated and made available for drinking. The company is developing new filter membranes which would be used (in a process called reverse osmosis) to clean up salt water, brackish water (water with a high level of salinity) and wastewater. Achieving this aim has long been seen as a holy grail, as only 3% of the world's water is freshwater.
Transporation
Better Place
California, USA and Israel
Product description: electric vehicle services
Employees: 300
Year founded 2007
betterplace.com
A collaboration with Chery Automobile in China and a project with taxis in Tokyo are among the latest milestones from Better Place, the company seeking to provide infrastructure and other services for electric vehicles. When they take off, electric vehicles will require an infrastructure which allows battery recharge and swapping; projects which the company is now developing in the US, Europe, Australia and other locations.
Compact Power Motors
Munich, Germany
Product description: vehicle components
Employees: N/A
Year founded 2008
cpmotors.eu
The ultra-compact electric motors designed by this company are being used in a range of vehicles from electric bikes to golf buggies, forklift trucks and boats. The central product is an integrated design which brings together the motor, control system and gears in a light and compact format. Compact Power Motors is also working in the fields of generators and power units, on a range of applications from wind power to pumps.
Coulomb Technologies
California, USA
Product description: fuels infrastructure
Employees: 60
Year founded 2007
coulombtech.com
The city of Anaheim, California has just set up its first "ChargePoint Network" station through which its residents and the municipality's small fleet of two electric plug-in vehicles can recharge their batteries. Coulomb Technologies provides and manages this network, which is being established around the US, particularly along the seaboards. The company's slogan, "delivering electric fuel to vehicles worldwide", explains its aims succinctly. Employers and municipalities are the main clients. Users can keep account of their usage and charging status through the web.
Fisker Automotive
California, USA
Product description: electric and hybrids
Employees: 100
Year founded 2007
karma.fiskerautomotive.com
Fisker Automotive designs and produces solar-powered luxury vehicles. Its first car is the Fisker Karma, a plug-in hybrid sports sedan, due to go into mass production in 2011. If the vehicle is used for fewer than 50 miles a day, it should need refuelling only once a year. The car is a result of a joint venture by Fisker Coachbuild, LLC and Quantum Technologies.
GreenRoad Technologies
California, USA
Product description: transportation efficiencies
Employees: 90
Year founded 2003
greenroad.com
GreenRoad aims to cut in half driving risks and to reduce fuel costs by up to 10% through its real-time, in-vehicle coaching scheme for drivers. The system is particularly aimed at organisations with fleets. The GreenRoad 360 software scheme, working with GPS, analyses 120 different driving "events" (such as arriving at a roundabout or turning) and gives immediate feedback on how safely the driver is handling these.
Zipcar
Massachusetts, USA
Product description: car sharing
Employees: 420
Year founded 2000
zipcar.com
Zipcar runs a car sharing/hiring scheme through which people joining the London arm pay £50 a year, and then £29 to hire a vehicle by the day on weekdays (or £45 a day at weekends). Slightly cheaper rates apply for regular users. In North America, Zipcar's main area of operation, the scheme is available in 66 cities. The 70 car models available can be seen on the website or through a smartphone.
Energy storage
McPhy
La Motte-Fanjas, France
Product description: hydrogen storage
Employees: 12
Year founded 2008
mcphy.com
One of the difficulties inherent in certain forms of renewable energy is storage. To help meet rising storage demands, McPhy is developing tanks in which solid-state hydrogen can be stored. Its technology is cheaper and safer than more conventional alternatives, says the company. For instance, it says that its system requires "less energy than liquid or compressed hydrogen technologies which use up to 33% of the hydrogen energy content for storage".
Xtreme Power
Texas, USA
Product description: smart control
Employees: 160
Year founded 2004
xtremepowerinc.com
Xtreme Power works with public transport organisations, such as city train systems, to provide them with energy storage systems that can be accessed the instant that the power is required. Such organisations have very particular and intensive energy needs. The Texas company's clients include a range of other industrial users (including factories) as well as utilities.
Advanced batteries
Boston-Power
Massachusetts, USA
Product description: flow batteries
Employees: 120
Year founded 2005
boston-power.com
Nasa has recently announced that it intends to use Boston-Power's long-lasting lithium-ion battery technology for its scheme to send a robot to the Moon. Human beings are also using these more environmentally sustainable, fast-charging "flow batteries" in many consumer products currently available, for instance, HP laptops. About 40% capacity can be charged up in 10 minutes. The technology is in mass production, and there are 100 patents pending.
Deeya Energy
Haryana, India and California, US
Product description: flow batteries
Employees: N/A
Year founded 2004
deeyaenergy.com
Based on Nasa technology used to power systems on space flights, India and California-based Deeya Energy is developing patent-pending flow-battery systems. These have extra long life (they can last up to seven years), superfast recharging times and new lighter, cleaner components. The technology also works in rugged, outdoor conditions in temperatures that range from -5C to 50C. It is thought that the main applications for the technology will be in telecommunications and grid power back-up, particularly in the Indian cellular and US industrial markets.
Nexeon
Abingdon, UK
Product description: lithium-ion batteries
Employees: 30
Year founded 2006
nexeon.co.uk
A spin-out from Imperial College, London, Nexeon is developing lithium-ion batteries with extended lifetimes and capacity. The technology revolves around new ways of structuring silicon. The company says that their new method of making batteries could work on the existing production lines of manufacturers. Less material would be needed, say the directors, and costs to makers would be lower.
Prudent Energy
Beijing, China
Product description: flow batteries
Employees: 150
Year founded 2006
pdenergy.com
This Chinese company has 29 patents around the world for its main-flow battery product, its VRB Energy Storage System. It is marketing its technology to renewable energy generators, rural utilities and telecommunications companies through its offices in China, the US and Canada. It also has patent applications pending regarding smart grids and the use of its VRB technology in relation to wind farms.
Compressed air
SustainX
New Hampshire, USA
Product description: compressed air
Employees: 13
Year founded 2007
sustainx.com
This company is working in the growing field of compressed air energy storage (CAES) through which air is compressed and, when needed, released and expanded to produce energy. Unlike traditional CAES, the SunstainX approach, now in product development, stores the air overground in gas cylinders. This gives more flexibility about the location of the storage.
General Compression
Massachusetts, USA
Product description: wind power storage
Employees: 18
Year founded 2006
generalcompression.com
One of the main disadvantages of wind power is that it can only be used when the wind blows. General Compression is developing a system which stores energy. When excess electricity is produced from wind turbines, it is stored as compressed air (in the same kind of natural cavities where natural gas is stored). When there is insufficient wind, the compressed air – without burning fuel – is expanded to generate electricity again.
Fuel cells
Bloom Energy
California, USA
Product description: solid oxide fuel cells
Employees: 500
Year founded 2002
bloomenergy.com
After seven years of secrecy, Bloom Energy launched its Bloom Energy Server this year, a solid-oxide fuel cell product the size of a fridge which is being trialled by clients including Coca-Cola, Bank of America and Google. This storage facility frees them from dependency on the electricity grid. "Customers can efficiently generate their own electricity on site, reducing their carbon footprint while lowering energy costs and mitigating power outage risks," says the Silicon Valley company.
CellEra
Caesarea, Israel
Product description: fuel cells
Employees: 11
Year founded 2007
cellera-inc.com
This Israeli company is aiming to make a cost breakthrough which will see clean fuel cells replace lead-acid batteries and diesel generators. It is working on this by developing "platinum-free membrane" fuel cell technology. Platinum is an expensive ingredient in fuel cells but continues to be used as cheaper metals cannot withstand the harsh acidic environment of fuel cells. CellEra's first products are being designed to be used in back-up power and within distributed power generation systems.
Irrigation
AquaSpy
Indianapolis, USA
Product description: smart irrigation
Employees: 15
Year founded 2010
aquaspy.com
AquaSpy has developed soil moisture sensor technology which is to be used as part of irrigation and water conservation management. The technology improves crop yield by monitoring the behaviour of the roots. Depending on the customer, its location and the crops, yields are said to increase by between 10% and 40%. Root health is also improved and there are savings in water usage.
Natural pesticides
Exosect
Southampton, UK
Product description: biological control
Employees: 29
Year founded 2001
exosect.com
Oriental fruit moths are the enemy of fruit growers, who may resort to using pesticides if the crop damage is substantial. But Hampshire-based Exosect uses its patented Entostat powder to disrupt the mating habits of these insects, rather than to kill them. This is just one of the "intelligent pest management" tools it has developed. The chemistry is compatible with organic farming. Similar products are available to deal with codling moths, varroa mites and cockroaches.
Purfresh
California, USA
Product description: eco-friendly pesticides
Employees: 45
Year founded 1996
purfresh.com
Purfresh works in 50 countries, providing eco-friendly pesticides and purification solutions to sectors such as agriculture, water and pharmaceuticals. It helps customers use ozone as a disinfection and purification product. Ozone can be used as an alternative to chlorine in some circumstances. When used in the soil, it disappears without leaving toxic compounds behind.
Recycling & Waste
Amminex
Copenhagen, Denmark
Product description: emissions control
Employees: 36
Year founded 2005
amminex.net
The main product of this company is a cartridge which enables the removal of harmful NOx (nitrogen oxides) gases from diesel engine exhaust. It is hoping to go into large-scale production in collaboration with the leading vehicle manufacturers in time for the implementation of new diesel engine emission standards in the EU and US. It is also developing applications of this technology for fuel cells.
MBA Polymers
California, USA
Product description: plastics/ rubber
Employees: 160
Year founded 1994
mbapolymers.com
MBA Polymers believes it operates "two of the most advanced plastics recycling facilities in the world", one in Guangzhou, China and the other in Austria. It specialises in the recovery of materials found in complex durable goods. It plans further international expansion. Legislation such as the EU's 2007 WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive is forcing manufacturers and consumers to focus more on complicated recycling.
Recupyl
Domène, France
Product description: metals
Employees: 12
Year founded 1993
recupyl.com
Hydrometallurgy is the basis of the processes which Recupyl employs to treat used batteries, computer and TV screens, chemical baths and other hazardous wastes. The metals in the waste are extracted, purified, returned to concentrated form and then transformed into a reusable metallic state again. It uses low energy procedures and does not emit gases or particulates into the atmosphere.
RecycleBank
New York, USA
Product description: recycling services
Employees: 125
Year founded 2004
recyclebank.com
All 18,000 households of Wilmington, Delaware are involved in a recycling-to-reward points scheme, depending on the amount they have put out to recycle. RecycleBank runs this scheme along with many others, reaching 1 million people in the United States (a UK arm is also now up and running). The decision to take part in the scheme is taken by local authorities. The company says that the "average family can easily save £135 a year with rewards at retailers such as Marks & Spencer".
SIC Processing
Hirschau, Germany
Product description: oils/lubricants
Employees: 205
Year founded 2000
sic-processing.com
Being the largest solar market in Europe, Germany produces numerous specialists in the sector – such as SIC, which treats the various waste products given off in the photovoltaics industry. When processed and recycled, the waste produces more basic materials (particularly silicon carbide) for the silicon wafers used in much solar module manufacture. SIC advises manufacturers on logistics, stock-keeping, transportation of waste and plant layout. It is also working in China.
Universtar Science & Technology
Shenzhen, China
Product description: monitoring systems
Employees: 500+
Year founded 2002
szusst.cn
Universtar could play an important role in helping China balance its drive for economic growth with its environmental concerns. Designated a "national high-tech enterprise", it sets as goals ways of spreading and adapting the "economic development of ecological civilisation". It is currently working in fields including software that monitors air and water quality and the development of processes for the treatment of waste and pollution. It is expanding to serve foreign markets, recently signing a collaboration agreement in India.
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