Efficacité énergétique par OPOWER en lien avec le comptage "intelligent"

The OPOWER advanced customer engagement platform is the industry's leading Smart Grid front-end. It is the only platform available in the marketplace today that can achieve:

1. Broad Customer Engagement — up to 85% of people exposed to the platform take action

2. Large-Scale Energy Savings — our track record of clearly measured energy savings is well documented.

OPOWER's unique combination of an all-channel communication approach, highly targeted messaging, energy usage analytics and applied behavioral science is a solution that has proven successful in engaging over a million people across the country today. With OPOWER 3.0, the platform fully embraces AMI data and is designed to deliver highly visible and quantifiable value of the Smart Grid directly to utility customers.

Elements of Advanced Customer Engagement (ACE):

• Proactive Engagement — Pushing data to a majority of customers is critical to having an impact. Our platform includes paper reports, emails, and alerts.
• All-Channel Communication — Our approach reaches all customer segments--irrespective of income or access to technology--by taking advantage of ALL available communication channels
  
  
• Targeted Messaging — If it's not relevant, customers will not pay attention. Our industry-leading content targeting engine ensures each customer sees only what's most relevant for her or him
  
  
• Usage Analytics — Analysis and insights are more actionable, more interesting, and more motivating than raw data. The more data we have from a smart meter, the more specific our recommendations become
• Applied Behavioral Science — Energy data on its own is not sufficiently engaging to produce significant results. The OPOWER platform takes energy data and transforms it into something more interesting by using normative comparisons across all dimensions, not just overall usage.

The Insight Engine

Behind our multifaceted customer engagement approach is a single software platform. The Insight Engine is an advanced analytical engine that uses patent-pending statistical algorithms to extract the most possible actionable insights from all available data. This includes not only the billing data provided by our utility partners, but also customer demographics, weather, and other relevant data from half a dozen different data sources, including local governments and third parties.

The Insight Engine is programmed to perform three types of analysis:

• Usage Disaggregation — discover patterns in energy usage that trigger Aha! moments. Providing this type of insight drive customers to take action
• Tip Targeting and Customer Segmentation — select the most relevant information for each particular household, which ensures maximum relevancy and high response rate to our recommendations
• Integrated Normative Messaging — the Insight Engine uses the latest in behavioral science research to tailor messages that not only inform, but also motivate households to act

The importance of our Insight Engine cannot be overstated – it provides the customer intelligence embedded in all our products, and is the difference between mere data presentment and highly motivating customer engagement.

To learn more about customer-facing products powered by our Insight Engine, please see:

• Home Energy Reports
• Energy Efficiency Portal
• Smart Grid Features
• CSR Tools

Social Networking: The Future

In my first post I talked about the history of social networking from 1985-2002 dominated by CompuServe, AOL & Yahoo! In the second post I explored the current era which covers Web 2.0 (blogs, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook), Realtime (Twitter), and mobile (Foursquare). Is the game over? Have Facebook & Twitter won or is their another act? No prizes for guessing … there’salways a second (and third, and fourth, and fifth) act in technology. So where is social networking headed next? I make eight predictions below.

1. The Social Graph Will Become Portable

Right now our social graph (whom we are connected to and their key information like email addresses) is mostly held captive by Facebook. There is growing pressure on Facebook to make this portable and they have made some progress on this front. Ultimately I don’t believe users or society as a whole will accept a single company “locking in” our vital information.

Facebook will succumb to pressure and over time make this available to us to allow us more choice in being part of several social networks without having to spam all of our friends again. I know in 2010 this doesn’t seem obvious to everybody but it’s my judgment. Either they make our social graph portable or we’ll find other networks to join. I predict this will come before the end of 2012.

2. We Will Form Around “True” Social Networks: Quora, HackerNews, Namesake, StockTwits

Since 2006 I have been lamenting what I see as “the Facebook problem” – they are trying to lump me into one big social network. Nobody exists in one social network. I have the one with my friends where I want to talk about how wasted we were at the party last weekend that I don’t want to share with my family network where I share pictures of the kids with my parents and siblings.

I don’t want either of these mixed with the business social network in which I want to maintain the appearance that I’m “all business” and certainly don’t want to see college pictures of me in Mexico floating around. I don’t want to mix my “public network” with my “private networks.” Facebook has jumbled these all together and then tried to bandage it by making groups available. I don’t think this really solves the problem.

And young people aren’t stupid – they certainly aren’t as digitally naïve as their elders like to think. To get around all of this jumbling of social graphs they simply create multiple Facebook accounts under pseudonyms or “nom du guerre” for their real discussions and more pristine Facebook accounts for their real names. I wonder how many of Facebook’s 500 million users are created for this purpose? I’ve confirmed this trend with several young people.

I believe that people already form topical social networks as evidenced in places like HackerNews or Quora. We are also seeing the growth of social networks around topics of interest like StockTwits for people interested in investing in the stock market. There are new networks forming to try and address the needs of specific social networks such as Namesake that is in its experimental stage but sees a world in which people want to network outside of Facebook.

3. Privacy Issues Will Continue to Cause Problems: Diaspora

Facebook made a deal with us that our social network was private. When they jealously watched the rise of Twitter they decided that it should be made more public, but that wasn’t the bargain we made when we signed up in the first place. If I were Facebook I would have simply created two places where you could network, Facebook “private” and Facebook “open.” The latter product could have competed directly with Twitter and could have had an asymmetric follow model.

Sure, we would have had to choose which followers to have in that separate timeline and they wouldn’t have gotten all the synergies that they have by just lumping them together. But if they would have done it this way they never would have crossed the ethical lines that they did and we could all just love Facebook instead of our love-hate relationships. I’m still there daily to see pictures of my nieces & nephews – but I never connect more broadly with anybody in the business community. So 95% of my social networking time goes to Twitter.

I know most people aren’t troubled by the loosening of their information – but I believe that’s because most people don’t understand it.

What I realized in working with so many startup technology firms is that even if you don’t give permission to third-party apps to access your information much of it is available anyways as long as somebody you’re connected to is more promiscuous with third-party apps. Also, all of those “Facebook Connect” buttons on websites are awesome for quickly logging in, but each gives those websites unprecedented access to your personal information.

I believe that privacy leaks will cause a longer-term backlash against misusing our information but in the short-term not enough people understand the consequences to be alarmed. Diaspora was created in direct response to the growing concerns about Facebook privacy and lock-in. Whether or not Diaspora will take off is anybody’s guess. But a lot of people would love to see them or similar players emerge.

4. Social Networking Will Become Pervasive: Facebook Connect meets Pandora, NYTimes

As our social graph becomes more portable I believe that social networking will become a feature in everything we do. You can already see it slipping into services like Pandora where my social graph instantly appears and my friends’ musical tastes are displayed without my knowing this would happen. On NY Times I’m getting recommended articles by friends and I didn’t explicitly turn this feature on. This trend of social pervasiveness will continue.

5. Third-Party Tools Will Embed Social Features in Websites: Meebo

One thing that is obvious to me is that while many websites want to have Facebook Connect log-ins to know more about you, they don’t really know what to do with you once they have that information. They’re mostly now thinking about serving demographically targeted ads to you, but that’s not very interesting. Third-party software companies will start to offer features to websites to actually drive social features. This will take a few years but players such as Meebo are already innovating in this category though their toolbar.

6. Social Networking (like the web) Will Split Into Layers: SimpleGeo, PlaceIQ

One of the most interesting trends in the last few years has been watching the Internet split into layers. At the bottom end of the stack is storage (S3) and processing (EC2). At the top end is the business logic created by startups and established technology companies. I’m going to write a whole post on BothSid.es in the next few weeks on the layering of the Internet and the most important layer that will emerge in the next few years. We know that the layering of the PC era led to huge innovation at each layer in the stack and I expect the same to continue to emerge on the Internet. But for now suffice it to say that we’re already seeing this happen in social networks.

One interesting layer is the “mapping layer” that is emerging in mobile social networks. If every startup had to figure out the locations of every business, what type of business they were and where they were located on a map we’d have very few startups. SimpleGeo is designed with the idea that startups can create new mobile products without having to each build their own mapping functionality. This is an awesome trend and will further lower the cost of startup development. I predict that SimpleGeo will do well in the mapping layer but I see more innovative companies emerging at the data layer.

And there are other companies racing to create horizontal platforms. One I saw recently was PlaceIQ. Their goal is to create a horizontal platform that allows marketers or developers to know a lot more about the geo-locations and not just the specific businesses / points-of-interest. They’re capturing information about the demographics of map tiles, levels of LBS activity, what certain zones are known for (i.e. romantic spot, financial district) and want to make this available to others.

7. Social Chaos Will Create New Business Opportunities: Klout, Sprout Social, CoTweet, awe.sm, (next gen) Buzzd

The explosion of data is creating opportunities just in the management of the data in and of itself. Once we’re uber-connected and getting information online from people we’ve only met online we need to know more about the “authority” of the people we’re following. Enter Klout, a service that tracks the influence of individuals in social networks. It can be imported into other products (e.g. StockTwits) where you really want to know more about the person giving you advice.

We know that Twitter is leading to customer service opportunities for businesses but the opposite is also true. If you don’t manage what is said about you in social networks it could be detrimental. Products such as Sprout Social and CoTweet are emerging to help businesses better track and communicate with their customers and leads. Products like awe.sm (I’m an investor) will help you manage the efficacy of your social media marketing campaigns.

And one of the cooler new products that will emerge in 2011 is being created by Nihal Mehta, who has pivoted from his previous company Buzzd, but I’m sworn to secrecy on what he’s up to until he releases it publicly. I saw the product recently in New York and loved it. It will address the world of what happens when businesses and consumers are increasingly mobile & social.

8. Facebook Will Not be the Only Dominant Player

I know that in 2010 it seems ridiculous to say anything other than “Facebook has won—the war is over” and I know that it feels that way right now. Facebook is so dominant it is astounding. In a complete return to where we all began with AOL—the world is “closed” again as Facebook has become this generation’s walled garden. When you’re on Facebook you’re not on the Internet—you’re on the InterNOT. It is an amazing service and I use it regularly myself (although much less than I use Twitter). But it makes me laugh to now see so many brands advertising their “fan pages” as they did their AOL Keywords back in the day. Plus ça change …

Well, here’s a quick history primer that may change your mind:

• In 1998 the Department of Justice launched an anti-trust case against Microsoft. People feared they were going to have a monopoly over the Internet due to “bunding” Internet Explorer with their operating system. A bit laughable in 2010, just 12 years later. These days people would sooner fear Apple than Microsoft, proving that reality is stranger than fiction.
• In April of 2000 there were fears that the AOL / Time Warner merger would create a monopoly on the Internet. As you know, Time Warner eventually spun off AOL for peanuts. AOL is in the process of rebuilding itself and emulating a little-known LA-based startup called Demand Media. AOL seems to be doing great things to reinvent itself under the leadership of Tim Armstrong, but monopoly? Never.
• In May 2007 there were fears that Google was becoming a monopoly. It controlled two-thirds of all Internet searches in the US and as we all knew—search was inevitably going to be the portal to finding information on the Internet. Or was it? We now know that social networking is having a profound impact on how we discover and share content online.
• So . . . now it is November 2010 and Facebook has more than 500 million users. They have more page views than even Google. More than 10% of all time on the web is now Facebook. They have become a juggernaut in online advertising, pictures, video and online games. And now they want to revolutionize email. It is no doubt that the next decade belongs to Facebook. But the coincidence is that 10 years out will be 2020 and when we look back from that date I’m certain that people will also find a Facebook monopoly a bit laughable.

AUTHOR : Mark Suster

Social Networking: The Present

Social Networking in Web 2.0: Plaxo & LinkedIn

In my last post, I discussed the origins of social networking online, beginning with CompuServe, Prodigy, the Well, then the rise of AOL, Geocities and Yahoo Groups. Next began the era of “spam-based” networks of which Plaxo (founded in 2002) was the king. Co-founded by Sean Parker (yes, the same one who worked with Mark Zuckerberg in the early days of Facebook), it encouraged groups of people to email everybody in their email address books and “connect” on Plaxo so that when any of their contact information was changed online it could by synchronized with everybody’s local computer version and thus we could all stay in touch.

There was a backlash against the Plaxo spamming yet it paved the way for everybody who came after them to get users to drive viral adoption and we’d throw up our arms and say, “oh boy, here goes another social network that my friends are going to spam me about” mentality that made it acceptable for everybody who came afterward.

And come after they did. While Plaxo never figured out what to do with us once we were all connected online, LinkedIn did. They formed us into networks of networkers. It was suddenly now not only about whom I was connected to, but who they knew and how I could get access to them. We suddenly all wanted intros. It added a new dimension to online social networks … business networking. And they encouraged us to part with a lot more data about ourselves making LinkedIn our virtual resume.

And importantly Web 2.0 ushered in the era of “participation” – we all know that. But less considered is the fact that the success of the Web 2.0 companies versus the Web 1.0 ones were enhanced because they coincided with hardware that allowed us to capture more content instantly – namely images and video – otherwide Web 2.0 might have been a lot less differentiated. Suddenly we were all creating blogs on Blogger.com, Typepad & WordPress. We started uploading images of ourselves to our blogs.

But the masses didn’t want to blog. They wanted to publish pictures of themselves & their friends, share them, communicate with others, stay connected, have common experiences, find people to date, etc. As I’ve said, it’s the same shit as the 1980′s – I swear.

Modern Social Networking: Friendster, MySpace & Facebook

We all know Friendster was the trailblazer in this category allowing people to create personal pages and connect to other people in a LinkedIn style but without the “business” and with a little more interactivity (let’s face it, for the longest time most users “friended” people on LinkedIn but then never really did much else). But Friendster’s computer systems couldn’t keep up with the explosive growth (reportedly due to the complexity of the security model set up to control connections, privacy and authenticity of users) so MySpace was hot on the heels and swept up the market in a very rapid ascent. Friendster was DOA.

And there it was – MySpace was growing at the exact time we all had cheap digital cameras, smartphones with cameras and new, cheap video cameras like the Flip that allowed us to create video.

Except that MySpace didn’t handle images or video well. Luckily Photobucket & ImageShack did. So users put all their photos on Photobucket & their videos on YouTube and shared them with their friends through MySpace.

Fox bought MySpace for $580 million and then did a deal with Google worth more than the purchase price to serve up ads. For a nanosecond Rupert Murdoch seemed like the smartest guy on the Internet. Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion, which at the time seemed laughably high and now seems prescient. Google turned YouTube into one of the most valuable future Internet properties. MySpace would have liked to own YouTube but didn’t have the public stock valuation to purchase them at the price that Google did.

MySpace later bought Photobucket for $250 million + $50 million earn out. It did not have the same success as Google’s acquisition and MySpace sold Photobucket 2 years later to a relatively unknown Seattle-based startup called Ontela for a reportedly $60 million.

Murdoch seethed at these “startups” getting rich off the back of MySpace. The conventional wisdom at Fox’s headquarters is that MySpace had “made” both YouTube & Photobucket by allowing them distribution. MySpace vowed not to create anymore million dollar successes off of their backs that Google could then acquire.

So Fox ludicrously set up a quasi internal innovation center called Slingshot Labs. The goal was to create innovations outside of MySpace and then MySpace would acquire them at pre-agreed prices based on how well they performed. This was Politburo-style innovation and was laughable. I literally snortled when I heard that they were going to do this. It was obviously a scheme set up by young entrepreneurs to line their pockets and some big-company executives who didn’t understand innovation.

Enter Facebook. It had grown stratospherically from 2004-2007 to 100 million users, which actually was slightly smaller in December 2007 then MySpace was. Facebook was everything that MySpace wasn’t. It was: up-market, exclusive, urban, elite, aesthetically pleasing, ad-free and users were verified. MySpace was: scantily dressed, teenaged, middle-America, design chaos and on ad steroids.

But the critical distinction in the direction of both companies was that while MySpace was putting up moats to keep outside companies from innovating and making money off their backs, Facebook took the opposite approach. It launched open API’s and created a platform whereby third-party developers could come build any app they wanted and Facebook didn’t even want (yet) to take any money from them to do so. So along come companies like Slide, RockYou & Zynga who wanted to build apps across all the social networks but were green-lighted the hardest by Mark Zuckerberg.

It was at that moment that a 22-year-old Mark Zuckerberg completely schooled the 75-year-old Rupert Murdoch. Within the next 12 months Facebook users doubled to 200 million while MySpace stayed flat at 100 million. The lesson was learned over 30 years in Silicon Valley: you create ecosystems where third-parties can innovate and thrive and you become the legitimate center of it all and can tax the system later. Ask Microsoft, Autodesk or Salesforce.com – the evidence was there from Seattle to Sand Hill Road.

Facebook went on become larger than even Google and Yahoo! in terms of time spent on the sites. Slingshot Labs was unsurprisingly closed within a short period of time and its properties sold-off or dismantled. Duh.

Social Networking goes Real Time: Twitter

While Facebook was built on the idea that all our information was private and shared only between friend (before they changed this after the fact), Twitter was born under the idea that most of the information shared there was open and viewable by anybody. This was revolutionary in thinking and worked because as a user you understood this bargain when you started. Twitter is not the place to share pictures of your kids with your family.

Another Twitter innovation was “asymmetry” because you didn’t have to have a two-way following relationship to be connected. You could follow people who didn’t necessarily follow you back. This allowed followers to be able to “curate” their newsfeed with people that they found interesting. Twitter restricts each post to 140 characters so users often share links with other people – one of the most important features of Twitter. So this combination of following people you found interesting who share links drove a sort of “news exchange” that mimicked many of the features of RSS readers except that it was curated by other people!

Twitter is much more. I’ve written extensively on the topic, but in a nutshell it is: an RSS reader, a chat room, instant messaging, a marketing channel, a customer service department and increasingly a data mine.

But what is magic about Twitter is that it is real time. In most instances news is now breaking on Twitter and then being picked up by news organizations.

The one major thing that Twitter doesn’t have figured out quite yet is that platform thing or at least how to encourage a bunch of 3rd-party developers to build meaningful add-on products. Twitter seems to have become a bit allergic to third-party developers (or maybe vice-versa). 18 months ago 25% of all pitches to me were ideas for how to build products around Twitter’s API. Now I don’t get any. Not one. Yet the number of businesses looking to build on the Facebook platform seems to have increased.

Given I’m a passionate user of Twitter, I sure hope somebody there will re-read the MySpace vs. Facebook section above. Lesson learned (to me at least) – let people get stinking rich off your platform and tax ‘em later. That way other companies innovate on their own shekels (or at least a VCs) and let the best man win. Close shop to try and control monetization and you can only rely on your own internal innovation machine & capital. Seems kinda obvious or am I missing somethign? Rupert?

Social Networking is Becoming Mobile: Foursquare and Skout

The trend that is unfolding before our eyes is that Social Networking is now becoming mobile and that adds new dimensions to how we use social networks. The most obvious change is that now social networks become “location aware.” The highest profile brand in this space is Foursquare. Pundits are mixed on whether Foursquare represents a major technology trend or a fad but undoubtedly it has captured the zeitgeist of the technology elite at this moment in time. At a minimum it has been a trailblazer of innovation that a generation of companies are trying to copy.

As our social actions become both public and location specific it opens up all types of future potential use cases. One obvious one is dating where players like Skout are trying to cash in on. When you think about it, young & single people go out to bars & clubs in hopes of meeting people to “hook up” with. In a perfect world you’d like that person to be compatible with you in additional to being attracted to them, yet as a society we go into bars and have no idea what it behind any of the people we see other than the immediacy of their looks and whether we can get enough liquid courage into ourselves to talk with them and learn more.

It’s obvious to me that the future of dating will involve mobile, social networks that tell us more about the compatibility of the people around us. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how big people like Match.com and eHarmony became on the trend of helping us find our dating partners and why this would be improved my mobile, social networks. How long this trend takes is unclear – but in 10 years I feel confident we’ll look back and say, “duh.”

FourSquare obviously brings up a lot of interesting commercial opportunities. For years I saw companies pitching themselves as “mobile coupon companies” and I never believed this would be a big idea. I’m not a big believer that people walk around with their mobile devices and say, “let me now pull out my device and see wether there are any coupons around me.” I always said that if an application could engage the user in some other way – like a game – it would earn the right to serve up coupons as a by-product. I think that is what Foursquare has done well.

In the future I don’t believe that Foursquare’s “check-in” game with badges will be enough to hold users interests but for now it’s working well. I’ve always said that if Foursquare has a “second act” coming it could be a really big company. In the long-run I believe that check-ins will be more seamless – something handled by infrastructure in the background. So I expect more and new games from Foursquare in the future. One awesome features of today’s Foursquare that often isn’t talked about is the ability to graph your friends on a real-time map and see where everybody is. This is a killer feature for the 20 and 30 something crowds for sure. Me? When I go out I mostly prefer to eat in peace with my wife and friends without people knowing where we are – I guess we all get old ;-)

In the next post I will make some predictions about where social networking is going next. And only one hint —it isn’t all dominated by Facebook. Stay tuned.

AUTHOR : Mark Suster

La filière solaire au bord de la crise de nerfs

Les réactions se multiplient dans le secteur photovoltaïque après les décisions annoncées hier par le gouvernement, alors que de nombreuses interrogations demeurent, notamment sur le moratoire de 3 à 4 mois. Dans une première réaction, Enerplan voyait plutôt d'un bon oeil la période qui s'ouvre pour la filière avant de s'alarmer sur les effets du moratoire, alors que l'Association Industrie photovoltaïque française (IPF) et l'Association des producteurs de l'électricité solaire indépendants (Apesi) sont immédiatement montées au créneau pour dénoncer une catastrophe industrielle.

Chacun veut être associé à l'avenir du secteur, dans le cadre d'une concertation générale et avec l'objectif de la mise en place d'une gouvernance de la filière. Deux éléments qui font défaut depuis des mois. Si les avis divergent sur le moratoire annoncé par Matignon, l'ensemble des acteurs ne s'oppose pas à une baisse des tarifs d'achat mais milite pour l'instauration d'un cadre réglementaire clair et surtout durable.

Le décret qui fixera les règles du moratoire est en cours de rédaction et devrait être publié, au plus tard, en début de semaine prochaine.

Voici une synthèse des principales réactions.

Enerplan : une réaction en deux temps

Enerplan a d'abord considéré que "le moratoire de 3 mois sur l’octroi du tarif d’achat est une décision sage". L'association professionnelle - regroupant plus de 200 membres - s'est félicitée, dans un premier communiqué, que le dispositif épargne le marché résidentiel tout en laissant se réaliser les projets de plus grande taille réellement engagés. Elle considèrait parallèlement que la période qui s'ouvre va permettre de faire la lumière sur la file d'attente.

Mais un deuxième communiqué a singulièrement durci le ton : à la lumière du projet de décret, Enerplan a estimé que les professionnels étaient "mortifiés et très inquiets". Et de préciser : "le projet de décret conduirait des projets en cours de construction, voire construits, dont la mise en service ne sera pas faite dans les délais indiqués, à ne pas bénéficier des tarifs pour lesquels ils ont été financés. Si c’était le cas, cela correspondrait à un défaut souverain de la France, soit une remise en cause de la signature du pays."

IPF : contre le moratoire et pour une véritable négociation

Impulsée mi septembre, l'Industrie photovoltaïque française (*) avait déjà mis la pression sur le gouvernement en septembre dernier, suite à la 2e baisse des tarifs d'achat. "Aujourd'hui l'IPF regroupe une vingtaine d'acteurs cumulant 70 à 75% de la capacité de production française", affirme Yann Maus, PDG de Fonroche. Il souligne qu'entre 2007 et 2011, la puissance industrielle du pays va être multipliée par dix, passant ses capacités de 70 MW à 700 MW. Soit des centaines de millions d'euros investis dans l'Hexagone.

"Sur toute l'année 2010, aucune consultation n'a été engagée avec les industriels", s'alarme l'IPF, qui vilipende la gestion en urgence permanente de la filière par les pouvoirs publics, et les décisions prises sans négociation. "La situation est actuellement inimaginable pour un industriel", poursuit Yann Maus, face à la politique de "stop and go" de l'Etat.

" On ne pourra pas vivre 4 mois dans ce moratoire," explique le PDG de Fonroche, un industriel employant 300 salariés. Les inquiétudes sont nombreuses face à un possible arrêt du marché, des commandes et des financements qui en découlent. L'association est aussi contre une rétroactivité maquillée, dissimulée derrière la volonté de renvoyer à la case départ tous les projets n'ayant pas payés la PTF (proposition technique et financière) auprès d'ErDF, dans la démarche de raccordement au réseau.

L'IPF va présenter dans les prochaines semaines un plan de développement pour son industrie, avec une vision de long terme.

Apesi : un impact grave pour les PME

L'association des producteurs d'électricité solaire indépendants (Apesi) est également très remontée : "nous sommes totalement déconcertés, pour ne pas dire choqués par ce moratoire de quatre mois qui est totalement déconnecté des réalités du terrain", s'insurge David Guinard, membre du bureau et par ailleurs directeur général de Photosol. "Ce sont deux ans de travail qui sont remis en cause et des investissements énormes. Cela veut dire un chiffre d'affaires annulé ou, au mieux, reporté de plusieurs mois. Dans des PME comme les nôtres, ce gel n'est pas tenable et risque d'entraîner des licenciements et des faillites très rapidement".

L'Apesi est en revanche satisfaite de l'ouverture d'une concertation avec l'ensemble des acteurs. Mais elle reste méfiante : "il ne faudrait pas que ce soit une concertation de façade comme pendant la préparation du rapport Charpin", s'inquiète David Guinard.

L'Apesi réitère ses propositions : elle est favorable à une baisse régulière des tarifs d'achat, par exemple chaque trimestre, mais s'oppose à la perspective des quotas et des appels d'offre sur les centrales au sol. "Les appels d'offre ne sont pas adaptés à une industrie comme le solaire où tout va très vite. On le voit bien d'ailleurs avec l'abandon en catimini par l'Etat de l'appel d'offres pour l'installation d'une centrale solaire par région", reprend David Guinard.

SER : une décision absurde

Une première réaction était plutôt mesurée : Si on veut qu'il y ait des investissements industriels, il faut un système pérenne dans lequel tous les acteurs aient confiance", a indiqué jeudi à l'AFP le président du Syndicat des énergies renouvelables, André Antolini, juste après la réunion de Matignon. Mais le ton est ensuite monté d'un cran : "Une activité mise entre parenthèse pendant 4 mois, c'est insupportable ", a repris, vendredi, André Antolini. "Le premier critère pour mettre en place une industrie, c'est la stabilité. On ne peut pas changer d'avis tous les trois mois. C'est un gag ! Un triste gag ! ", a renchéri Arnaud Mine, président du groupement des professionnels du solaire photovoltaïque (Soler).

Le SER-Soler a par ailleurs présenté ce matin ses propositions : il souhaite "une transparence totale sur la file d'attente" des demandes de raccordement, objet de polémique depuis de longs mois, avec une publication régulière de son état (par exemple, hebdomadaire). Il demande aussi la mise en place "d'un système de gestion des volumes reposant sur une maîtrise d'une enveloppe CSPE".

CLER et Hespul : inquiétude sur un coup d'arrêt aux investissements

Les associations CLER (Comité de liaison des énergies renouvelables) et Hespul viennent également de manifester leur inquiétude : "le Gouvernement opère un choix contradictoire avec ses objectifs. Il prend surtout le risque réel de tuer dans l’œuf une filière en plein développement et plus encore de mettre la France définitivement hors course", estiment-elles dans un communiqué commun.

Elles redoutent notamment que "l'instabilité chronique du dispositif de soutien" décourage les majors mondiaux à construire des usines en France et freine le développement d'une industrie solaire française.

Méfiantes, elles souhaitent par ailleurs que les quatre mois de suspension du tarif "soient l'occasion d'une réelle concertation ouverte et non la validation de mesures déjà prises".

Pour aller plus loin sur le projet de décret :

- Solaire plus de questions que de réponses

- Solaire photovoltaïque : le projet de décret

- Solaire : décryptage du projet de décret. Un moratoire ou une pause ?

------
* Les membres de l'association : Auversun, ECM Technologies, Emix, Fonroche Energie, Francewatts, KDG Energy, Mecosun, MPO Energy, Photowatt, SEMCO Engineering / Irysolar, Sillia Energie, SNA Solar, Solairedirect, Solarezo, Solbos/Solar Construct, Soprema, Systovi, Voltec Solar.

SOURCE : GreenUnivers.com

Avec Stickybits, les code-barres deviennent le support d’un nouveau type de réseau social

Article écrit par Renaud Euvrard

Les QR codes, ces codes barres évolués peuvent mémoriser des adresses web, du texte, des numéros de téléphone, des SMS ou autres types de données lisibles par les smartphones et les téléphones mobiles équipés d’une application de lecture. On est loin des codes barres classiques qui ne peuvent enregistrer que 10 à 13 caractères.

En Europe ou aux USA, le grand public commence à utiliser les QR Code via leur téléphone mobile, même si cela fait plusieurs années que les japonnais en ont un usage courant.

Malheureusement, dans ce contexte, l’information ne va que dans un sens. Impossible de connecter simplement l’ensemble des personnes ayant scanné le code ou même de modifier les informations reliées à ce même code.

Vers QR codes 2.0 ?

Stickybits est une jeune start-up newyorkaise fondée en 2009, proposant depuis mars 2010 un réseau social autour des codes barres.

Stickybits vous permet de scanner des codes barres (QR codes ou code-barre classique) avec votre iPhone ou votre téléphone Android. Chaque code-barre a une page dédiée (un “wall” comme dans Facebook) sur laquelle les utilisateurs peuvent ajouter un contenu texte, photo ou même vidéo.

Stickybits se définit comme la première plateforme de contenu pour “l’internet des objet”.

N’importe quel code barre peut donc être utilisé : le code barre de votre boite de céréale, de votre livre de chevet, bref de n’importe quel produit commercial. Si votre produit n’a pas de code barre, Stickybits peut vous en fournir un code barre personnalisé.

Ce service devient donc un véritable réseau social organisé autour des objets. Vous pouvez suivre des utilisateurs, laisser un commentaire ou tagguer un produit. De plus toute votre activité sur le réseau peut être automatiquement envoyée sur votre compte Twitter ou Facebook.

Vers un marché du “check-in” des objets

Dans sa nouvelle version, Stickybits a souhaité offrir à ses utilisateurs une approche plus ludique dans l’usage en développant un système de points, récompenses et défis.

Mais, Stickybits a aussi complété son offre en permettant aux marques de s’adresser directement à leurs clients. Plusieurs solutions sont offertes : coupons, bon de réduction… Une composante géolocalisation est aussi intégrée à l’application Stickybits sur mobile permettant de cibler des promotions à un magasin particulier.

Une plateforme est mis à disposition des marques pour créer et gérer leurs campagnes, accompagnée de l’ensemble metrics de suivi. L’idée est d’offrir aux marques la possibilité d’adresser leur marché en utilisant leur produit et non en faisant la promotion de celui-ci.

D’autres services similaires existent, notamment Scanbucks ayant pour but de fidéliser les consommateurs directement dans les rayons des magasins.

Au delà des objets

Stickybits propose donc une nouvelle expérience d’intéraction avec une marque ou un produit (comme via Facebook ou Twitter). D’autres usages peuvent être envisager comme l’a fait l’aéroport de Londres Gatwick, en apposant un code-barre géant dans son terminal afin d’informer les passagers des travaux de rénovation en cours.

Imaginer la même chose dans un lieu touristique ou une conférence. En scannant un simple code barre, vous pourriez partager votre expérience et laisser vos commentaires. Vous voulez faire un petit test de Stickybits ? Voici le code barre spécial TechCrunch France :

Nous attendons donc vos commentaires sur Stickybits :-)

Source: Techcrunch

Cleantech start-up

Building a better tomorrow
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.