Eric Wesoff

California Cleantech Open Event at Google, Pt. 1 July 22, 2008 at 9:20 AM

The California Clean Tech Open presented an event at Google last night – with a panel discussing “Renewable Technologies of the Future” and a showcase of Renewable Energy Alumni and current contestants in the CCTO competition.

The location was not the Google planetary headquarters but another campus in Mountain View, Calif., which I’m pretty sure was once the satellite parking lot for the Shoreline Amphitheater. This is how I remember the place.

Hal La Flash, Director, Emerging Clean Technology Policy at PG&E, who is everywhere these days, introduced the panel where we heard from:

• Dan Adler, President, California Clean Energy Fund

• Jim Shandalov, e-Solar

• Neil Renninger, CTO, Amyris

• Marianne Wu, Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures

Mr. Adler spoke of the recent big concept moves by Al Gore and T. Boone Pickens. “The six trillion dollar global energy market [needs projects of this scale in order to] internalize the externalities of green house gases,” he said.

But let’s face it, in a public forum like this, a new fact or idea presented by a VC or a startup would be conspicuous all by its lonesomeness, so we move on to the real action – the conversations in the hallways.

Bob Cart, CEO of Greenvolts, is a past winner of the CCTO and is the real deal – a VC funded startup with a 2-megawatt, 20-year contract to supply power to PG&E via their GV-1 CPV system, soon to installed near Tracy, Calif. The firm expects to close a substantial funding round by the end of the year.

Kevin Surace is the CEO of Serious Materials, a developer of eco-friendly building materials.  The start-up recently acquired Alpen Windows, an energy-conscious window manufacturer.  Mr. Surace enthusiastically rattled off some statistics:

• 9 percent of global energy goes to passenger cars but 52 percent is tied to buildings, and 12 percent of global energy usage goes to inefficient building materials.

“After you’ve taken care of walls, insulation, and ducts – you’re left with windows which is why we acquired Alpen Windows,” said Surface. “The R value of most windows is terrible, the best is R3.  The DOE has been trying to raise the R value of windows for years but the only people who talk about R value is us and Alpen Windows. That’s why we bought them.”

There were a number of CCTO entrants looking for seed funding in the hallways.  I’ll mention one here and the balance in my next post.

Gigagreen plans on building a dirigible that extracts energy from the jet stream and transmits it wirelessly to earth. The company’s “high altitude wind energy” platform “beams power” to earth – using what? Alex Flemming, the founder, would not reveal the precise method. He denied it was microwaves, which I think leaves a long extension cord or lasers or magic as the only other technology alternatives.

Gigagreen actually has a few competitors in the field of high altitude wind energy, amongst them Makani Power.  Founded by sail makers, kite boaters, and wind surfers, a group of folks long known for their entrepreneurial energy and work ethic, they were funded by Google in a $10M round A, about two years ago.   Locate the employee with actual utility experience in this team and get back to me.

My next post will cover the other CCTO entrants including a number of interesting solar plays, a perpetual motion machine, black light power, cold fusion and more.

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