Thanks all for making this another great meeting – I’m watching the video (thanks Ryan Vachon!) and realizing we had yet another great set of speakers.

Our Website

With no small amount of work, Patrick Himes has brought our official Colorado Green Tech Website online. Patrick is a true professional and very talented. Contact him at his company Sally Forth or the email link above.  Our site now includes a Green Tech Events summary calendar  on the website main page. Visit the full Green Events Calendar View on the Calendar Page. Use the google calendar icon below and add our event calendar to your own personal Google Calendar.  For upcoming events please send email to events@coloradogreentech.net and we’ll post them on the site. Check for new articles and references to our Green tech group on the News Page. The jobs site will be online in the near future.

Announcements

Although the deadline is over for deal flow screeners, the Colorado Green Tech Group had 7 members review 7 company’s on the Business Catapult site. Based on our member’s ranking, these company’s will advance to  the Angel Capital Summit. All of these company’s have presented at our meetup group and ranked very well. Good luck to all of you!

Speakers

Wyatt Metzger, National Center for Photovoltaics
Solar Electricity

We’re very pleased to have research/informational speakers at Colorado Green Tech . Apart from the entrepreneur/commercial world there is the fascinating work where technology in incubated in academia and government laboratories. Starting with background of the group,  the National Center for Photovoltaics (NCPV) was formed by the Department of Energy and Wyatt works for NREL, so I assume they are one in the same. Wyatt started the presentation with a couple of tantalizing facts on Solar and the possibilities of harnessing solar energy fully:

• More energy from the sun falls on earth in 1hr then is consumed by the world in 1 year
• 100mi x 100mi solar collection could provide enough power to cover the US electricity needs

Solar has some great applications, and is available everywhere. We’ve applied solar technology from the far reaches in space (including our space program to power the space station)  to remote place on earth such as power for small,remote and impoverished villages. Solar has the potential to easily aid 1/4 of the world population that does not have electricity. The future goals of solar are to use it to make hydrogen (from water) at a cost-effective rate and allow the greater population to burn “stored hydrogen fuel on demand”  in automobiles.

Some of the current significant challenges for solar are it’s competitive position along side other energy sources and it’s more intensive manufacturing process. Right now solar is 2.5 times more expensive then grid power. The solar cost was hotly debated at the meeting (Factors such as grid source subsidies and transmission losses are usually not included in the grid source cost). As well, the manufacturing process for solar panels is slow. Panel manufacturing is inhibited by “impurity” and structural defect problems. These problems reduce electron flow and hence reduce efficiency. For flat plates, we’re in the midst of the second generation. First generation single/multicrystaline silicon panels are mature and have been slow to improve. The current record, just made by Univ. of New South Wales is 25% efficiency for silicon solar cells and this brings them very close to the theoretical limit of 29% efficiency. The second generation is thin film, materials such as a-Si, CdTe, CIGS that absorb light 100x more efficiently. As many know, First Solar bases their technology on cadmium telluride (CdTe) and has seen explosive growth.  The second generation solar technology can be made several microns thick and NREL has achieved 20% efficiency with these cells. As just reported 10/24/08, the record now stands at 25% efficiency. Thin films can be integrated into roof shingles and can be rolled up easily. The third generation, is still in the research phase and is not yet stable. Technologies like quantum dots show promise but have a long way to go. In another area of growth, Solar Concentrators show great promise. NREL has achieved 40.8% efficiency with their concentrator prototypes. Between the material cost and efficiency, solar technology has not reached grid-parity yet.

Wyatt drove home what many in the industry know, solar-funded (government) research has been meager in the U.S. The government NREL budget is 70Mil/yr (compare that to Univ of Texas athletic budget of 100Mil/yr). Luckily rebates, mandates and tax credits have helped the private industry significantly – especially in Colorado. Solar is even more progressively approached in other countries like Germany and Spain. In these countries, the governments support “feed-in” tariffs where they pay a premium for solar generated electricity. Colorado rebates and tax credits right now allow for a solar system to be installed at 20% of actual retail cost. The current rate of growth in the United States is high now – and if sustained in 30 yrs could support all of the United States needs. The US represents less then 10% of the solar production in the world but is catching up fast in new investment. Of the renewable consumption pie, 7 percent of world consumption is renewable and 1% of that is solar/thermal & PV.

Ed Van Dyn, VanDyne SuperTurboCharges
Engine Efficiency

Ed Van Dyn introduced his company as a “Spin-Out” company of a $1.5 Billion public company and they have been developing their technology over the last 4 years. The company is tackling challenges to improve automobile engine efficiency. This is primarily driven by high fuel prices and compliance with CO2 regulations (in Japan and Europe today) and potentially in the U.S. as well. Their solution provides efficiency for existing fleet of cars with a “Super-charger”. Their product claim is a “20-30%” improvement in fuel efficiency and a significant reduction of CO2 emissions without any loss in horsepower.

The super turbocharger product can supercharge, turbocharge and turbocompound. The supercharging part uses an air compressor to get better internal combustion efficiency. A turbocharger does the same but uses the engines own exhaust flow to push a turbine and thus creates the air compression. The turbocompound / reciprocating engine uses a turbine powered by exhaust gases (like a turbocharger) but the turbine is physically connected to the crankshaft. The power of the whole system is boosted at the low end torque by the supercharger and at the high-end by the turbocharger. Employing 30% of the original 30% heat/energy waste from the exhaust gives the engine an extra 10% efficiency increase. The incremental cost to the engine is $300/car at quantities over 500K.

The product value proposition is very well positioned. It offers a $700/yr savings, easily putting the ROI below the 1 year mark and it saves 4000 lbs. of CO2/yr/car. For heavy trucks the statistics are significant. The technology allows for 7-10% reduction in fuel efficiency and the saving is $8k/yr with 17 ton of CO2/truck/yr eliminated.

The target market is $10-20 Bil and with niche sales they hope to target commercial fleets and penetrate 1.5% of the market. The factors to make their product competitive are lean manufacturing, extreme reliability of the product and aggressive cost reduction. The product prototypes are in tests with large automobile companies and they have made significant progress.  Intellectual property has been protected with first generation patents plus patents in the  pipeline.  Van Dyne has an impressive executive team. Their product is being evaluated and involved in a number of collaborations with different labs and institutions including  CSU’s engine laboratory in Ft. Collins. Ed’s efforts have produced a great product and we’re looking forward to hearing more in the future.

Reed Sarver, StrionAir
Green Buildings without adding an Energy Penalty

StrionAir is a green building company focused on air filtration and efficiency in the residential/commercial market. With previous funding rounds their product is already developed and ready for mass commercialization. Air quality is important and many research studies have shown better attendance and school scores in green/healthier environments.  Areas of concern for air quality outlined in the presentation are sick building syndrome, infectious diseases and allergies/asthma.  In the early stages, StrionAIr was funded to look at the security risk of critical infrastructure but markets now have expanded to building health and efficiency segments. Not only has the company worked with the CDC to look at infectious disease filtration it also has worked with the Green Building Council, a 501(c)(3) non profit group.

The product target market is broad and therefore is designed to be scalable to any size building.   The addressable market presented is $2 Bil. and broken down into Residential, Security, Healthcare, Green Building and Specialty markets (manufacturing facilities – pharmaceutical/ microelectronics).  The product has three key benefits: 1) Very high particle capture rate; 2) a very low pressure drop; and 3)   trapping and killing “pathogens”. The product operation works with an electric field to polarize the particles and attract to a fibrous material and then deactivate particles. Reed put up an illustration of their product specifications that demonstrates an excellent capture rate but also a very low obstruction rate to air flow. Compared to the  standard High-efficiency-particulate air HEPA) bag filters it does very well. There is an interesting read if you follow the above wiki link on how HEPA was initially developed for the Manhattan project to filter radiation.

StrionAir already has a significant product placement and partnership network. They have an OEM agreement with  companies such as Carrier. Installations in healthcare have been done for Trauma centers and laboratories. Also they have worked with the ATF and FBI on installing filtration at select installations.

The residential/commercial green tech play is based on efficiency. The breakdown  of energy in a commercial building is split three ways 1) Lightning 2) Electronics(severs/laptops)  3) Heating/Venting/Cooling. HVAC is then split into 60% heating/cooling and then another 40% to “pushing air”.  The StrionAir unit advantage to reducing the 40% of energy used to push air in buildings through efficiency of their filtration. Pressure drop (measured in “inches” ) increases steadily as filters near the end of their lifetime (and are changed). The Strion unit reduces pressure drop (by lowering it from MERV 15 to MERV 13) significantly. The air filter changes also are improved from every 6 months to 12 months. The payback for this benefit is 3.2 yrs in an average  NYC building (16cents/KWh) with 31,675 lbs of CO2 saved annually.

The company outlook is excellent and they are currently cash positive (in 2009). Installations of units are at 60K residential units and 1500 commercial units. They foresee a greater adoption rate based on time-of-day electricity rates and energy rebates accelerating this.

Philip Lyman, Boundless Corporation
Energy Storage Technology

Boundless presented on Li-ion technology is providing a better battery technology and eco-friendly technology. Their immediate eco-friendly advantage is that Li-ion batteries are considered non-hazardous waste by the federal government, and thus avoid the toxic leakage we see in the municipal waste-stream by lead-acid batteries.

Lithium-Ion has been around since the 90’s and has penetrated almost all of the portable electronics market and is applied in larger applications as well. But Lithium-Ion batteries need to be managed with a “smart” feedback control system to ensure safe , reliable and long-life operation. Turns out Li-ion cells are not all perfectly matched and eventually diverge in power characteristics. A management system is needed to keep them running together like “sled dogs pulling together” to avoid damage to the cells.

The main Boundless solution is the intelligent battery management system that is chemistry independent. Their management and electronics system provides a number of integration opportunities to a large segment of products on the market.

Boundless electronics systems provide Off-Board Data Interfaces to Li-Ion cell packs,  such as “managed charging” of fleet vehicles. Managed charging allows subsets of vehicles to be charged at one time without drawing large currents (and tripping breakers). Also for grid-utilization they build integration for smart grids which control the charging period for optimal utilization. On-Board Data interfaces allow for Battery Management System (BMS) to work with the Vehicle Management System (VMS)) such as an engine controller. This interfacing will help the battery management to control a low power situation and allow for degraded capability before a complete shutdown.

Some of the new market applications for lithium range from 1) Specialty Electric Vehicles (electric scooters, plug-ins),  2) Auxiliary power (e.g. auxiliary power for A/C in vehicles when in no-idle zones) and 3) Electrically Powered Machines (new cordless lawnmowers, floor scrubbers). Boundless is finding opportunities in these markets by selling directly to OEM manufacturers.

The competitive landscape for Boundless is complex. Philip provided a “magic quadrant” style view of the industry with battery technology on one axis and complexity/capability of electronics/management systems on the other axis. One set of competitors are in cell manufacturing and tend to focus mainly on the chemistry and cell production. Other companies like A123 and Johnson Controls have gone after tier 1 automotive applications. These companies provide integrated Li-ion batteries systems with BMS protection that in a proprietary configuration. Another category of competitors are simple BMS providers that work on low scale, low voltage applications.  Boundless is extremly competitive since it works on a wide range of voltages and wide range of application and is battery/chemistry independent.

Great questions from our members again. One questions was on the  competitive capability know as “rapid-recharge” for Li-ion batteries. Philip mentioned kiosk style recharge stations being built that recharge batteries in 20 minutes. Also another question asked was around the Hymotion Li-Ion upgrade pack by battery maker A123.  This system claims 30-40 miles on electric-only drive and a battery back that supplements the existing nickel-metal-hydride battery in a Prius. It can potentially upgrades a Prius to 100 mpg.

The future for Boundless holds a new round of product development featuring minaturization, sophisticated features and integration. They have built a significant amount of Intellectual Property and the demand is growing for their product with OEM vendors looking to integrate Boundless technology.