coloradogreentech.net

Well another move and it looks like we have filled out next venue very well. As Kris mentioned, this is where we started watching the Boulder New Technology Meetups and imagined the Green Tech equivalent.  Colorado Green Tech keeps growing and we’re excited to be part of it.

Announcements

• BCBR held a Green Summit  Event at the Millennium Harvest House on June5th
• Meg Hendriks has left to work at NREL and the green tech Group is looking for a volunteer to help with the Job Board director
• Clean Tech Open, is a business plan competition  with a 50K prize package at the regional level and winners go on to compete at the national level for a 250K prize package. The program started 3 years ago and holds competitions in the Pacific Northwest, California and the Rocky Mountain regions.
• Paul Jerde announced the new director of TEAM, Trent Yang
• Upcoming Renewable Energy Technologies (RETool) workshop is taking place July 9-11,  for professionals and decision-makers wanting to learn more about the renewable energy sector. This 2 day course is held at the CU Boulder campus.
• Upcoming NREL Industry Growth Forum

Speakers

Nick Sowden, US Director of Business Development, ToughStuff
Solar Power Made Appropriate for the Developing World

ToughStuff is a social enterprise that makes very inexpensive solar products for low-income people in developing countries.  Their focus market today is the 1.4 Billion people that have limited access to electricity. Without many options thee poorest inhabitants of these countries turn to their cheapest and most accessible options, which in many cases are not eco-friendly and typically dangerous to their health.  For lighting in a small family dwelling,  many turn to kerosene lamps which are smoky, sooty and lead to health issues in their children.

Using kerosene lamps is like lighting a little bottle of gasoline and letting it run all night

Even with all these side effects,  kerosene lighting does not generate enough light for reading.  Another source of pollution is cheap batteries used by people to run devices, in lieu of electricity, which are left on the ground and then make its way into the water supply.

The average expenditure by families on power is on average $122/year, and this figure amazingly is based on people with incomes levels close to one dollar a day.  The Toughstuff products are designed to tackle the cost/environmental problem faced by these groups with the core product being a $6 solar panel (1watt, 5.6V). The solar panel will power lighting, mobile phones and small appliances. The solar panel can charge an LED light product, an accessory that is sold separately, in 6 hours.  This can run for 30hrs in low light mode and on the highest setting (enough to read by) it will run for 5 hours. Another key product line is mobile phone connectors, designed for the most popular phones and plugs phones directly into a solar panel for charging.

ToughStuff has streamlined all their processes & costs and have applied the feedback, (from testing in Madagascar) to design their products and prices for the base of the pyramid consumers. All their products are designed for a lifetime of 5 years and have a payback of 2 months. One key design consideration was to build a solar panel that utilized no glass. It was very important for their product cosumers that the panel  be durable, lightweight and strong. The panel can be run over by a car or get wet and still function. Once the panel had recouped it’s cost in the first two months, it starts saving $98/yr in electricity costs for its consumer. Based on the projected sales,  ToughStuff products will have the ecological benefit of displacing 200K tons of carbon by 2012.  The significant environmental impact of batteries in the waste stream will also be diminished by the applying solar panels to displace battery usage.

The business economics of ToughStuff is calculated both as a private business and also as a Social Enterprise. In order to be more accessible, they use commercial distributors and work on a thin margin. There are many potential partners and opportunites in this market segment. Work is expanding through agreements with NGOs/Governments and through entrepeneurial toolkit called “Business in a Box” which includes 10 solar panels & marketing material.  Exposure and hard work has paid off with an award by the Dutch government of funding to provide $750K to 1000 Village Entrepreneurs (VEs) over the next 2 years. ToughStuff Just incorporated in Mauritius and works in China to manufacture products. Today they have a staff of 5 people in their offices on Pearl St. in Boulder.

The company is started as a philanthropic venture investment and was launched by 5 partners. Today they are Just about to hit a sales milestone of 100 thousand products sold since their inception. Nick invited people to join their newsletter on their website or donate $25 to launch a Village Entrepreneur. Nick proceeded to answer questions, indicating that they anticipate the solar panel will be copied but expect to retain the IP, and staying ahead with their design (patented connectors and lamps) is also key for them. The solar panel is not recyclable yet, but the rechargeable unit they sell is repairable. Their rechargeable battery system is based on NiCad technology because it lasts longer, is cheaper and needs to operate reasonable efficient at 40C. Their choice of VE’s to fund is typically based on vulnerable groups such as child soldiers and single moms. A person from the audience mentioned that their was illegal traffic selling cooking fuel in Congo and that solar cookers were a great alternative. The main founder of ToughStuff lived in Madagascar for 20yrs and they are looking to develop their business in other African countries such as Kenya, Liberia, Uganda and South Africa.

Peter Lilienthal, CEO and Ted Ladd, COO, HOMER^® Energy LLC.
Clean Power Everywhere

HOMER optimizes the design of high penetration renewable and hybrid power systems.  It models wind, solar, biomass power, hydro, hydrogen and multiple types of conventional generation, co-generation, and storage.  Peter gave the audience a multiple choice question on the origin of the name:

Does Homer stand for:
A) Hybrid Optimization for Electric Renewables
B) Homer the Greek poet and father of civilization
C) Bart Simpson’s Dad

The focus of the Homer product is the distributed energy industry specifically for managing and optimizing hybrid energy mixes (that may include energy source mixtures and batteries) and renewable energies. The mission of Homer Energy is to provide services, software and a community to help the distributed energy industry grow. Taking on the issues of managing hybrids with storage in a least-cost approach has proven difficult to many developers of energy hybrids. In essence, renewables such as solar and wind are variable but in a large grid that variability is small enough and can be absorbed so as to not effect the end client. For smaller and more diffuse power grids in developing countries, the variability is significant and this is where Homer comes in to optimize the power and make it cost-effective for the end customer.

How do changes in average wind speed and fuel price affect the feasibility of adding wind turbines to a diesel-only system design?

The company’s origins take it back to NREL, where the software grew and gave developing nations the ability to customize their grids and was combined with training, forums. This outreach helped provide the future client base for the Homer software consultancy.   Today there is a growth market for the private industry to help provide islands, some of which are the richest countries in the world, with the ability to optimize their variable power sources. The software has been available since 1998 and was developed out of research that started in 1992.  There are 31,000 users today, with up to 1K users/downloads being added every month. To ensure it maintains its legacy user base, Homer provides a free version but uses this as a platform for customization and consulting services.

The software can take into account any number of attributes such as wind speed, fuel price or the price of PV based watts and then provide graphs to show what combination’s ( e.g.  30% wind and 70% PV) or technology provides the most optimal mix for the client to build into their local grid. Peter also emphasized that they let customers provide the data, which can be very specific such as dealer margins, import tariffs and installation costs. Their current software can analyze power sources such as PV/Hydro/Wind/Biomass in a grid/isolated/cogeneration scenario. The software has been downloaded by almost every country in the world and is available for licensing in a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.

Software clients range from academic, to product suppliers, NGOs, individuals and groups in remote areas such as Alaskans living in a remote area.  An example client is the Bermuda Electric Light Company. The expectation with the new community collaboration software is that the company will harvest important statistics from their clients on their usages/needs to help further Homer’s business. Upcoming software updates will support concentrated solar/thermal storage capabilities and be available in 6 months.

Rebecca Alexis, Gino Figurelli, Matt Plahutta, Radiant Glass Industries
Power*e Glass. Power-e™ Heated Windows for Homes and Offices

Radiant Glass Industries is originally a regular window manufacturer based in Denver that has developed a new radiant glass as a sustainable building product. Their windows insulate and heat by increasing the temperature of the inside pane of glass. The current market is large and their product solves one of the principle energy inefficiency costs for buildings: 50% of house heat loss is through windows.  This cost incurred by home/building owners and is a source of discomfort.

The current average window has a R value (the ability for a material to resist heat flow) that varies from 0.9 to 4.1. A normal wall has an R value between R13-R60. The standard is set by  American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). New building standards are calling for more efficient heating systems while at the same time requiring the need for more daylight sources (e.g. windows) to reduce the electricity usage for lighting which causes more heat loss.

The Power-e heated window system claim is that it stops 100% heat loss (window is hotter then interior) through a window and uses 40% less energy than a conventional heat source, (proven at Kansas State University) . Its core design uses a low DC voltage source to power the window. The window radiate 85% of its source energy into the interior target space and also reduces condensation and resulting wood rot. Existing windows can be retro-fitted and even be installed as mirrors or internal windows. The Power-e windows also avoid hot-spots by more evenly distributing heat and when measured, it uses only 1.4Kw energy versus forced air which uses 2.4Kw. An example referenced was a 2800 sq. ft. house in Keystone, CO where over $450/month in electric heating bills were incurred, dropped to under $100/month by using Power-e heated windows. The case study in Keystone had a calculated ROI of 4 years. Another aspect of retrofitting historic/landmark buildings is that window removal may not be an option but a second interior heating window is permitted, allowing for greater efficiency.

A business plan directs them to engage the domestic market but patents have already been filed in Canada, EU and Japan as well as the United States. They expect to use green building grants and tax incentives to drive their adoption. They are actively promoting distribution channels and licensing for new construction as well as the retro-fit market.  They also intend to market to the large HVAC/Window manufacturers with the enticement that manufacturing of their windows is low-cost to the target plant. Along with distribution and licensing, they are seeking joint venture opportunities.

There was an abundance of questions with some inquiries on their independent certification of the window performance which is amazingly proficient for physically reasons that are not fully understood. Their window effectiveness when rating beside one of Anderson Windows top windows is about 3x more efficient. The internal electronics converts a normal interior 100Vac supply to 25VDC for the window supply. The window will not overheat and uses a windowstat to turn it off once it reaches the desired temperature which can also be wired to an internal thermostat. It usually takes windows about 5-11 minutes to heat up to the desired temperature. Part of the innovation of the window is a coating the keeps the heat from going through the window and this also helps to ensure the overall loss to the outside is 15%.

Jim Fournier & Lopa Brunjes, Biochar Engineering Corporation
Solutions for Climate Change, Energy & Soil Fertility

Biochar Engineering builds biochar production equipment. They design, develop, and deploy industrial equipment that uses waste biomass, such as agricultural or forestry waste, to produce biochar. Jim started the presentation with a question to the group of what bio-char really is?

Bio-Char was first discovered in amazonian soils left from previous inhabitants that amended the soil and significantly improved their crop yield. The soil was found to have unusual properties to allow farming with 80% less nitrogen and effects fungus/bacteria growth in a way to improve plant growth along with improving water retention/drought resistance in the soil. It works to amend poor soil, improving yields by 200%.  With such a reduction in nitrogen, today’s modern farming is much “dirtier” through its extensive usage of Nitrogen based fertilizer that creates NOx emissions, a fact that concerns scientist along with more tradition carbon green house gases. A primary interest for the sustainability movement is that charcoal can stably capture and hold carbon for thousands of years (providing a carbon sink) and remove/reduce greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Some of the value streams available from biochar is soil fertility, sequestration and energy generation through the production of gas, heat, electricity and liquid fuel (e.g. methanol, dimethyl ether, diesel). Bichar Engineering has found a sweet spot or lowest capital investment by creating heat (through a gas) from biochar. Their product is a modular unit that can be scaled to the biomass feedstock chain. Early prototype units takes and burns 100 ton/day of biomass . By creating heat from biomass, you maintain 40% of carbon from the plant (or 25% by weight), that was locked-up, avoiding it’s release into the atmosphere as it decays, and keeping it into a stable bio-char medium. An example of this is the Pine-Beetle infested wood.  If left to rot, it will produce green house gases. Currently the forestry services have not allowed permits to create bio-char until they finish the last of their studies on environmental impact.

New models and joint venture span both wood chips with a model in 2009 to  lignocellulosic biomass based units. Additionally tested are examining the efficiency of the byproduct glycerin from biodiesel as a feedstock to the process. From forest management (where beetle infested trees can be turned to bio-char) to an Italian gasification plant, they are involved in a number of partnerships examining the various usages and efficiencies for biochar.

Today developing countries may value the bio-char more then the cooking fuel. An example raised by the audience was that the Congo Basin Forest Fund that has awarded money to the Biochar fund to support it’s usage. Many of these efforts are also using the value of sequestration to stop deforestation. For many of these feedstocks and processes, the Greenhouse Gas(GHG) Lifecycle Analysis is proving to be instrumental to determine the value per feedstock of sequestration.   BEC’s technology mimics nature’s intelligence, creating valuable co-products, ultimately including biochar and process heat with or without electricity or liquid fuels. Biochar engineering has also found that there are many good feestocks but dryness, about 20% moisture is a good amount to support optimal bio-char generation. They aim for about 25% yield of char and this will produce about 40% sequestration.  Yields generated above this has diminishing returns.

After a month break and Kris’s knee injury, its time to look forward to our next meeting. We will be back on the regular monthly schedule again in May. Our last meeting in March was another heavily attended session and the good news is we are moving to a larger venue at the CU Campus, the Law Auditorium (Wittemeyer Courtroom) that seats 250+.  So for all who attend the new tech meetup, you know this venue has a great side room for refreshments and area for networking. Also the law building has a very spacious and comfortable presentation room.

Kris and Puneet call the meeting to order

Announcements

• Kris updated us on the advisory services (check out our web site)
• The CU Business school had its Elevate conference on Feb 26th
• Jim Graham from the CORE group announced the Sustainable Opportunity Summit on March 17th
• Ziegler, known for their HealthVest finance group, has a new renewable energy investment group that is looking for companies to add to their portfolio. They have looked at natural gas projects in Weld County, Colorado)

Networking outside the auditorium in the Atlas Building

Speakers

Steve Kroll and John Andrews, Corvid Inc. Americanizing Shelley rip
Hydronically Heated and Cooled Building Envelopes

Corvid Inc. is an Evergreen, CO based company that has developed a patented process for radiant heated and cooled walls to make homes more energy efficient. Founded 2 years ago,  their foundational technology utilizes a sandwich of external concrete, a Thermomass® Dow Styrofoam insulation and at the core a heated/cooled concrete layer. Similar to radiant floors, a piping system in the core concrete layer provides the cooling/heating aspects. Heating can be provided by a solar-based heating or a standard existing hot water boiler. Cooling can be provided by a small geothermal loop run by pumps that would displace a traditional air conditioning unit.

The core of the green building market is driven by many factors, the current price of energy being a primary one (where natural gas prices has seen jumps of 30-70% over a year) and the future cost of energy where carbon trade and cap will make sources of dirty energy  more expensive.  Additionally Corvid technology fits well with LEED construction projects and is currently utilized in platinum certified buildings.

What is the competitive advantage of the hyrdronics and concrete? Essentially three fold:

1. using a wall as a thermal mass battery has been know to architects for years.
2. Engineering concrete has excellent properties to store energy and provide one of the most comfortable and even distributions of energy.
3. Also Pre-cast, tilt-up,  Insulated Concrete Forms

   (ICF) style of manufacturing provides a simple paradigm for the construction industry versus other competitors such as concrete block, 2×4 wood construction, traditional straw bale and rammed earth.

Energy savings are significant, with 2/3 energy reductions for average sized homes. Concrete wall also provide better sound insulation and protection from rotting and rust. With Corvid’s unique design, the R value is an extremely high R34 and the energy usage is around 10 BTU /sq. ft. / hr. versus an average building which is 60 BTU /sq. ft./hr.

Right now Corvid is personally financed by the owners and is looking to expand in the west and then move to the eastern part of the country.  Their future plans are to work more on building complexes and integrated systems for new development, given that retrofits are not as cost-effective for the pre-cast walls.  Their plans are also to work on affordable and modular home based development and to bring down the prices of their solution to make it even more competitive in their market segment. Their ability to innovate on precast styles, stains and customization of wall finishes are areas of development they hope to innovate in.  Also Corvid is looking at improving and building the next generation of hydronic concrete floors that will provide cooling without condensation.

Norman Vickers and Perry Wyatt, Nilar
Rethinking how Battery Chemistry is Packaged

Nilar is a Denver based company delivering custom large format battery power systems to industrial and transportation applications.  The company was founded by veterans of another battery company Optima. The founding principal of the company is to develop a battery with chemistry that improves volumetric performance, reduces cost and improves reliability.  With over 30 patents, the company has focused on NiMH batteries with bi-polar high density construction and design, providing 1Ah to 40Ah capacities.

The core market addressed varies from heavy duty vehicles (e.g. 18 wheelers), electric vehicle applications (e.g. ATVs), to military and aviation applications.  Long haul vehicles can benefit greatly from incremental improvements in mileage. So for a transportation company, a 5 mpg increase using a hybrid battery solution can help improve their fleet fuel efficiency by 10-15%. This efficiency can result in a ROI of less than 2 yrs and significant long term savings.  Lighter electric vehicles such as ATVs need batteries that are reliable out in the field, where a failure means you are stranded far from help. Military applications as well are seeing usage for silent watch, battery-only periods, where a motor or generator can’t be used during stealth mode.

New applications such as flying refrigerators

Oscar video

allow a temperature sensitive package to be shipped on a cargo plane without requiring any power during the flight

Addressing the customer’s needs is the focus for Nilar. Their process supports significantly lower capital expenditures for production equipment. The modular packs allow for better integration, simpler production and lower TCO.  Manufacturing has been well thought out. Nilar will co-locate with customers to improve cost and execution for a production facility. Their battery is totally recyclable (can be converted to stainless steel) and has no waste stream (other then the power for manufacturing). Their customer engagement process was illustrated showing deliveries of evaluation, pre-production, testing/final design and production that align well with customer needs. Nilar indicated it can deliver end-to-end in 2 to 6 months but a delivery cycle typically takes 2-3 years.

Nilar’s philosophy during the development of its battery was to examine the system for common failure modes, then re-engineer the battery to remove those modes. Common NiMH failure modes include dry-out, electrode swelling due to heat, and weld failure.

Nilar had a great response from the audience and some great questions. Around NiMH applications, this type of battery is not a good solution for massive storage. Where NiMH applies well is power hungry applications such as large trucks. As for thermal conditioning, NiMH loses efficiency when it is cool. When it is hot, air cooling can be applied to optimize efficiency. Nilar can back all its claims and knowledge on its battery solution with the accomplishment of powering a 40 ton truck on NiMH, essentially a 40 ton Toyota Prius.

More questions revealed Nilars knowledge and strategy for the European market. Their batteries are fully compliant for end-of-life vehicle recycling (a requirement in the EU). All the non-toxic materials can be recycled into other materials such as stainless steel.  Nilar’s chemistry is superior in this regard. Solutions such as Ni-CAD batteries don’t work, cadmium is hard to dispose of and recycle. And for lithium recycling compliance is not simple. Lithium batteries sometimes contain toxic electrolytes and are fire hazards if not fully discharged.

Colleen Rauscher and John Dee , Global Energy Options, LLC (GEO)
Hydrogen Hybrids

Global Energy Options LLC (GEO) is a Colorado based technology company that has developed a revolutionary hydrogen hybrid retrofit solution for diesel engines called GEOgreenbox. This system  reduces emissions up to 80% and fuel consumption by 30%. GEO was founded with seed money – 2.4 Mil executive owner investment. Initial backers came from the founders of whole foods market. Their development work, strategic partnerships and sales spans three continents.

The technology was of great curiosity to the meetup group. The retrofit unit uses electrolysis and produces hydrogen on demand so that no hydrogen is stored on-board the vehicle. Hydrogen is injected with the air inflow and mixed with fuel in a proprietary mix and process. The unit is convertible for different salt-water reservoir sizes to support electrolysis . Other components include a heavy duty alternator, electrolyte solution and a metal conditioner.

The primary business driver of the hydrogen system is fuel efficiency but also a main benefit is converting vehicles to meet tougher EPA and world standards for diesel emissions. Today a popular system to abate NOx emission in boilers is the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) using urea fuel injection. This technology is facing challenges with the mobile/vehicular applications due to size/real estate required under the hood.  GEO solution competes better in its space profile and has impressive statistics, removing NOx 32%, CO 50%, HC 85%. GEO also claims that other technologies can increase fuel usage by 10% to run their systems, and the GEOgreenbox uses far less.  GEO also claims their competitor’s  system can’t reduce nitrous oxides at the same level as their system.

Units are available for a wide range of applications including  locomotive, small marine shipping vessels, class 8 diesel trucks, city bus and refrigeration units. The price for a class 8 diesel truck is around 18K. The cost goes down significantly for large fleets and the ROI is calculated at 7 months for fleets running year-long or averaging 248,000 miles/yr. The total addressable market for this technology is 660 Million diesel engines worldwide.  GEO has pre-qualified customers on 4 continents that give them access to refrigeration & long haul trucking as well as marine, mass transit and locomotive industries.  GEO’s relationships span Australia, Asia and marine/truck industries in Europe and United States.

The business model established by GEO involves both direct sales to corporate clients and licensing for both distribution and manufacturing. The system milestones for the product include EPA/National Lab Validation and final application for universal application on multiple engine types. The technology IP includes 12 patented components within the system and other patents are in progress. The projections for sales in 2010 is looking promising at 70Mil with less than 1% conversion of pre-qualified customer fleets, and 2009 sales are over 10Mil.

The Howling download

GEO is looking to be well positioned in their market. Their product is the most efficient unit of their competitors and retrofits well in smaller spaces available in trucks. Their engine management and control systems for mixtures/injections are the best in the industry and they plan to extend this to 50% fuel-efficiency savings. Their product also has extensive safety features, such as circuit breaker cutoffs for surges, shutdown systems for sensed impact and monitoring of temperature, pumps and other systems that will cause the appropriate shutdown of hydrogen production.

• download Backbeat

Great February meeting! Thanks to everyone for being patient with the overflow in the room . As we speak, we’re looking at options to expand.  With room for 200 and extra chairs, there was an overflow of approximately 30 people in the aisles. Hope you all enjoyed the speakers and we’ll let you know about the location change for next month.

Announcements

• Kris reviewed the new mission statement for Colorado Green Tech:

Help the Front Range of Colorado become the Silicon Valley of Clean/Green Tech by providing fast track opportunities for companies with emerging Clean/Green technologies

• Thanks to Meg Hendriks for the job board, Tony and Yann Ropars for  photos
• For those interested in participating on the Advisory board, please contact Kris
• Kris is looking for a sweat equity IP attorney for one of his projects. If interested please contact him at kris@coloradogreentech.net
• MISI has published a Green Job report for Colorado and at the national level
• Various events were announced – next month these will show up as a group mail, as well as in the calendar on our web site.

Speakers

Susan Innis, Governors Energy Office, Colorado Carbon Fund
A New Way to Fund Clean Energy Projects

A first for the green tech meetup – we’re delighted to have a representative from the Governors Energy Office (GEO) talk about how green technology is supported by the state. Susan Innis is the program manager of The Colorado Carbon Fund, otherwise known as Project C, which support the following GEO’s objectives:

• Develop a funding source for community-based clean energy and climate mitigation projects in Colorado
• Support Colorado’s climate change mitigation objectives
• Provide high quality, credible offsets for individuals, businesses and government agencies interested in mitigating their carbon footprint

For more information on the Governor’s activities,  Susan, directed us to Energy’s Office website. In our audience, Susan pointed out a number of recipients of the GEO’s NEED grant program, (CZero, Hybrids-Plus). Although the NEED fund is now closed,  these recipients are moving on to their next stages of growth. Colorado has been an active leader at the state level and is one of 2 dozen government agencies executing  their climate action plans.

Delivering on the three objectives above, the Carbon fund is actively looking for clean energy projects to invest in. The response to the program has been very positive so far with over 125 projects submitted.  In order for the fund to buy carbon credits for your project you need to show that your business/technology will reduce or displace fossil fuels, and the main criteria is

Reduce one or more of the six GHGs (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulphur hexafluoride).

Some examples of projects that have funding preferences are: home or business “weatherization” projects and thermal-based energy technologies such as biomass. Road/transportation reduction solutions are also considered. Another area of interest is “Anaerobic digestion projects”, (some of our attendees may remember Heartland Renewable Energy presented on April 10th, 2008 at our meeting.)  Susan pointed out that this anaerobic technology for methane capture must be used on a hog or dairy farm. The state is also interested in other methods of methane capture from landfills and coal mines.  For more details on qualifications for projects see the website. A few important requirements is that a project needs to be brand new in Colorado, take place in Colorado and have not yet been implemented. A project needs real and verifiable emission reductions. It must be equivalent to or greater than 2500 metric ton/yr of carbon dioxide-equivalent Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. The carbon credits are purchased at a rate of $8-12 per metric ton. Susan also mentioned that even though there is a minimum savings requirement – but they would consider “aggregating” projects such as smaller “solar heating” distributed systems.

The Governor has chosen the Climate trust in Portland Oregon, to design the Colorado Carbon Fund and work to offset Greenhouse Gas (GHG). Currently the fund is in it’s early stages and looking to fund it’s first projects (as of this writing). In the question session , Susan was asked about interesting projects. One project had to do with electrified overnighting for large haul trucks similar to this project. Also projects related to bio-mass co-firing and zero emission diesel have been evaluated. One project presented, but did not qualify, was a “Colorado” scuba diving center that “saved greenhouse gases” since people did not have to travel to New Mexico to get certified.  The Carbon Fund will not sponsor education programs, given the outreach programs in place today such as Boulder County’s Climate Smart Program.

Mike Fisher, EasyLite ILS
Energy Efficient Controlled Lighting Systems

Easylite is a Boulder based company founded over 10 yrs ago that specializes in integrated, controlled facility-wide lighting systems. Their founding started with 4-5 years of R&D and the product line demonstrates that their research is still on-going with a 3rd Generation fluorescent  lighting solution with dimming capability.

Mike took us through some of their experience in setting up custom and controlled lighting environments. For management of a facility, EasyLite offers the following solutions/control systems to reduce lighting loads:

1. Time of day (changing lighting output for various time periods)
2. Zone based (allowing finely grained control of facilities e.g. floor, building, classroom  to improve lighting load reduction)
3. Daylight harvesting (sensing daylight levels and adjusting interior lighting to maintain a constant light level)
4. Occupancy sensing (bringing up lighting on detection of a person’s entry)
5. Network addressable lighting (tying into the building automation systems over existing 3 wire connections)
6. Electric Demand reduction (supporting smart grid utility commands to reduce lighting at peak rates)
7. Frequency modulating dimming (retrofitting fluorescent lighting to allow for dimming)

Their focus has been on customer satisfaction, (currently rated at 4.86 out of 5, based on yearly visits after a deployment) and on optimizing end user value.  Their solutions are directed at reducing overall electricity usage, but also target peak usage when utilities charge peak rates.  The time of day/zone on-off scheduling systems, offer savings of 5-15%, while light level (dimming) can be higher 10-20%. Light harvesting generates outstanding savings of 30-60%, while occupancy sensing shows 5-25% savings.

EasyLite does it’s own manufacturing of ballasts and controls. Their value-add is in system design and application development for various facility requirements. Their offerings also include a full turn-key solution for customers. They also build and source many system components including digital addressable controls, relays, software, occupancy sensors and dimmers used in system solutions.

The crown jewel in the product line is their Frequency (versus pulse modulated) controlled ballast system for fluorescents, that allows for dimming. This system is based on low voltage control, does not require conduit, and works independent of the existing electric circuit configuration, ( so you can zone in any direction or grouping).  These lights are interconnected via a class 2, RJ-11 (phone-jack) terminated wiring.  This facilitates the control network and is used to create zones via plug-n-play.

Through their research on lighting systems, they have achieved two benchmarks unmatched in the industry:

• Low Profile T8 – 1 thru 8 lamp configurations
• Low Profile T5HO – 1 thru 4 lamp

Others in the industry can only do T5 fluorescent at 2′ for a single dimming ballast. Just as a note, the T measure is a diameter in 1/8ths of an inch ( A T8 bulb will be 1 inch in diameter, compared to 1 1/2 inch for the T12 bulb, a T8 bulb is often used to replace T12 as it fits into the same ballast and reduces energy consumption ). A T5HO bulb is used for typically for outdoor usages.

These lights support universal voltage, meaning they can be wired to various voltage sources levels (source needs 20A current rating) which is then converted system to their network low DC voltage. Another unique feature with the EasyLite fluorescent system is that all the lights are wired in a parallel. This configuration ensures that one failure won’t bring down a bank of lights.  With a harvesting configuration, a failure is compensated by the remaining active lights which maintain a constant lighting level. The harvesting solution is a closed loop system – which reads the natural and artificial light constantly at the “working surface” and can be reset by a flashlight. The harvester reacts gradually, minimizing the distraction at the location.

Mike provided an example of demand leveling in a school, showing a reduction of 200Kw at peak usage. He also presented a use case where there system enabled a 63% electricity saving at a school facility with daylight harvesting. The incremental install cost for a controlled lighting system is typically $1 per sq ft.  EasyLIte has patented technology in US, Europe and Asia.

We began the Q&A session and here are some of the answers to questions. The company has somewhere between 500-800 installed projects. Their frequency based ballast used regular fluorescent bulbs.  A question was posed on “interference problems”, since their system frequency range may cause aliasing problems and the response was there are no problems in this area. Their system is based on a 17V DC bus and can use existing conduit.  Light reduction usually translates into  A/C savings.  The formula for A/C savings in Colorado is for every 3 Watts of light not used, there is a 1W of A/C savings. In Texas this rate is much higher.

Benzi Livneh/Ian Richards,   MicroCoal, Inc
A Smarter Way to Clean Coal

After a brief audience survey on the perception of clean-coal by Kris, we were primed to hear our next presenters that have patented a new pre-combustion coal cleaning technology. Kris also mentioned that the new Comanche 3 coal plant is built for a 60 yr lifespan and cost 1 Billion to build. Our presenters did not disappoint on addressing the reality of our coal legacy. In the U.S cleaning up what we have is necessity and a stopgap as we shift over to renewables.

The first statistic introduced to the group was that total global energy usage is 17.4Billion MWh/yr. This demand for energy is expected to double by 2030. Of that total, 4 Billion MWh is consumed in the US. The install capacity of coal in the US is 330, 000 MW including the Comanche III plant. The replacement cost of the 1300 coal plants in the U.S. is 500Bil.  Of the 4Bil MWh used here, 50% is produced by coal.

Trying to relate how coal has improved, a graph was presented showing a period between 1990-2006, where electrical generation went up 34% but emissions went down. From the web I found that

Average annual emissions growth since 1990 is 1.1%/year for both petroleum and coal, and 0.8%/year for natural gas.

So in a sense, emissions per unit of energy is decreasing due to cleaner technologies, but our demand is outstripping current cleaning technology improvements.

So the question was posed on how we are going to tackle cleaning up coal. One solution put forth is legislation. Currently we have the Clean Air Act of 1990, that deals with Air Pollution Prevention and Control.  There is also the proposed Carbon Tax, legislation put forth by  Congressman Dingell’s to tax carbon content @ $50 ton/of carbon content  and  50 cents on a gallon of gasoline.

The direction that MicroCoal has taken is to make burning coal more efficient. As posed, it takes 3.17 kWh of fuel consumed to produce 1 kWh. So as it stands today coal is 30% efficient. There is a lot of room to improve this efficiency. Older coal plants typically boil water to produce electricity. In the next generation, coal will also be turned into liquid, to power and provide fuel for vehicles. This new process is dirtier then current coal plants.  In both cases, the processing is essentially burning coal and trying to clean what comes out of it. The effluent contains various contaminants including NOx (Nitrus Oxides), SOx (Sulfur Oxides) and Hg (Mercury).  These pollutants are released from the 1.2 Bil tonnes of coal we burn every year.

MicroCoals approach is to clean the coal so it goes to the boiler cleaner thus reducing contaminants by 30-50%. The reduced effluent,  will improve the boiler performance by reducing slag and resultant ash. The slag in the boiler acts as an insulator and decreases boiler efficiency. The early-processing of coal, cleans it up during the pre-combustion stage, which reduces moisture, sulfur, mercury, etc. via microwave treatment. The process separates the slag and heavy metals from the coal.  It also handles the resultant water by cleaning/filtering and separating it from the effluent solids.  If all coal plants used this system, it would result in a reduction of 2.5 Billion tonnes of CO₂ /annually from the atmosphere.  Coal that is processed through this system comes out ‘fractured’ but it contains more energy. Another footnote is that Comanche III will take in 2-3 Million tonnes of coal a year, and use 1 million tonnes of water to process.  MicroCoal will significantly reduce the amount of water used by the plant.

Benzi, indicated they are making good progress selling their system, and have a pilot facility co-located at a power plant in Golden, CO.  The Q&A session revealed some great insights.  It seems that there is a penalty to do carbon capture, (a competitor to MicroCoal). In theory Carbon Capture Systems (CCS) could reduce CO₂ by 80-90% but there is a  25-40% cost premium.  MicroCoal considers their penalty to be much less – closer to 15-20% premium.  They offer stiff competition to other solutions, with a conversion cost for a 500MWh plant  around $30mil versus scrubber system that would cost $100mil.  In terms of cost, microwave was chosen since it is more efficient then other heating systems, he posed the example that a microwave is much more efficient then a stove to for heating food. The current efficiency of a microwave is around 64%.

Another question came up on the source and quality of coal. 40% of American coal comes from Wyoming and Wyoming has very clean coal. In fact in the Powder River Basin is the the world’s largest deposit of coal.  Benzi indicated that they worked with $13/ton WY coal and $60/ton Appalachian coal – Appalachian coal has 30-40% more BTU’s, hence the extra cost. The MicroCoal solution works better with cleaner WY coal and provides a more ecological result with a 40% contaminant reduction rate.

A quote I found on a 1990 NY Times article backed up Benzi’s discussion on the Powder the Power River Basin talked to the benefit of this coal and the Federal Clean Air Act :

Powder River Basin coal is so low in sulfur that utilities that burn it can meet the new standards without installing multimillion-dollar pollution control systems.

Christopher Reim , American BioResources, LLC
Simplified Scalable Algae Production Solutions

Christopher started off their presentation by introducing the executive team, a new CEO Sue Kunz, the COO Jeffrey Veres and their lead industrial microbiologist Nick Rancis.  American BioResources is driven by the market opportunity to use algae as a source for bio-fuels with the primary target market being  bio-diesel vehicles. They’re current offering consists of an algae growing system and a distribution channel for purchasing algae-based fuel to be refined and resold to the transportation market.  A key aspect of their solution is the partnership with farmers that would provide facilities to grow algae.

The foundation of algae bio-fuels is a desire to find a fuel source that is highly scalable and renewable given where the global demand for oil is going. Chris displayed a chart showing this resource consumption and it demonstrated how quickly demand from China has grown. Even if you don’t believe in Peak Oil (which is not theorized to be in 2020), then there still remains the issue of global competition for our existing petroleum resources post-recesson.

The growth of bio-diesel processing capacity in the U.S. is increasing with 110 plants in production and 86 new plants coming on-line. The current issue is that there is a disconnect with capacity and resources, where bio-diesel sources are being outstripped by the capacity being built. To meet this need, is the opportunity to use lipid-based oils from micro-algae, enabling anyone with the equipment to grow their fuel In a sense, facilitate the “Democratization of Energy”. The bio-fuels market is 2 Billion today with 500 Million gallons sold in 2008 and production has doubled since 2004. In comparison, the current petroleum market in 2008 was 306 Billion gallons.

The bio-fuel competition comes from other sources of bio-mass, such as corn, soy-bean, sunflower, safflower, camelina, and rapeseed. One of the best efficiencies comes from oil palms which can make 635gal/acre of bio-diesel, but this is dwarfed by micro-algae which produces 1850 gal/acre of fuel. The newer numbers for algae are proving to be even higher then this number cited.  Algae has a number of unique properties. Ocean-based Algae produces 70% of the worlds oxygen. So much for the reputation of the world’s forests, in reality the ocean is the “lungs of the earth”. Algae has the potential for 100% utilization in the process, with lipids going to make bio-diesel and the chaff used to make cellulosic ethanol. Also the chaff can be used for bio-plastics, fertilizer and food supplements (being rich in omega 3) .  The chaff is of great interest to livestock farmers. This type of “crop” is highly desirable to farmers over other alternatives since it is not seasonal, not weather dependent, does not require “change of fields” and can be grown all year-round.

The solution involves growing algae is an indoor, photo-bioreactor system. It consists of a proprietary growing system that is closed loop. It employs artificial lights to grow algae, recycles water and uses affordable components. Algae is not consumptive of water is just lives in it.  But it does consume CO₂ at a rate of 1.8 lbs for each 1lb of fuel produced. The current focus is to make the offering attrative to farmers through scalability and  low infrastructure cost.  The solution supports the change of  algae-strains, scaling the process through additional tanks and flexibility to upgrade system components for efficiency.  AmBioRes currently has two full scale units in production today.

In our Q&A session we had another great set of questions from our highly-educated audience.  First, a question on the efficiency equation was not tackled due to the complexity of the answer.  In regards to problems such as disease, the proprietary system can quickly cycle out water to quickly change out bad algae and get the system running again.  Responding to a more detailed request on the business model, AmBioRes mentioned that it supplies the photo-bioreactor to farmers/micro-growers, and in a co-op style the growers sell their product back to AmBioRes.  The company then processes it in refineries and sells the final product. Their goal is to use hub & spoke, so that micro-growers are setup close to refineries, in order to minimize the overall cost of moving the product.

Algae strains also are part of the equation and profiling them for fuel conversion is where much of the proprietary research and intellectual property is found. There are over 300,000 known strains and some are so filled with lipids and fatty-acids, more then 50% of it can be converted to fuel.  They have chosen a distributed model that allows for rapid growth and partnering with farmers. An extra benefit to farmers is utilizing chaff for their livestock.

The question of the extra cost of internal lights versus natural lighting and it turns out that the internal lights are much more efficient then natural light which has a 11% efficiency rate.  The cost of bio-diesel fuels was in the realm of $4.43/gal in mid 2008 and down to $2.45/gal at the end of 2008, some in the audience claims a much higher rate for algae fuel.  Algae-based fuel at the pump will probably be brought down with government subsidization.  As a feed for livestock, algae has a huge upside, since it produces 2 1/2 times the protein of soy. Farmers need to invest about 100K for equipment, but would see payback in a relatively short period.  The feed for algae is proprietary but its a mixture of Nitrates, Phosphates and CO₂.

Thanks everyone for helping us kickoff 2009 at the Colorado Green Tech Meetup. This month we had a fantastic turnout with over 130 people and standing room only again. We did accommodate people with extra chairs but we’re going to look for another room to expand into.

Announcements

• Hybrids Plus is looking for electrical engineers and a VP of Manufacturing (Contact carl@hybrids-plus.com or see our Job Website )
• CORE will be hosting the Sustainable Opportunity Summit on March 17-19th
• An upcoming Green Festival is being hosted on May 7th at the Denver Convention center. There will be a diverse set of speakers on green technologies including Green Building techniques

Please see our Events calendars for more details

Speakers

Michael Callahan, PowerMundo
PowerMundo – Improving Lives, Conserving Nature

• Rise of the Footsoldier on dvd

Micheal Callahan, a native Boulderite, introduces PowerMundo’s concept: They are an innovative marketing, wholesale distribution, and micro-franchise company that connects people living in poverty to a network of sustainable resources. This idea tackles a hard problem: how do we improve the environmental conditions for people in developing countries in an economically-sustainable way. Michael brought forth an example of Peruvian women cooking on open wood-fires and having “stalactites of soot” on the ceiling of their homes. Their products focus on reducing environmental emission and reduce usage and generation of ground toxins.

• Lucky Number Slevin download

The main product categories that  PowerMundo provides, are: clean water, cooking meals and lighting homes. From the presentation the key principles of this company are the following:

• Make products economically sustainable by including local merchants in the supply chain
• Use micro-finance to help facilitate vendors purchasing power for products
• Select environmental-friendly products from evolving new technology
• Ensure products have an ROI – such as eliminating monthly kerosene purchases

Each one of these pillars has associated challenges. Microfinance alone is a new concept, developed by the Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh. It helps finance small loans for up-front merchandise cost and allows small merchants to make a profit. Another challenge is finding the right products. They have to be cost effective, in many cases they employ newer/advanced technology and the product needs to be environmentally friendly.  A good parallel example of this is the fantastic product design that went into the $100 One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) product -  it runs with very low power consumption and stores human gesture power in long-life batteries.

In order to acquire cost-effective/advanced products for the developing world, PowerMundo is partnering with technology centers such as Standford, MIT and CU. They are also scouring the supply chains of the world to match the product to the problem. With about 20 products in their current portfolio, each product fills some niche, like a solar-powered lantern powered by a Li-Ion battery to replace a kerosene lantern. Looking for such a product, I found the following on a Solar Camping Lantern on a Chinese web site.  PowerMundo will sell to the local merchant for $12 dollars (freight not included) and in turn the local merchant will sell for small margin locally. An example of their supply chain costing shows a product sourced at $15, sold to an entrepreneur at $20 and then retailed at $25.

Doing business with clients all over the world includes due-diligence.  There is the branding of products, and in some instances the product is co-branded with the local companies. In many cases, an exclusive contract needs to be signed for product distribution rights.  Product costs need to be fairly low for 2 reasons: 1) micro-financing typically will not cover large outlays for merchants in poverty areas, and 2) to accommodate margins for PowerMundo and their local retailers and be affordable for the end consumers in these developing regions. In some cases, the price can be subsidized with advertising, further helping lower the price.

The current strategy is to examine individual geographical markets and understand the product needs. In Latin American, where 1/3 of Peru’s population does not have electricity, the use of biomasss (wood) for heating is extensive. Powermundo sells energy efficient/solar cookstoves as an alternative to wood. Another example is a competitor Freeplay Energy, that has sold over 1/2 million energy efficient hurricane lamps in India. Their lamp product works with low-power LEDs and captures enough energy from a 60 second “cranking-winding ” to provide 1 hr. of light.

PowerMundo’s model is more of a developing world/eco-friendly Avon. Today Avon Cosmetics has 10Bil. in sales. PowerMundo’s pro-forma has a 5 year horizon where it expects to be selling 1 million product/annually at a 19% margin. Challenges abound when you work globally with price fluctuations, undercapitalization and management of multiple supply chains.  Some of PowerMundo’s competitors are government-funded programs or direct sales from suppliers. In some cases local merchants may have a similar product. The supply chain model and advertising are primary sources of revenue.

This presentation raised many great questions from our group regarding the finance of customers, it seems that educating local loan officers was key. Microloan organizations such as Kiva and Grameen Bank were mentioned as active in this area. Another Microloan company brought up in the discussion was Prisma MicroFinance, that helps provide clean drinking water through purchases of water tanks/filtration systems. Questions on durability and eco-friendly products were brought up. Many products don’t use disposable batteries and work exclusively on human gesture to generate energy (e.g. shaking, cranking) and are stored in the products long-life batteries.  Michael mentioned that products are tested for durability before they are sold, by taking the product to 18,000 ft into the mountain or into the wet/humid depths of the Amazon jungle.

Peter Novak, Sunflower Corporation
Sustainable Natural Lighting

Sunflower Corporation is a pre-revenue start-up, based in Boulder. Their first product is a daylight harvester that targets the commercial market. The main benefits of natural lightning systems are three-fold: 1) Reduce energy by allowing lights to be turned off; 2) Healthier/relaxed environment with natural glare free lights; and 3) Reduce electrical consumption and greenhouse gases.

Their launch product is the Sundolier, which is capable of lightning areas of 1500 sq ft. and works well in retail, schools and offices. The product will fit into an approximately 24″ in. access hole in the ceiling. The light channel will extend outward to a light source, (not necessarily a direct line of sight) on the roof.  This type of product is an improved alternative to existing lighting solutions such as skylights since many sources generate heat and create too much light.

Sundolier light is also a healthier, more relaxed lighting option. When there is enough sunlight, the interior lights can be turned off. In a natural light environment a more relaxed atmosphere is created with reduced glare on everything from pictures to computer monitors. Many studies indicate natural light promotes wellness.  It also helps increase sales in retail stores and improves productivity in schools and at work.  Peter mentioned both Carneige Mellon’s non-energy benefits calculator and Heschong Mahone Group study on natural lighting.  You can also refer to a great scribed article on green building productivity. Some of the productivity benefits are the following:

“Students learn up to 21% faster. People in offices are up to 23% more productive. The improved interior environment created by daylight leads customers to purchase more in retail environments—1-7% sales increases on average, with proven results of up to 40% greater sales for spaces converted from no daylight to the best daylight conditions.”

With the benefit a hybrid solution to lighting, the ROI based on reduced electrical usage is between 1 and 5 years. The cost of the product is $15K, plus $2-5K for larger installations. In the case of large facilities, such as schools the ROI is closer to one year payback. The market is $500mil in 2008 with an expected 10-11% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

The current market focus is the education sector. A number of school districts are mandating the LEED certification and natural lighting building requirements. The trend is a greening of the federal market. Sales are driven by the solar map showing where the effective use of natural sunlight is optimal.  Sunflower’s product competes against other categories: LED, fiber optics and architectural solutions.  The competitive advantages are 1) 4-12x reduction in roof penetration compared to traditional skylights; 2) have a active-tracking system to maximize sunlight concentration; 3) the ability to switch in less then 3 secs between natural lighting and electric for a hybrid light install.

The group asked about patents and Sunflower has a number of provisional patents on their optics. Peter also discussed how natural lighting for buildings is also growing in Europe specifically in schools and the improvement in attention deficit disorder (ADD) is one of the benefits being realized for students. In relation to thermal-load, traditional lightning systems usually increase A/C usage by 15%, and this is avoided with natural lighting.

Tim Reese, Lightning Hybrids Inc
100 MPG Hybrid Sports Sedan

God Told Me To

Lightning Hybrids is an automotive research and manufacturing company, headquartered in Loveland, Colorado and founded in October 2008. As pointed out a few times, the founders are mechanical engineers from CSU and not CU! Their blueprint for the car of the future is a diesel hydraulic hybrid sport sedan that can do 0-60mph in 5.9 seconds and has fuel efficiency greater than 100 mpg.

Tim showed the audience a very elegant design in his presentation that was based on a ‘53 Corvette but with some added modern body designs. There were no side mirrors (solved with cameras) and no rear door seam. The whole car opened like a jet canopy – a canopy that extends to the back end of the car and down to the frame.  Check out the website where this is illustrated a little better then my description.

Lightning Hybrids is also competing in the Progressive Automotive X-Prize. There is a lot of great competition (Tim mentioned about 120 entrants).  The design needs to incorporate elements that would allow for mass production, and it needs to be a 4-passenger vehicle.  It would be fantastic to see the prize come to Colorado.  I am sure Lightning Hybrids would also put to good use their $10 Mil. purse winnings.

So how is their car different?  Firstly it’s an extremely light-weight car at 1600lbs which is half the weight of a Prius. It’s body is carbon fiber and chrome-moly. It has a carbon fiber suspension and an aluminum engine.  They have also chosen the biodiesel route, with biodiesel plus type fuel for low-sulfur emissions.  It uses a hydraulic regenerative braking system which is extremely efficient, (hydraulics have 80-95% capture of braking energy versus a typical NiMH type storage in a Prius that captures about 30%).

One of the X-Prize contenders is Tesla. Just to compare, the Tesla Roadster must carry 1000 lbs of batteries to power the engine and has a total weight of 2700 lbs. Also the charging rate for a Tesla is phenomenal, it takes 70amp @ 120V (no wonder it charges so fast!). Tesla has proven the market for electric sports cars. Future orders for Tesla are well over 1200, and they expect $102 Mil. in sales by 2012. Lightning is also expanding into this market with similar forecasts and expects to have positive revenue by its third year. The Lightning model will cost around $59K (for the 4 wheel model).

During the question period, there was interest about the exotic vehicle body makeup. A question was posed whether the vehicle could be repaired and at what cost if there was in an accident. For those who follow Tesla, it was a sad day when the first crash was reported

.  Tim gave some hope here since Carbon Fiber can be repaired and it also had better flex properties to help minimize the damage. As Tim pointed out, the insurance companies are more concerned with hospital bills then automotive repair bills. Tim invited everyone to follow along on their website blog, and see them at the Denver Auto Show on April 1st.  They expect to start prototype manufacturing on January 11th, with early models planned for completion at the Denver Auto Show, and production manufacturing expected to begin in Loveland in 2010.

Rich Barone, Infotility
Coordinating the Smart Grid

Infotility is a software company providing distributed intelligence to generators, distributors and users of electricity. Infotility’s initial product offering – Dynamic Load Shaping – is used to improve both system operations and asset utilization for electric utilities, while integrating renewables and other distributed energy and demand response programs.

Infotility was founded back in 2001 and early on won $7 mil. of Department of Defense grants. The need for secure, monitorable and modern power management was emphasized on Sept 11th, and then demonstrated in the NorthEast blackout of 2003. Their product was developed in cooperation with with two of the nation’s largest Investor Owned Utilities or private utilities.

One of the features embedded in Infotility’s GridAgents platform is the ability to optimize asset utilization, specifically Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs. In many cases, traditional power management is inefficient, but with the need for renewables on both a small and large scale, grid intelligence and monitoring are necessary.  The lack of data integration is also a factor for utilities, since most data is either not in context or missing and without reporting decision support tools – it is difficult for operations staff to make informed decisions.   Indeed the more assets that are included on the grid, including renewables and grid attached vehicles, the greater the need for localized intelligence.

Infotility sees the addressable market currently at $12 Mill for their product. The global smart grid market is growing at 10% annual growth and should reach $60 Bil. by 2011. Since their product is software, they expect to OEM their platform on other vendor hardware. This allows them to be installed in the utility with minimal installation and modifications to the utilities operations.

• The Salton Sea ipod

Some of the software competitors in this market are companies like Gridpoint and Tendril. Some of the larger hardware vendors are also involved ABB, Siemens and GE.  Infotility expects to partner with the larger companies as pure-play solution which works and interacts with existing hardware. Their competitive advantage is their software platform has distributed intelligence and data filtering on a revolutionary scale. They also employ unique optimized and localized decision algorithms to respond faster with more complex decisioning rules. Along with plans to manage IP addressable units, they expect to take a “smart-tag” approach and manage large-scale number of devices (such as meters).

A go-to-market strategy involves a pilot with larger vendors such as Con-Ed and PG&E. By 2012 their pro-forma indicates $84 Mil in revenue. They are also working with demand response centers to help support real-time management of distributions centers. Their strategy also supports Microgrid-based demand management on a number of scales from data centers to net-zero/smart community initiatives.

Well 2008 has been another a great year for Green Tech in Colorado. Just this year we’ve heard significant state-wide announcements from Range Biofuels landing investment and Vestas Wind creating new jobs. We also heard about NREL expansion plans and the announcement of Conoco/Phillip’s alternative energy learning center. Beyond energy development, which Colorado is more know for, we’re seeing green transportation, demand management,  new battery development/integration, smart grids , energy efficiency companies and investments.

The meetup also had an impressive inaugural year.  Since March we’ve had over 30 speakers/companies present and we’ve seen our meetup grow to 750 members. We’ve also grown to 80 members on LinkedIn.

With all the various contributions from across the state and here in Denver/Boulder, we’re looking forward to a  fantastic 2009. We’re going to build on this year’s successes and lift Colorado to the #1 Green Tech Center of Excellence for the country.

A final note – you all heard last time we met, we are not going to have a December meeting. So from Kris and Kevin, see you all Jan 8th and enjoy all the holidays!

Announcements

I want to mention a terrific interview Kris did for KGNU that was broadcast on Thanksgiving day. To listen to the interview,

1. select the above link and choose Thursday Nov 27th.
2. Find the Morning Magazine entry
3. Right-click on the download icon (green arrow and hard-drive) its on the right side of box
4. Player pops up(quick-time), seek to 16:40 in the program to hear or scan to about 1/3 of progress bar.

Our website is also expanding, Kris made mention of the new Job board which is online and the Investor Avenue section on the main page displaying links Investors seeking Companies and Companies seeking Investors. Another mention that site is entrepreneur-friendly and posting there will not result in a loss of the SEC 504D exemption for a start-up looking for capital.

• Mark Wheller briefly mentioned the Angel Capital Summit which took place on Nov 21st
• We had a “Zero Waste” meeting by using Corn-based (PLA) cups and other compostables. Thanks Karen Ellis and Shawn LeMons and Eco-Cycle!
• NREL is looking for atmospheric scientists
• The Institute for Ecolonomics, started by the late Dennis Weaver, also called out for support and has opened a new Loveland office. Please contact Wayne Dorband (wayne@ecolonomics.org) for more information.

Speakers

Guy Babbit,  CZero Solutions
Hydraulic Hybrid Retrofits

Another elegant and specialized approach to build hybrid solutions for heavy duty trucks is using hydraulic compression. CZero is a 20 year old company that has extensive knowledge in automotive hydraulics. They are experts in designing regenerative braking systems to store energy and help reduce fuel usage by as much as 20-30%.

The business benefits of hydraulic large trucks is multiple. Firstly to note, nitrogen based hydraulic can store significantly more energy then the traditional passenger hybrid vehicles. Savings come in the form of less vehicle maintenance (with less brake wear), fuel efficiency savings and extended vehicle usage at night (using electric sources). CZero works mainly with retro-fits and sees energy recovery as much as 75% for their regenerative breaking system.  With this technology, new engines can be designed smaller with energy from the hydraulic system filling the gap for energy demand.

Using hydraulics, both parallel and series configuration are possible although parallel configuration retrofits offer lower cost. Historically hydraulic hybrids date back to 1907, although it were no true commercial options until the 1950’s. Today one of the competitors for this technology is Peterbilt. The Peterbilt 320 employs an Eaton Hydraulic Launch Assist solution.

CZero sees a large market in hydraulic hybrids based on it quick return on investment and it is relatively easy conversion/retrofit process. It is investing in and marketing to developing nations. Their solution fits in well with the economic requirements of countries like India and China who are looking for large truck solutions that are cost effective. Hydraulic hybrids are cheaper then electric hybrids and their large energy storage capabilities are a good fit for the heavy-duty truck segment. There are number of vehicle applications such as power company fleet vehicles and waste-management fleets that have short duty-cycle applications.

Research and new products are a key focus. New ideas and technologies are being tested as prototypes at the CSU Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratories. At Colorado State, CZero is also extending their international reach with the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise Program. New prototypes promise lighter systems and easier retro-fit capabilities. Additionally, noise for hydraulics systems have been greatly improved.  This new technology research has been recognized by the state government with a grant from the Governor’s Energy Office.

Russel Thomas, Thomas Engine Company
The Variable Compression Ratio Internal Combustion Engine

Russel has brought a timely technology to help our automotive industry build more fuel efficient cars with an engine-only technology replacement. The current offering by Thomas Engine is technology licensing of their variable compression engine. With this engine design, a high compression engine mode is used to help improve fuel efficiency up to (20-30%) for spark-based engines.

The engine’s core distinction is the use of a special designed hydraulic ring that works like a crankshaft. The engine can vary it’s compression ratio from 7.2:1 to 15:1. The solution does not involve a timing chain or belt.  The design has been tested at high levels of stress and has a comparable manufacturing cost to a regular engine. It also it slightly small and lighter then an existing V6 engine.

Thomas Engine has spent over 1 million on patents with 8 awarded US patents and 13 pending patents with additional foreign patents. For those who want to see a previous article on this technology, refer to my early article.

Jeff Granato, Proterra LLC
Cost-effective solutions for Clean Transportation

Proterra provides green and cost-saving solutions for mass-transit. Based in Golden, they tackle the whole spectrum of mass transit vehicle needs. There product line is ground-up solutions for hybrid-electric, plug-in electric and battery-electric buses.  So what does the product line cover? A host of technologies are offered: a uniquely developed Lithium battery system for buses, an entire composite body design for weight and aerodynamic efficiency, charging station systems, regenerative breaking solutions and electric drive trains.

Traditional competitors are diesel buses and the Proterra solution provides a significant value proposition when compared to diesels.  Their Battery-hybrid delivers greater than 2 times the fuel economy of conventional diesel and their battery-electric does 4 times that. The savings over a lifetime is 1.90 per gallon of diesel fuel. The ROI of a new Proterra bus is 7 yrs. for pure electric and 9 yrs. on a diesel hybrid over a conventional diesel bus. The Proterra designed buses have significant lifespans and add significant savings after their payback period. Proterra does offer leasing options as well.

The battery systems are designed specifically for buses and their usage patterns. As one can see in traditional bus routes through the city, their duty cycle involves a lot of rapid stop-start driving. The new battery is design to be ultra-safe with operational temperatures that are not hot to touch. They are encased so the they can’t be punctured and are encased in heat resistant packaging. The whole battery system is mounted on the under the frame of the bus. The battery system is designed for a 15yr lifespan at 85% usable state of charge. With electric drive the maintenance is also significantly less then for a diesel bus.

The charging system is also a significant leap forward. The Terravolt system is a rapid recharge system allowing a bus to fully charge in 10 minutes. The Terravolt system can be installed along a bus route. This system facilitates buses to always stay on route and not have to go out of service to recharge at a maintenance station. A regular battery charge will last about 90 minutes for regular usage.

A unique regenerative breaking system has been incorporated in the bus design. This is a series configuration that allows for 200-400% improved fuel economy.  A significant advantage with Lithium fast charging batteries, is that 92% of the regenerative power can be captured when braking. We can look forward to some of this technology in regular passenger vehicles in the coming years from the big automakers.

The bus frame is also a technology breakthrough. The entire frame is made with composite materials and is 10, 000 lbs less then a regular diesel bus (a 20-40% savings). Additionally frames are designed to be aerodynamic. The frame also has excellent crash ratings and the results measured exceed that of steel frames. The buses have been extensively tested at the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute in Altoona, Pennsylvania

The market is around 14 Billion and growing for this sector. Proterra has achieved significant support from US Federal and State agencies to help promote and financially support their products. Some of the competitors in this space are NovaBus from Sweden and the local Nabi (NorthAmerican Bus Industries)

Jeff took a few question at the end of the session. Their strategy also looked at hydrogen buses but the cost of hydrogen and the safety issues made this option too prohibitive. Their batteries are also based on the Lithium-Titanate technology.

Tim Feaver, Porous Power Technologies
Improving performance and reducing cost of any lithium-ion battery

In the world of batteries, performance and safety is king. Porous Power has keyed into a unique competitive area in this field with their Symemtrix ultraporous polymer material, the separator between electrodes in a Lithium Ion battery. Essentially the better the porosity, the less resistance to energy flow, especially at high discharge rates.

Tim had some pretty significant claims on performance and the data to back it up. He displayed a slide with porosity versus cost and showed the significant advantage the Symmetrix system had over its competitors. In this field, companies such as Celgard and AMS Membranes are also developing similar technology related to membrane porosity. The value proposition of Porous Power is their performance:  4x more capacity, 3x more EV cycles and 3x more sustained voltage then regular Li-Ion cells.  Their technology won the 2005 Advanced Energy Storage Technology Innovation of the Year award and the company won the DoE’s 2008 Clean Energy Entrepreneur of the Year.

Symmetrix layers are “laminatable” to the electrodes and  is twice as porous as normal Li-Ion membranes. The Symmetrix system improves performance in a number of areas including: 1) Increases the number of cycles 2) Improves its safety under abusive conditions 3) Lowers the batteries temperature band 4) Shortens its charging period 5) Lowers cost of operation.

The target product line is aimed at larger and “faster” (high discharge rate) cells. The transportation sector is a good fit and the new generation of PHEVs would employ this technology.  Currently the potential market is 1.1Bil for Li-Ion and currently the hybrid car market accounts for only 3% of vehicles. The future forecast is to have 25% PHEV (plug-in) vehicles in which 1.6 Billion, would use the separator.

Porous Power is already in production with Li-Ion batteries and is has work lines running that manufacture 15K cells/shift. The also have facility to produce coatings and laminates. New product development is targeting areospace and small cell batteries (e.g. MP3 player) as good growth markets.

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.

The NeverEnding Story hd Thanks everyone for another great Green Tech Meetup. Sorry about the weather! We had a great turnout this month and lots of networking. We’re also happy to see new faces from the university campus. I’m sure the new crop of MBA grads and Technologists are going to be the  eco-preneurs of the future.

University Announcements

We started the meetup with a pitch by Paule Jerde, Executive director of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at CU and sponsor of our green tech meeting facilities. Paul talked about entrepreneurship focus’s on bio-tech, aerospace and green tech. Also the center collaborates with university groups like the  Tech Transfer Office that facilitates moving intellectual property from inside the university into private sector commercialized products. The Deming Center works to support a two-way path between business and academia, supporting their MBA students and technology groups and building bridges out to the business community.

General Announcements

• Angel Capital Summit is looking for venture capital deal-screeners and business plans for companies that would like to participate in the summit. The summit will cover areas from biotech to nanotech to green tech (contact Dave O’brian on the member list or here on his Business Catapult Website)
• Cleantech for Obama is also looking for support and will be hosting new events
• Wind4me is also looking for support for lobbying for cleantech
• CU TEAM (Transforming Energy and Markets) event is coming up, matching MBA business plans with business CEO’s, check out events here.
• Nocoentre entrepreneur group is looking to attract members to come up to their Ft. Collins Group
• Puneet Pasrich organized a tour of Xcel’s Denver chilled water plant and refers the group to check out  the following programs and calendars for other energy related events

Presenters

Rich Gostenik, Green Diamond Tire
World’s safest and most environmentally responsible tire

Rich started his talk describing an abandoned attempt for disposing of old tires, an artificial tire reef in Florida, now currently a Superfund EPA cleanup site.  This idea was adopted in a number of coastal state areas and other locations in the world to help promote aquatic life. Unlike sunken ships, tires can be swept away and potentially leech chemicals.

Green Diamond Tire helps to reduce the number of tires going to landfill  by remoulding and allowing the tire to be reused, doubling the lifetime of the tire. With this process, an average remoulded tire can be created with one extra gallon of oil, versus 7 gallons to create a new one . Landfills in the US have enormous amounts of scrap tires, to the tune of 6-9 billion. This is compounded annually by an extra 300 million tires. Of the 300 million about 60 million are recyclable by the green diamond process.

The process to rebuild the tire was started in Iceland, using industrial diamonds, about 1.5lbs. The remoulding process covers the tire bead to bead to rebuild it’s traction. Radial tires

can’t used in this process due to type of remoulding process. Test studies are touted to show 36% better traction and 32% lateral control. These test results show superior performance over winter tires such as Bridgestone Blizzak

and Micheline Alpine  The new remoulded tire competes well in the “beaded/studded” tire market with two additional benefits  1) Does not create road damage  2) Does not have increase noise emission over a regular tire.

We had some great questions from the group at this point. Paraphrasing the answers for a few here: Once the tire has been remoulded it can’t be recycled again,  the average lifespan of the remoulded tire is the same as the original tire. Also rolling resistance is not decreased such such as in a winter tire. The tire also seems to sit somewhere between the retread and new tire category but still meets all safety requirements such as the GSA Tire schedule.

The product is selling well in Scandinavia with 10% market share in Icelandic winter tires, and in Sweden with sales estimates of over 70,000 tires in 2007 winter market. The market for this tire is healthy even in locations below the “snow belt” with sales in locations such as Mexico, Central America and the lower American states. The current infrastructure for processing tires exists in factories in Europe, Sweden, Czech Republic, Iceland and others. Currently the expectation is to build a new plant, in Ft. Collins. This plant would use wind energy and be built to platinum LEED standards

Travis John, Water Logic International
Water Purification

Travis introduced his industrial waste water treatment company and our first water based green tech solution we’ve seen at our meeting. This is a fast growing area, some say the next frontier right after we tackle the energy challenges. Travis quoted the MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Sarah Slaughter who calls water the next oil. For many worldwide and here at home, treating water effectively and economically with new technology is a necessity.

Water Logic is a fee-for-service company that treat and manage water. There focus core clients are primarily with individual customers that have specific problems with treating or removing specific toxins to their water streams. The technology is based on electrocoagulation, which has been around for some time. This technology can be tuned to remove specific pollutants, ( Travis used an example of natural arsenic coming from a processing plant and a coal plant removing iron from pockets of water it encounters). Also it is great a removing heavy metals, grease and dissolved contaminants. Some of the competing technologies in the water purification space are ultraviolet or reverse osmosis but these do not necessarily work on the specific areas that electrocoagulation excels at. Another benefit of this technology is that it does not create a secondary waste stream that needs to be treated a second time like some chemical processes. The resulting sludge is not have high-bound water content, such as a chemical treated effluent and is handled much easier.

The industry for water treatment and filtration is estimated to be 42 Bill by Goldman Sachs and they have made a number of investments in this area.  The Water Logic solution is a standard cell that can be stacked together to allow it to scale up to large scale processing (Travis mentioned up in locations they have processed up to 430 mil gallons of water).  Individual cells can process from 5-500gal/min and can scale up to the number of cells the customer requires . Also the system uses DC power, which has greatly reduces the electricity consumption. This solution not only has it’s niche areas to excel at (where ultraviolet/reverse osmosis, etc can’t work), it can also be half the price of chemicals.  Their product meets and exceeds EPA discharge standards.

Wayne Morrow , Starfield Controls Inc.
Building brains

The starfield green value proposition is energy-efficiency and material savings through centrally controlled lighting systems for buildings. Their system uses a digital bus (with various secure/protected protocols: Zigbee

, Z-way, DALI-digital addressable lighting interface) for lighting control thereby eliminating the need for individual switches (digital light accessed by a bus command) for each building light and whole load of copper wire (claimed to be as much as 900x less copper) . Digitally controlled lighting systems also have the benefits of saving electrical usage through various algorithms such as “automatic-off” for a group of lights after a “occupancy sweep” or dimming lights appropriately when sensors indicate natural/external lighting sources exist.

Energy efficiency and cost is also a driving factor here. California has time-of-use based utility rates and regulations to drive more efficient energy use. Growing popularity of LEED based building standards is also driving digital lighting adoption from which they can derive LEED credits. With commodity prices for copper/iron are adding to building construction costs, architects are examining lighting options. Another interesting trend is that large scale building may build LEED standards to reduce utility and building costs but avoid the costly certification process and still gaining the cost advantage.

There are several competitors in the market, Johnson, Lutron, Schnieder working extensively to provide systems that are LEEDs compliant.  The growth potential in the market is estimated by Starfield as 1% penetration or 4Bil for all non-residential buildings in the US. There is a large shift to LEED certification, with 856 School projects alone being constructed to this standard, validating the market. Starfield works in new construction projects using advanced building information model systems to retrofits of existing buildings.

Ram Narayanamurthy, Ice Energy, Inc.
Hybrid Cooling Solutions

Ice Energy® manufactures a “phase-shifting” air conditioning device that air-conditions a house by storing ice generated in “off-peak” electricity periods and uses the ice/refrigerant to cool the house during the peak hours with minimal energy usage. This provides the potential of 30% A/C electricity savings if you take into account “time-of-use” rates of the electrical grid.

There is a key green argument for using a cooling system that shifts 95% of its electricity consumption to the night (when the cost is lowest) it lowers the grid peak so that new power plants need not be built. It also offers a cost saving of 10-20% for cooling your house since it make ice during the cool hours of the night. Given that we have a power grid system built in the 19th century and most grids are utilized at 47%, reduction in the peak usage is key to utilities that will in turn are incentivizing customers to shift to non-peak usage of the grid.

Afro Samurai: Resurrection trailer

Refrigerant is essentially used as a battery – which allows alternative energy (wind, solar, etc.) available on the grid but generated at different times of the day to be used (at peak time).  As demonstrated both wind and solar are usually not peaking when electricity demand is the highest. The cooling unit is self contained but it can also be tied into existing cooling systems in the house. It is also very efficient in use of electricity, cooling a building of 300 sq ft. for an equivalent 100 watt or 2 light bulbs. The current solution can only be used for cooling and not heating. There is a significant savings in green house gases generated by this grid with this approach (56 Nitrous oxide, 40% CO2).

The company is partnering with net-zero building construction companies for both residential and commercial. It also has a healthy residential market and is significantly cheaper then putting solar PV into a home investment being around a 4-5K investment versus 20K. There is also the potential for larger scale solutions, one that Denver is proud of is the distict cooling center downtown.download code conspiracy the dvd

For all of those who heard about the Green Frontier Fest at our August meeting – it was great fun. I hope that a number of you got a chance to visit. It was held as part of the DNC convention in front of the Center for Performing arts on August 24th.   We came across a number of previous presenters and members of Colorado Green tech at the event. I’ve included some of the pictures below.

Hybrids plus had a vehicle parked on the curve for people to see. A number of these cars were available for test drives. Hybrids plus presented at our August Meeting.

Tom McKinnon and the Electro-ride scooter seen below were providing test drives. Boulder Electro-Ride also brought their scooter to our last month’s meeting. Kris  being an experienced motorcyclist managed the controls with ease.

Dan Friedlander had a booth with a lot of information on electric cars. He arranged for a number of electric vehicles to be available including vehicle2grid and pure-electric plug-in vehicles including the Tesla below. So for the fans of the Tesla roadster you know the stats are very impressive. It has a 3.9sec 0-60mph acceleration and runs on Li-Ion batteries that can run for 220 miles per charge. So I checked one off my list when I got to take a ride in this car!

Vestas also had a terrific display with an enormous wind turbine blade on a specially rigged 18-wheeler. They are one of the largest green-tech employers in Colorado.

Also there was a trailer full of information on the SmartGrid – SmartCity. Sunil Cherien from Spirae presented to the Green tech group in June on power management and smart-grid technology.

Welcome again to our latest meeting for Green Tech. I hope you all enjoyed our new location and found appropriate parking. By the time the meeting ended I believe it the parking booth was closed giving us free parking for our time in the Atlas Engineering building .

General Announcements

Firstly with the good work Kris has done recruiting sponsors,  we are happy to officially introduce our new sponsor GreenSpark Ventures that specializes specifically in the Cleantech industry.  Kris also mentioned our visit to the Nanotech Summit, see my previous post for details. Fall classes are starting soon and the networking portion of our meeting will go from 6pm to 7pm.

Group Announcements

• Cameron Brooks from Cleantech for Obama is looking for people interested in (1) attending events and (2) helping to organize events. You may contact him at his email or phone (303) 957-7667
• One of this month’s presenters Boulder ElectroRide will be at the Green Frontier Fest being held at the Democratic Convention Sunday Aug 24th
• Green Door Events,  this coming Sunday will be at the Peak Event Center, see the DNC WebSite for more information. Location: 15th and California – Denver, Across from the Hyatt Hotel and one block north of the Convention Center
• LINK, a Denver product design and development firm, is seeking interested parties in support of a educational recycling station designated for schools. Contact Mark Hanchak for more information
• Corey Cox is a Biochemist looking for work in Bio-fuels development. Contact at (303)242-6805

Presenters

Mark Kostovny, Solar Village
Trends in Zero Energy Residential Building

Solar village is a 4 yr old company that has been involved in green home construction in the Colorado area. They specializes in Zero Energy Homes or homes that use zero energy over the year. Some of their recent projects are Prospect, Longmont,  Redwood in Boulder and Maple in Ft. Collins.  They specialize in designing and building homes that minimizing energy usage through green building techniques and drawing energy from renewals.

Construction uses optimized south glass, super insulated walls (isolene spray foam) and passive heating and cooling techniques with desirable thermal mass (to slow heat to the interior) to minimize energy usage. Homes are outfitted with high efficiency hvac systems, lighting and appliances. Also active solar is used to generate power, hot water and hot air.  Heating comes from both radiant floor heat and also heat pumps. Care has been taken to include healthier materials in the home that will not out-gas harmful chemicals such as “low/no VOC” carpets and MDF chipboard.

Solar village has a commercial strategy to scale with turnkey homes. They have optimized a number of components to snap together to reduce construction time and cost. They can build turnkey homes in 2-4 months.  Solar Village has partnered with All American Homes to deliver their homes all over the country.

Tom McKinnon, Boulder ElectroRide Spark a revolution!
Spark the first electric motorcycle of its kind

Wow, really impressed with the look of this bike and Tom! We know Tom works on many projects including his work on cellulosic ethanol. This Boulder Company was founded by four local entrepreneurs, Tom McKinnon, Ned Riedel, Dev Bhatia, and the ride’s creator, Blair Keller.  This product is targeted at the consumer that would do a work commute on an electro-scooter with an stylish “easy-rider” design. The bike has a range of 40 miles per charge,  a top speed of 45 mph and great acceleration. They do not have a final price point yet but expect it be somewhere in the low 3K range.

So how much cheaper is an electric scooter? How about 2.3 cents/mile which is pretty significant if you’re looking a cost effective transportation. Electrical power is not necessarily a clean source, but when you include production, transportation and exhaust from gasoline this puts regular cars at 400g CO2/mile driven and the scooter output at 35g CO2/mile. So we have a very environment friendly transportation alternative here.  The team looked at a number of battery technologies for their design and decided on Lithium-Ion for its better maintenance and performance characteristics. They also put a significant amount of technology and brains into their power management system to support Li-Ion.

There are other competitors in this market, two similar ones are  Zapino (a chinese bike costing around 3K using lead-acid batteries) and Vectix (costing 11K and uses a NiMH batteries). All range of bike categories can also present alternatives to the Electro Scooter, such as old-fashioned pedal bikes, electric/gas assist bikes and full electric bikes.

ElectroRide is starting to take pre-order in Aug 2008 for their model Spark M2.  They are based on a cro-moly frame today and will move from chain to belt drive in the future. The bike does qualify as a scooter for DMV’s purposes. More improvements in the bike design should also make it significantly lighter perhaps in low 100’s). For all wanting to learn more about the bike there is an event schedule on their website.

Carl Lawrence, Hybrids Plus, Inc.
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Carl is somewhat of a quiet legend in Denver-Boulder in the area of hybrid motors. He’s responsible for one of the most early high profile green transportation solutions known as the “Columbine bus“. Found on the 16th st Mall in Denver, these bus are fueled with natural gas (powering an electric motor). They cut emissions by 80% when compared to the old diesel buses the mall used and were put into service in 2000!

Hybrids-plus is well know in Boulder for converting regular hybrid electric vehicles (Ford Escape, Prius) to plug-in hybrids (PHEV). Why do this? You can convert a 50mpg Prius to a 100mpg Prius by replacing the battery pack to a highly efficient battery system. The original batteries are typically NiMH and are converted to a stronger Lithium-Ion battery pack. From the website:

For example, a stock Toyota Prius is an HEV-2, meaning that its battery holds enough energy for about 2 miles. A Hybrids Plus Prius conversion is a PHEV-30, meaning that its battery holds enough energy for about 30 miles.

Currently Hybrids Plus are building the next generation of plug-in hybrid hardware that facilitate vehicle2grid (V2G) enabled vehicles.  V2G Vehicles are active participants in the new SmartGrid envisioned by Xcel Energy and PG&E energy utilities. There are two solutions that Hybrids-Plus offer:

1. Smart Charge (when charging, draws from the grid during non-peak times)
2. V2G Inverger which allows the car to supply power back to the grid.

This new type of smart system needs a connection (done through the phone network) to communicate to/from the power company. Maybe they may consider also using the fiber-optic network going into the SmartGrid homes in Boulder?

So why do this? The details are still being worked out but Carl mentions the utility may incentivize car owners by selling them cheap-rate electricity to charge their car and then allow the owner to sell back to the grid at a premium. We know of two-tier power rates in multiple states such as California, so this rate offering is very plausible . The V2G system will be programmable,  allowing a user to set the battery discharge level to some minimum (e.g. Don’t discharge my battery more than 60%). The benefit of having millions of cars plugged into the grid (as storage devices) is that power can be drawn during peak times and cities/states can reduce the need to build new power plants for peak demand. In relation to charge time, and feed back to the grid, hybrids plus indicates for vehicles with invergers:

Such vehicles will charge rapidly at 220 Vac, and be able to return energy back to the power company in minutes on those rare occasions when the power company suddenly needs extra energy.

Today there is battery competition from a123 and Johnson Controls. The current business strategy is high margin /low volume but the future product lines are meant to be integrated with major manufacturers. Also partnerships with the energy utilities will help take the product lines to higher volume. Future partnerships will include to OEM the battery system to a first tier supplier. Carl expects all vehicles in 10-20 yrs to have electric drive (expecting to hit 42 million by 2012). With the adoption of hybrids today, this is a great time to be an early stage innovator in this space.

Bill Matvichuk, Trulite Inc.
Portable hydrogen Fuel Cell

Trulite designs and builds portable fuel cell power systems. They also offer custom off-grid wind solutions. Products range from individual Polymer Electrolyte Member (PEM) fuel cells to 150 w portable power generators to cost-effective SolarPanel/Fuel cell hybrid generators. A number of applications exists, but the themes are remote power and portable power that is a clean alternative.

From TruLite’s website:

HydroCells are based on a chemical hydride known as Sodium Borohydride. Instead of compressing or liquefying hydrogen, hydrogen molecules are chemically attached to other elements to create what is called a compound. This compound can then be stored without pressure for long periods of time. When hydrogen is needed the compound is reacted and hydrogen is then released as a gas. This method of storing hydrogen is currently the lightest hydrogen storage technology available.

Currently the latest power supply product is the KH4 which is 23lbs and can supply 5hrs @ 150W per HydroCell canister. It currently supports 2 canisters.

Bill had some great stories from the field. The department of defense felt the batteries could power remote electronics along the border areas. Also applications for FBI “silent watches”, such as a telecommunication van,  that need power without using a noisy vehicle motor.  Marine batteries are another great application since a boat can use 100lbs of lead-acid batteries. Weight is reduced dramatically with PEM batteries while eliminating the lead-acid toxic fumes that vent. Hydrogen cells have a water as a by-product and the water is recycled internally.

As we are now on the eve of the Democratic National Congress, we learnt that Trulite will be providing portable power for laptops. ClearChannel wil also be using it for portal power for their mobile cameras! Trulite has a number of strategic partners including Motorola, BK radio and our continually looking to expand with new partners and applications. They see the market around 2.3 Bill and are well positioned to expand into this market.

Over July 20-22nd, Kris and I had a the pleasure of attending the Nano Energy Summit. Once again we’re reminded about the tremendous potential in Colorado to adopt and lead in new sciences such as nanotechnology. The summit was great snapshot of how two domains (Nanotechnology and Renewable Energy) are converging.  Here is the summit summary as published on their site:

The Nano Renewable Energy Summit is a gathering of world-renowned experts at the intersection of renewable energy and nanotechnology, with a specific focus on the business, commercialization, and economic development potential of emerging technologies in the renewable energy and sustainability sectors.

Nanotechnology is enabling green tech to be more competitive.  There was a consistent theme at the summit, essentially that nano/material science is consistently being applied to improve efficiency of existing products from solar panels to battery/storage technologies. Another theme was that countries with strong R&D in nanotechnology can use this competitive advantage to build the next generation of renewable products and services.

Here is a quick synopsis for some of the companies that presented at the conference.

Nanobattery company “mPhase” presented on their product portfolio of batteries and their applications. A key part of their intellectual capital is harnessing the use of the nanotechnology “electrowetting“. This  effect is evident in nature and allows materials surfaces to become porous or superhydrophobic based on the “lotus leaf effect“. It’s behaviour is employed to inhibit/enable current flow between materials in a battery. Also their product research allows for improvements in “energy density” and will help “eliminate discharge”. A historical note was made about the Baghdad battery and how we are in a truly new era of  battery improvements. Their product lines involve emergency and portable batteries that could be hand-cranked or shaken for power.

QuantumSphere Inc. (QSI) presented on their innovations in nanomaterials that help improve existing processes. Again material sciences and applied nanobehavior is engineered to improve efficiency. QSI licenses their Intellectual Property on processes and materials and this IP is used, for example,  to reduce expensive materials (30-50% reduction of platinum) or to improve energy efficiency (30% improvement in Alkaline electrolysis hygrogen production using nano-nickel/iron coating). Another application the company has produced is one that employs nano-silver. This material provides improved characteristics for water filtration and anti-microbials. Solutions also were presented to improve power-density of zinc-air and lithium-ion batteries with improved nano-material catalysts. The below quote to help with some of the characteristics that companies seek to improve:

A battery’s energy density is the amount of energy it can hold, while power density describes how quickly energy can be drawn from the battery at any given moment.

In the area of green construction,  companies such as RavenBrick has developed a technology “RavenSkin” to improve the thermoreflectivity of glass and building components (large panels are rated the equivalent of R11 insulation). This technology would be used in both home and commercial building components. While Prism Solar is improving photovoltaic (PV) efficiency by using solar concentration with a sandwiched holographic layer in front of the PV cell.

Luna Innovations is another company looking to improve the efficiency of solar panels through nano technology. They are looking to grow Organic solar cells that will bring down the cost and weight with their patented TRIMETASPHERE® nanomaterial. This material is based on buckyball “cage” structures and has both positive chemical and biological attributes for solar allowing for 5-6% efficiency but at $1/watt.

Kris and I both looked forward to hear Governor Bill Ritter who presented  as a Keynote speaker. Political legislation has a significant impact on the green economy. Colorado is a progressive state for adopting green legislation. One of the biggest recent achievements in this area, has been when Colorado voters made history by  voting directly for the renewable energy portfolio standard Amendment 37.  In this same vein, Governor Ritter gave us some statistics to think about: we’re the 6th sunniest state, the 9th windiest. We’ve got some of the best R&D in the world with significant contributions in Aerospace, Life Sciences and Energy research. Colorado was rated by CNBC as the 5th best state for business and the 10th best for nanotechnology. As far as benefits, Mr Ritter spoke for the state government,  acknowledging not only the economic benefits of renewables but also the residual benefits of a clean environment.  Governor Ritter  mentioned his trade mission trip to Spain. The state government has been active trying to attract key foreign companies to Colorado. A couple of great examplesa has been Vesta from Denmark and Abengoa Solar from Spain which setup a plant in Denver for development of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology. He also shared his experiences from a recent trip to the Arctic which included multiple world leaders. They discussed amongst many things the environment. Some of his takeways were that it was evident that technology is critical to renewable energy improvements and these are coming from material science and nanotechnology.

Another keynote speaker was the Director-General, of the Russian corporation of Nanotechnologies.  Russia is working to build a significiant portfolio of nano-technology companies. They are expecting to invest 10Bil in Nanotechnology in the coming future and are looking for foreign investment to be included in this portfolio. Many of the traditional western capalistic tools are being employed there, such as providing low interest loans, infrastructure access and access to capital and seed money.  Russia has formally introduced itself as a part of the new generation of countries investing heavily in renewables and nanotechnology .