Clean Tech Open rebrands, awards California winners

"Like most other good things that start in California, it's too good to keep to yourselves," noted David Rodgers, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

So it was only fitting that the venerable organization known as the California Clean Tech Open, which only dates back to 2005, was sporting a new, modular logo at its annual events ceremony this evening, and has changed its website to simply cleantechopen.com.

The subtle change is intended to allow the prepending of other geographies as new Clean Tech Opens are introduced elsewhere.

A first affiliate organization outside of California is to be the Rocky Mountain Clean Tech Open, to launch early in 2009, with others to follow, even internationally, according to organizers.

The DOE, a longstanding supporter of the event, is helping underwrite the growth.

"We're very pleased to be partnering with the Clean Tech Open to support the national expansion to give even more Americans access to the CTO network and your vision for clean technology innovation," said Rodgers.

This year, as in previous, six companies in six categories each won $50,000 cash from large corporate sponsors seeking associations with the categories, as well as the equivalent of another $50,000 in donated business services such as legal, PR, executive search, accounting and office space.

The 2008 winners, by category, included:

• Air, Water & Waste: Over the Moon Diapers, maker of "high performance [ed.: high performance?], consumer friendly diapers" made of recycled fabric that can be laundered by diaper services. Runner up: Porifera, maker of a carbon nanotube membrane for reverse osmosis desalination.
• Energy Efficiency: Viridis Earth, maker of a pre-evaporative device that the company says can lower an air conditioner's energy requirements by 20 percent.
  At a retain price of $350 USD, the company claims it can pay for itself in a single summer. Runner up: NexChem, an energy saving process for zinc galvanizing.
• Green Building: BottleStone, maker of a stone-like material made of 80 percent recycled waste glass. Intended for interior and exterior horizontal and vertical surfaces as a replacement for stone and cast concrete.
  Runners up: GroundSource Geo, a bundled geothermal heating cooling and hot water solution, and Solar Red, developers of a system to cut the cost of residential photovoltaic solar installations in half
• Renewables: Focal Point Energy for its steam-based streteched membrane solar concentrator intended for cooling, space heating and process heat applications. Runner up: Renewable Fuel Technologies, converter of agricultural waste biomass into compound that can be used in cement.
• Smart Power: Power Assure, developers of energy efficiency management software for data centers. Claims dramatic savings for virtualized or conventional web server farms and associated cooling of data centers. Runner up: Energy Empowered, a maker of home dislay and control systems to reduce standby power usage.
• Transportation: ElectraDrive and its kit that aims to convert conventional gas vehicle fleets to all-electric. Aimed at cars and light truck fleets initially, with potential consumer applicability. Runner up: Goose Networks, developer of 'commute management' software.

An alumni award, presented to the company from last year that had found the most traction with investors and customers, was bestowed on NiLA, developer of LED-based lights for the stage and entertainment industry. The company's lights use 50 percent to 70 percent less electricity and generate 75 percent less heat, it says. And, they're not toxic and don't contain mercury.

The company's first customer was the forthcoming James Bond film Quantum of Solace, which the company says purchased thirty of its lights.

Aside from the obvious benefits of potentially winning, applicants' $250 entry fees also entitled them to workshops to learn how to effectively craft their companies' business plan executive summaries and how to make their own enterprise more sustainable.

Styled as a gala event, not all of the evening's several hundred attendees were swept away in the glitz.

"The best companies aren't here," noted one investor, who asked to remain unnamed, suggesting "cleantech companies with genuinely breakthrough technologies have no problems finding money on their own."

Other attendees groused that the competition, which organizers characterized as their own idea, should actually be credited to Anna Halpern-Lande, who they say conceived of it in Massachusetts Institute of Technology club sessions.

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