Energy efficiency

Lighting

Albeo Technologies
Colorado, US.
Founded 2004
Employees: 20
Product description: LED lighting

An industry leader in solid-state LED lighting, Boulder-based Albeo Technologies produces lighting for the general commercial and industrial sectors. Manufacturing and marketing white state-of-the-art LED lighting, it also aims to cut down operating costs (with its low-energy consumption and low-maintenance designs) and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Its LED Academy publishes papers, “webinars” and case studies for the advancement and adoption of LED lighting technology. All its products are covered by a five-year warranty. Furthermore, it says that its products “last up to 10 times longer than fluorescent bulbs, are non-breakable and do not contain mercury”.

Bridgelux
California, US. Founded 2002
Employees: 85
Product description: Lighting

Bridgelux believes it is the first, new US-based LED (light-emitting diode) manufacturer of the past 20 years. It helps customers switch from traditional, less efficient lighting systems (such as incandescent, halogen and fluorescent lighting) to solid-state lighting solutions that are less wasteful because they generate less heat as a by-product. It provides higher performance and energy-efficient white light for indoor and exterior application areas. With its latest innovations, Bridgelux LED Arrays, the company believes it will drive down the high costs that have held back the spread of solid-state lighting. As well as addressing cost issues, the Array products are designed to optimise the quantity of light, energy efficiency, colour rendering and beam uniformity.

D.light Design
New Delhi, India.
Founded 2006
Employees: 50
Product description: Low-cost LED lighting

D.light Design aims to be providing safe and reliable LED lighting to 10 million people by 2010, and to 15 million by 2015. Trying to find safe, high-quality replacements for kerosene lanterns (notorious in developing countries for falling over and causing fires), the D.light founders are using energy-efficient LEDs, designed in Silicon Valley, for new lighting systems designed to provide years of service. Its flagship product, the Nova Mobile S200, can give up to 12 hours of bright light on a day’s charge, and it can recharge a mobile phone in two hours. D.light’s current main markets are India and east Africa.

Novaled
Dresden, Germany.
Founded 2001
Employees: 100
Product description: Oled technology

This world-leading company in organic light-emitting diodes (Oleds) hopes its electronics will help make TV, PDA and laptop screens more efficient, as well as providing signage and lighting that uses less power. An Oled is a light-emitting diode made of a thin film of organic compounds. It has a significant advantage over traditional LEDs because it needs no backlight to function, although life expectancy of the organic compound is not as long. Oleds not only save power but can also be “printed” on to almost any surface. They can even be rolled up, making TV on your T-shirt a possibility.

Glass

ChromoGenics
Uppsala, Sweden.
Founded 2003
Employees: 21
Product description: Glass

A world leader in glass technology, ChromoGenics is developing a range of products that could transform the way we control temperature and heat. It has run laboratory trials on the developments it has made in electrochromism – the science of how materials can change colour when electrical charges are applied to them. There are numerous applications, ranging from smart windows in “intelligent housing” to display technologies. The company is about to start its first customer deliveries. Glass is the new steel, it claims.

Buildings

AlertMe
Cambridge, UK.
Founded 2006
Employees: 26
Product description: Smart energy service

AlertMe estimates that its energy-saving technology can save consumers up to 25% of their yearly energy costs, often paying for itself in the first 12 months and knocking one tonne off the average home’s annual COemissions. Users of its Energy Kit connect it to their home’s broadband connection and then receive an online service that can be viewed via computer or mobile phone, anywhere, anytime. The package constantly measures and controls the home’s overall energy usage and turns off or down many household appliances, thereby cutting energy consumption and costs.

Climate Well
Hägersten, Sweden.
Founded 2001
Employees: 51
Product description: Air-conditioning systems

Climate Well is developing solar-powered air-conditioning systems for households and commercial use. Central to its innovations is what it describes as “something many thought was impossible: a “heat pump” able to store energy and convert hot water to cooling and heating without electricity. It estimates the heat pump could harness free solar energy to cover 85% of the heating and air conditioning of most buildings. The pump technology, called Triple-State Absorption, is proprietary. The company has completed construction of its factory in Spain and is selling in various national markets including Dubai, Italy and France.

EnOcean
Munich, Germany.
Founded 2001
Employees: 45
Product description: Building sensors

Wireless, self-powered, virtually maintenance-free sensors designed and patented by Oberhaching-based EnOcean are now operating in over 100,000 buildings around the world. The sensors control the settings of heat, light and air-conditioning equipment and work by transmitting radio signals (on 868 MHz and 315 MHz-frequency bands) suitable for use worldwide. As they draw their energy from their environment (light and heat), they do not need batteries or cords and can run for decades without being changed or checked. EnOcean GmbH was founded as a spin-off from Siemens.

Ice Energy
Colorado, US.
Founded 2003
Employees: 60
Product description: Ice-based air conditioning

Using patented technology, Ice Energy has developed an air-conditioning system (Ice Bear) that stores cooling energy at night by freezing water in an insulated storage tank, and then cools buildings during the day by circulating the chilled refrigerant. It has also developed advanced software systems and intelligent two-way controls to make it easier for utilities to manage peaks in energy demand, and to take advantage, through Ice Bear, of their low-demand periods, an area of growing importance during times of energy price spikes. The company is working with at least three utilities companies on energy-efficiency schemes.

Powerit Solutions
Seattle, US.
Founded 2005
Employees: 52
Product description: Energy management systems

Using electricity in a more clever, efficient way is behind Powerit Solutions’ Spara technology, which analyses a company’s power usage and sets out more efficient operating routines – whether it be manipulating equipment to operate during less expensive periods, or closing down air conditioning when not needed. As a result, the company reckons firms can save as much as 30% of their energy expenditure by using its predictive control software and also working with the power generators to take advantage of lower pricing and off-peak rates.

Serious Materials
Sunnyvale, California, US.
Founded 2002
Employees: 200
Product description: Environmentally friendly building materials

Manufacturing at four US sites, Serious Materials develops and makes sustainable, green building materials that dramatically reduce the impact of the built environment on the climate. These include Serious Windows, high-performance insulated windows and glass that can reduce heating and cooling energy costs and emissions by up to 40%, and EcoRock, a green alternative to standard drywall that uses 80% less energy to produce its core, resulting in 80% lower CO₂ emissions.

SynapSense
Folsom, California, US.
Founded 2006
Employees: 10
Product description: Wireless management for building environments

Virtually all facilities with critical thermal targets, such as IT data centres or labs, over-cool their environments to ensure adequate safeguards. SynapSense’s systems help avoid this by providing facility managers an energy-efficiency system that allows companies to measure and manage their energy usage and global carbon footprint in real time, using wireless instrumentation, networking and management software, and thus avoiding the need for expensive and disruptive wiring.

Tendril
Boulder, Colorado, US.
Founded 2004
Employees: 50
Product description: Remote appliance and energy management

Smart energy software is one thing, doing something with it is quite another. But Tendril’s Tree Platform not only tells consumers what is using power and when, but it then links up with your home’s appliances to allow you to control them remotely, programming them to operate at more efficient or cheaper times. Next year, the company aims to introduce an application for iPhones, allowing consumers to keep track of their home’s energy usage and be able to turn off the heating or turn on the cooker, remotely.

Saving power

CamSemi
Cambridge, UK.
Founded 2000
Employees: 51
Product description: Power management integrated circuits

CamSemi is a leader in intelligent power-management integrated circuits, helping the consumer electronics sector develop much more energy-efficient power supplies, lighting and other power conversion products at low cost. Products based around CamSemi chips have simple circuitry, offer high performance and exceed the demands of Energy Star, the European code of conduct and other energy-efficiency regulations. The company’s C2160 products – launched this July – are designed to allow mobile phone and other manufacturers to introduce highly energy-efficient chargers – quickly and at low cost. CamSemi also has centres in Tapei, Taiwan and Shenzhen, China.

CPower
New York, US.
Founded 2000
Employees: 80
Product description: Energy management

CPower focuses on reducing its clients’ energy consumption – and energy bills – by delivering targeted energymanagement services, including demand-response and energy-efficiency. These services allow companies to optimise their facilities and operations and feel the benefit on the bottom line. CPower is an industry pioneer that has grown into one of the largest energy management firms in the world, by combining an understanding of energy management technologies, energy markets and the daily challenges of achieving cost-efficient energy sustainability.

eMeter
California, US.
Founded 1999
Employees: 140
Product description: Smart metering

The latest product from this San Mateo-based metering company is a software management kit that helps utility companies tell their customers about their real-time energy usage and potential energy savings. Consumers can track their usage and associated costs – down to hourly intervals – online, via mobile device or email. Over the last decade, eMeter has built smart grid management software for electric, gas and water utilities in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. It has over 24m meters under contract today. Swifter billing and improved customer service (facilitated by spotting problems or unexpected developments quicker) are by-products of the process.

EPS Corp
California, US.
Founded 2001
Employees: 75
Product description: Energy management systems

From its Costa Mesa base, EPS Corp has developed a three-step approach for Fortune 500 companies wanting to reduce their carbon footprint. Over 100 companies are using its systems, particularly in its target markets of food processing, manufacturing, dairy and utilities. Its EPS xChangePoint system, for instance, was designed for manufacturing organisations, and it measures both energy use and carbon emissions in real time, making reports to management by setting and tracking key performance indicators. As well as reducing emissions and increasing energy efficiency, the system can also generate general productivity gains.

Nujira
Cambridge, UK.
Founded 2002
Employees: 50
Product description: Efficient signal amplification

Nujira’s compact power amplifiers are reducing by half the amount of power needed to run the base stations and transmitters integral to mobile phone networks – an energy-saving technology that could provide massive benefits globally. Such is the increase in transmission efficiency, and therefore battery life, that many major communications networks are assessing the Cambridge-based firm’s technology for future integration into their cellular and digital products.

Power Plus Communications
Manheim, Germany.
Founded 2001
Employees: 30
Product description: Internet-based smart metering

Understanding energy use is vital for lowering its consumption, and Power Plus Communications’ smart metering system allows households to see at any time how much gas and electricity is being used, and by which appliances. Using a broadband internet system, it gathers data from intelligent meters in the electricity grid within seconds and makes power consumption data available for use immediately. Together with energy suppliers, the firm has successfully connected more than 300,000 households across Europe.

Ubidyne
Ulm, Germany.
Founded 2005
Employees: 63
Product description: Wireless communications

Ubidyne’s digital, active antenna system for technology such as mobile phones and digital radio is designed to reduce energy consumption significantly while improving signal performance. It eliminates the need for numerous cables and amplifiers on antenna towers and masts because the digital radio frequency unit is integrated into the antenna housing, making the mobile communications network much cheaper to set up and run. Both Nokia and Vodafone are testing the system.

Verdiem
Seattle, Washington, US.
Founded 2001
Employees: 50
Product description: Energy management for IT networks

Two-thirds of a firm’s IT network energy usage occurs when a computer isn’t being used, in particular during after-office hours. Verdiem’s Surveyor energy management product allows businesses to control the amount of power used by their IT network, using a smart central management system. Intelligent policies maximise energy savings by placing machines into a lower power state without interfering with end-user productivity, desktop maintenance or upgrades, and cutting utility costs by as much as 30%, the company claims.

Smart Grids

GridPoint
Virginia, US.
Founded 2003
Employees: 130
Product description: Smart grid software platform

GridPoint’s software is used to load energy on to the grid, store it and then release it to users at the exact point when it is needed. Utility companies can balance supply and demand more efficiently and improve grid reliability. Consumers can also use GridPoint software to manage their energy consumption. The software is capable of taking into account a wide range of energy sources and uses, including plug-in electric vehicles, solar panels, advanced storage technologies and household devices such as thermostats, electric water heaters and pool pumps.

RLtec
London, UK.
Founded 1999
Employees: 9
Product description: Smart grid technology

How clever is your fridge? The problem with renewable energy, such as wind or solar power, is that it’s difficult to plan supply and, if the sun stops shining or wind drops at times of high network usage, you’d have a melted ice cream problem. Among RLtec’s smart grid solutions is Dynamic Demand, a system which allows appliances to monitor their own usage and work out if they can move to lower power states for a time to limit their demand. It displaces high-carbon emitting generation with lower-carbon alternatives as much as possible and helps to facilitate the integration of renewable energy into the grid.

Silver Spring Networks
Redwood City, California, US.
Founded 2002
Employees: 600
Product description: Smart grid metering

The human meter-reader could soon be following the dodo, thanks to Silver Spring: a smart grid connected through the internet that can tell utility companies, and consumers at home and in businesses, exactly what electricity is being used when, where and by whom. That means homeowners will be able to discover when electricity is most expensive and at its highest usage, and tailor their power demand accordingly, in real time, or choose alternative methods. Silver Spring estimates its systems could see energy savings of up to 20%.

SmartSynch
Jackson, Mississippi, US.
Founded 1999
Employees: 70
Product description: Smart grid technology

Instead of installing expensive private wireless networks to operate across the grid, SmartSynch uses public wireless networks from telephone companies and other communication installations to hook up a network of smart meters. With 100 north American electric utility customers needing to manage their power output, the SmartSynch system keeps them informed of peaks and troughs in supply so they can efficiently adjust output without having to install their own private networks. The US Department of Energy says the total potential benefit of implementing smart grid technologies over the next 20 years is conservatively estimated at $75bn.

Trilliant
Redwood City, California, US.
Founded 2004
Employees: 110
Product description: Smart grid metering and management

With sales of more than 1m two-way, intelligent communication devices for smart grid management for water, gas and electricity, Trilliant can claim to be one of the biggest players in a fast-emerging market. The company, established in 2004, supplies advanced metering products that let utilities deliver higher levels of customer service and information, reduce operational costs, and provide innovative new programs, thus allowing consumers to change their consumption behaviour to take advantage of lower market prices.