This Past Week in Cleantech

Beyond all the discussions about emissions reductions and capping and trading at the COP15 climate change meetings this December, expect to hear a persistent sub-theme about tech transfer between developed countries and lesser developed ones.

And the topic of cleantech intellectual property rights (IPR)—and who should own them—is only going to become more of a focus as clean technologies are asked to scale, particularly in the developing world.

The transition to a low carbon economy will lead to a more decentralised energy infrastructure whereby energy will be generated from far more locations – such as from domestic roof-top solar panels. This contrasts with the current infrastructure which entails electricity being generated and distributed from a few centralised power plants.

If you couple this with the fact that many of the main sources of renewable energy generation are intermittent, then one cannot escape the conclusion that the amount of energy-related information that the world will need to process is going to jump to unheard of levels.

Interesting nuggets remain to be found in last quarter's cleantech venture data.

For instance, as a percentage of early stage deals done in last quarter's cleantech venture data (3Q09), alternative energy ventures—in particular solar, followed by energy efficiency and materials—received the largest share of early stage venture deals done.

This tells us a few things when compared to this quarter’s main investment trends:

A recent solar advancement out of Georgia Institute of Technology may be innovative, but it is by no means novel.

Researchers said they’ve come up with a three-dimensional photovoltaic system that could allow PV systems to be located other places besides rooftops. The technology uses zinc oxide nanostructures grown on optical fibers and coated with dye-sensitized solar cell materials.

The researchers said the technology enables PV generators to be foldable, concealed and mobile. According to Professor Zhong Lin Wang, optical fiber could conduct sunlight into a building’s walls, where the nanostructures would convert it to electricity.