Cleantech Insights

Regenerative Agriculture: Agricultural Revolution or Carbon Pricing Capitalism?

Chris Sworder
Posted on by Chris Sworder
Regenerative agriculture is about improving soil through better farm practices. The aim is to use farming practices that increase soil health through increased biodiversity, water retention, topsoil protection, and other farming process improvements. One key measure of healthy soil is carbon content. Therefore, a working carbon market for agricultural sequestration of carbon is a powerful lever to promote regenerative agricultural practices. The scale of the opportunity is hard to quantify, as regenerative agriculture practices can be implemented in most agricultural... Read More »

Maritime Shipping – Sector Watch 9 August 2019

Cassidy Shell
Posted on by Cassidy Shell
Once considered slow-moving and outdated, the maritime shipping industry has experienced a recent influx of digitization and the implementation of new technologies, including autonomous ships, blockchain, drones and geospatial analytics. According to the 2018 Review of Maritime Transport, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) considers technological advances and efforts to curb the industry’s carbon footprint two of the key trends shaping the future of the maritime shipping industry.AttractivenessShips are powered by heavy fuel oil, the most polluting... Read More »

Recent Deals – 9 August 2019

Cassidy Shell
Posted on by Cassidy Shell
Agriculture & Food:   Inari, a developer of genetic engineering tools for the agricultural sector, raised $89 million in growth equity. Investors included Flagship Pioneering, Investment Corporation of Dubai, EDBI and Acre Venture Partners. The new round of capital will be used to further the company’s computational and genomic tools, as well as accelerate the commercialization and introduction of its corn and soybean seeds to the US market. Within the next two years, Inari plans to expand into other crops.... Read More »

Insurance and the Low-Carbon Economy – A Meeting of Minds and Markets

Holly Stower
Posted on by Holly Stower
The insurance industry should reflect the society it underwrites risk for. The transition to a low-carbon economy means that incumbents are now looking for new and better ways to meet their clients' changing needs. Many insurance incumbents are looking at the opportunities connected to cleantech, while also recognizing their responsibilities and interest in mitigating the physical, transitional and liability risks associated with climate change. European and U.S. insurance markets have been typically slow to innovate; for example, the London Market only started to digitize in 2016. Whereas emerging... Read More »

Japan – Asia’s Biggest Energy Market Opportunity in 2019?

Louis Brasington
Posted on by Louis Brasington
One of the largest economies in the world and the fourth largest consumer of electricity, Japan has long been a recognized leader in energy technology development. The 2011 earthquake and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear accident triggered a major overhaul of the energy market in Japan. As a result, local and foreign innovators are now looking to capitalize on emerging opportunities.  Start-ups and players with established customer bases are entering the market, seeing the opportunity to capture new value. Over the... Read More »

Challenges and Opportunities for a Distributed Grid: Opinions from the Latest Power Breakfast

Cassidy Shell
Posted on by Cassidy Shell
With 80 million smart meters currently in use and 40 million anticipated in the home by 2020, falling electric vehicle (EV) battery costs, smart buildings and growth in renewable energy and energy storage, the centralized grid of the past is becoming more distributed, drawing electrons from these grid edge resources for increased flexibility and reliability in anticipation of a carbon-free energy generation. Recently, we teamed up with Silicon Valley Bank and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati to host a Power... Read More »

The Dairy Industry – Sector Watch 26 July 2019

Chris Sworder
Posted on by Chris Sworder
The dairy market has a value of $674 billion, based on revenue generated by milk products globally. This is expected to grow annually by 4.7% CAGR by 2023. Despite the positive outlook for market size, North American and European margins are low and milk prices are stagnant due to a production surplus.AttractivenessRegional regulatory changes such as the EU dropping its Milk Quota system in 2015 have kept prices low and production high, while Africa and Asia are seeing growing supply shortages.... Read More »

Recent Deals – 26 July 2019

Chris Sworder
Posted on by Chris Sworder
Agriculture & Food:   Joyn Bio announced a partnership with NewLeaf Symbiotics. Valued at $75 million, the deal will aim to bring forth a new microbe class that will benefit crop health and protection. Through this deal, Joyn Bio will gain access to NewLeaf’s library of proprietary, highly characterized strains of plant colonizing microbes.   Energy & Power: Innowatt, a developer of real-time energy monitoring and prediction software for energy retailers and utilities, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from... Read More »

Europe’s Growing Battery Manufacturing Market: Focus on Local Opportunities

Louis Brasington
Posted on by Louis Brasington
From an outsider's perspective, regional consolidation of the battery manufacturing market looks fairly resolved. Over 70% of the 1,000 GWh of planned capacity (by 2023) is centered in China. Increasingly frequent announcements of new manufacturing plants from players such as Great Wall Motors/SVolt, Sunwoda, and EVE Energy illustrates the pace at which the market can grow in China. A European Problem Needs a Local Solution In Europe, current battery cell manufacturing is less than 3% of the global share, and... Read More »

EV Charging: Software and Grid Services

Cassidy Shell
Posted on by Cassidy Shell
Vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, is becoming a buzzword in the electric vehicle (EV) charging industry with 50 V2G projects  around the world trying to figure out how to make it work for all participants - EV owners, utilities, auto OEMs and EV charging developers. V2G technology involves communication between EV chargers and the power grid to delay charging and/or dispatch stored electricity back to the grid, providing demand response and frequency regulation services. This effectively turns EV batteries into an energy... Read More »