Cleantech Open Announces 2009 Competition Winners

The Cleantech Open recently announced the winners of this year’s competition at the third annual Cleantech Open Expo and Awards Gala in San Francisco. Dubbed the “Academy Awards of Clean Technology,” the event marks the grand finale of the Cleantech Open's yearlong business competition.

The Cleantech Open is the world’s largest cleantech business competition. Its mission is to find, fund and foster entrepreneurs that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental and economic challenges. The program provides the infrastructure, expertise and strategic relationships to turn ideas into successful global cleantech companies.

Since 2006, through its annual business competition and mentorship program, the Cleantech Open has helped hundreds of clean technology startups bring their breakthrough ideas to fruition, helping alumni contestants raise over $125 Million, and making thousands of green collar jobs possible.

2009 National Prize
Selected from the 12 finalists in the Cleantech Open business plan competition, EcoFactor was awarded the National Prize. EcoFactor entered in the smart power category, with a personalized residential energy management solution for heating, ventilation and air conditioning. The grand prize is valued at $250,000, including $100,000 of seed capital.

“Being named the Cleantech Open national winner really validates our solution and our business model, and proves that the market is looking for energy-efficiency solutions that don't ask people to change their behavior or sacrifice comfort,” said John Steinberg, CEO and co-founder of EcoFactor. “This award will help us further advance our mission of providing personalized residential energy management solutions, because we believe consumers shouldn't have to choose between savings, comfort and convenience.”

The judges also nominated two runners-up for the National Prize: Alphabet Energy (waste-heat recapture); and MicroMidas (transforms raw sewage into biodegradable plastic). Earlier in the day, audience members at the Awards Gala voted Alphabet Energy as the People’s Choice business competition winner.

2009 Alumni Award winner
Each year, the Cleantech Open leadership team identifies an alumni company that has made significant progress during the year. This year, the Alumni award went to Adura Technologies, which manufactures and sells lighting and energy management controls that are easy to install and use. In a recent two-week test with PG&E, Adura managed to reduce light load by 72 percent.

2009 National Sustainability Award winner
Each team’s sustainability technologies and ideas are given additional scrutiny by the mentors and judges, and each team receives specific sustainability mentoring. This year’s National Sustainability award of $20,000 goes to HydroVolts, whose innovative in-stream hydrokinetic turbine enables distributed clean-energy generation from canals, waterways, spillways, rivers, streams, and tidal currents around the world. 

2009 Global Cleantech Open Ideas winner
For the first time, cleantech innovations from around the world were featured at the Cleantech Open. In the Global Cleantech Open Ideas Competition, startups from around the world competed for a prize worth $100,000 in startup services. Entries were received from Brazil, China, Denmark, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, and the USA. Audience members voted Replenish Energy of Puerto Rico the winner of the Global Cleantech Open Ideas competition. Micro-algae are the world’s most efficient renewable energy source currently available: it can deliver 48,000 kilowatts of electricity per million dollars capital invested; this compares to 470kW for solar panels and 1,300kW for wind turbines.

This year, at the Cleantech Open’s biggest event ever, thousands of people representing the nascent cleantech industry —contestants, alumni teams from previous years, mentors, venture capitalists and budding cleantech entrepreneurs — convened in San Francisco to showcase the best in cleantech innovation from national and international teams.