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2013 National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition Highlights Technology Innovation

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


One week from today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition will crown its 2013 national champion. Participating in this final round of competition will be the winners of six regional competitions, which were held in April and May around the United States. Their work reveals some of the exciting energy technology innovations that are currently at the cusp of commercialization in the United States.

This year’s finalists include:

  1. SiNode Systems – with their lithium battery Si-graphene composite anode technology, this company could drastically increase battery storage capacity (from Northwestern University, winner of the Western Southwest Region --Rice Business Plan Competition run by Rice University)

  2. Bioadhesive Alliance Inc.– this company’s PiGrid technology is made from hog waste and can replace petroleum-based asphalt binders (from North Carolina A&T University, winner of the Southeastern Region -- ACC Clean Energy Challenge run by University of Maryland)

  3. Bearing Analytics– this company’s technology offers temperature and vibration sensing capabilities to wind turbine stakeholders. These capabilities can be used to predict bearing failure, extending wind turbine lifetimes and reducing the costs associated with gearbox failures (from Purdue University, winner of the Eastern Midwest Region -- Clean Energy Trust Clean Energy Challenge run by Clean Energy Trust)

  4. Invironment – this company wants to use their patent-pending PlasTek technology to help plastic in landfills to decompose more rapidly. They estimate that this will increase landfill capacity by 13-20%, while also producing enough methan to power thousands of homes (from Brigham Young University, winner of the Western Midwest Region -- CU Cleantech New Ventures Challenge run by University of Colorado-Boulder)

  5. Picasolar– this company uses a new hydrogen selective emitter (HSE) technology to “fix flaws in silicon solar cells” for an out the door cost of <$0.01. By improving the electrical connection between layers in the solar cell, this technology can increase cell efficiency and decrease electricity generation costs(from University of Arkansas, winner of the Northeast Region -- MIT Clean Energy Prize run by Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  6. Pyro-E- this company proposes using a solid state device that can convert waste heat (for example, from fuel cell servers, industrial furnaces, and automobile exhaust) into electricity in order to increase efficiency and reduce fuel costs. (from University of California Berkeley, winner of the Western Region -- First Look West run by California Institute of Technology)


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The National Competition will be streamed live on June 12 from 8:30am to 6:00pm EDT from The George Washington University Jack Morton Auditorium.

To attend the event in person, you can register here.

A full agenda can be found here.