FountainBlue

FountainBlue's Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum on the topic of Materials Innovations in Clean Tech, featuring:

Facilitator Jill Weir, Product Manager, TE Connectivity

Panelist Scott Elrod, Vice President, Director of Hardware Systems Laboratory, PARC

Panelist Alissa Peterson, Director, Product Marketing and Business Development, Primus Power

Presenting Entrepreneur Phillip Roberts, CEO and Founder, Ionex Energy Storage Systems Inc.

Please join us in thanking our speakers for taking the time to share their advice and thoughts and to PARC for hosting us. Below are notes from the conversation. 

Our panelists spoke passionately about the opportunities for materials innovation, and how it can change clean energy offerings that are both practical and affordable for customers like utilities, corporations, manufacturers and homeowners.

Below are some thoughts on the opportunities ahead for materials innovation in clean tech:

• Develop materials and solutions which would help manage the peaks and valleys brought by renewable energy getting into the grid. This will become increasingly important.
• In the same token, develop materials innovations which fit within existing infrastructure and even make the infrastructure more flexible, more scalable.
• Consider automating basic, needed services which use fewer resources, like anything from window-cleaning to car and battery maintenance.
• Use plentiful, inexpensive, proven materials and scale manufacturing and development using these materials.
• Consider developing solutions which are closer to the 'load', where the customer demand is greatest. This may mean many micro- solutions for energy management.
• Adapt current materials which make products smaller, lighter, and more durable under extreme conditions, and its applications in the clean energy space.

• Our panelists cautioned entrepreneurs about investing *too* much time and money into the development of a novel, groundbreaking material, and suggested instead to look at proven materials and adapting them to new purposes, to new markets, using new geometries, new manufacturing processes, new composites/combinations, etc. Not only would doing so decrease the likelihood of creating a product or service more quickly for a proven market and paying customer, but it would also be easier to seek funding and partnerships.
• Develop processes and solutions which would make production of your materials cost-effectively, so that you reach grid parity and customers would get the ROI.
• Make it easy for customers to select your solution, changing from their current option. People want to be earth-friendly, but the financial commitment up-front and the technical/hassle-factor is a hurdle to adopting 'cleaner' options.
• Leverage partnerships with academics, entrepreneurs, corporates, etc and collaborate to develop new solutions, distribute them to new markets and channels, etc
• Know your area of specialty and work with others to create win-win partnerships for everything from development to manufacturing to distribution and funding.
• Know your market and sell to your market. Prioritize which markets you will sell to when and know why.
• Provide offerings which could withstand extreme conditions - weather, heat, chemicals, etc. and also last for long periods of time, like a decade or two.
• Follow basic business principles: have a great idea and prove it through measurable outcomes based on aggressive milestones and timelines.
• Consider aerospace and military applications for your materials innovation.
• Collaborate to influence policy to be more friendly to innovations in this space.
• Have your finger on market pulse and focus on the needs and feedback of your customers.

In the end, entrepreneurs who will succeed in this space will focus more on incremental innovations than on creating/identifying a game-changing new material, more about business models than on 'rocket science', more about producing real value to paying customers and scaling to meet the current and anticipated needs of a global marketplace.

FountainBlue's Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was on the topic of Next Generation Solar Solutions, featuring:

Facilitator Shirin Cooper, Business Development, Sylvatex

Panelist Sean Garner, Manager, Energy Systems Group, PARC

Presenting Entrepreneurs Vikas Desai, CEO, EchoFirst Inc

Presenting Entrepreneur Jason Lu, Founder and CEO, EnFocus Engineering

Presenting Entrepreneur Alain Poivet, Founder and CEO, SunPlanter

Please join us in thanking our hosts at PARC and our speakers for taking the time to share their advice and thoughts. Below are notes from the conversation. 

We were fortunate to have a wide range of perspectives on the panel: entrepreneurs from Asia, Europe and India, technology innovations in microinverters, integrated power and lighting, customized and integrated solar solutions with web-based user interface, and solar plant managers. Together, they have spent decades in the clean energy space, watching the ups and downs and have remarked on the following trends:

• Partly due to the manufacturing and process innovations introduced by China, (and neglecting the environmental impact of these changes) solar panels have become largely a commodity, impacting the industry overall.
• Led by Germany's embracing of the solar market potential through subsidies, many European countries followed and enjoyed leadership in adoption and market, but financially-imposed policy changes in most European countries other than Germany makes it now difficult for both innovators and customers in Europe. Hence, people are looking more closely at markets in Asia and Latin America.
• The US with its huge market, technology innovations, entrepreneurial culture and great weather has the potential to be a leader in this space. However, local, state and federal policy hurdles, infrastructure challenges, lack of cooperation and coordination between major stakeholders, funding challenges, local government bureaucrats and policies are making it difficult for entrepreneurs to succeed.

Our panelists recommended the following opportunities ahead:

• Develop integrated solutions, leveraging existing and hybrid technology - for example, integrating power generation and lighting, or leveraging microinverters, or a racking system that saves installation time.
• Create cost-effective technologies that will provide an attractive ROI of 2-4 years, without subsidy.
• Develop solutions which can be easily integrated into existing buildings, infrastructure etc. For example, if a solar panel could replace a sunroof, it would be much easier to sell the value proposition.
• Find a way to use all the energy from the sun, leveraging mirrors or other technologies. Currently, there is a lot of wasted energy through heat.
• Develop manufacturing process improvements - perhaps something that doesn't require the dicing of wafers, leveraging exfoliation techniques, perhaps something that requires less materials or is less labor intensive.
• Leverage sensors and software to provide details about solar energy usage.

• Work with other stakeholders to minimize policy/reimbursement and pricing and installation uncertainties.
• We live in a global world, and markets will be global. Have a clear strategy on which markets are hottest now, the easiest to navigate, and prioritize your target markets accordingly.
• Focus less on the technology innovations and think deeply about the technology integration opportunities and the business model innovations.
• The market is still young and the opportunities are huge. Don't let the recent failures in the market discourage you from exploring the opportunities in the space.
• Despite the hype, there are fewer subsidies for solar than there are for other emerging clean energy options including nuclear. And established businesses such as coal and gas have the largest subsidies of all.! So it will take leadership to forge change and encourage policies, people and markets to embrace more sustainable energy solutions.
• Create a solution leveraging and integrating proven technologies which is not capital intensive, and shows quick wins.
• Collaborate with all stakeholders to support the advancement of the industry overall, not just in the US, but all the global markets.
• Look closely at the opportunities in the retail market. What will generate a clear and quick ROI and be painless to install and implement?
• Scaling your solar business leveraging channels and social networks, partnerships and relationships, without compromising the brand experience.
• Start off in niche markets delivering quality solutions and strategically expand from there.
• Make your solutions more affordable and less dependent on spikes of energy you might get from natural sunlight.
• Propose a way for surplus energy production to be sold back to the grid.

In the end, it is the resilient, entrepreneurial leader who will succeed and lead their company, and bring the industry to the next level, so don't focus on the (policy, infrastructure, funding, image and other) challenges but do focus on the opportunities ahead.

FountainBlue's Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was on the topic of Sustainable Solutions for the Built Environment, featuring:

Facilitator Andrew Barnes, CEO, Asia Cleantech Partners

Panelist Joseph Gordon, Office of the CTO, Applied Materials

Panelist Jeremy Stieglitz, VP of Building Solutions, Redwood Systems

Presenting Entrepreneur Joshua Slobin, Director of Marketing, Daintree Networks Inc.

Please join us in thanking our speakers for taking the time to share their advice and thoughts and to Applied Materials for graciously hosting us for this month's event. Below are notes from the conversation. 

Our panelists were quite bullish about the opportunities around sustainable solutions for the built environment, ranging from the materials innovations around building materials to the hardware, software, mobile and sensor opportunities around energy generation and management, to the design, operational and implementation options available leveraging today's technology innovations in networks, software, mobile and other technologies.

But each panelist describes the hurdles interfering with rapid adoption, including:

• A fragmented market with a range of stakeholders and providers throughout the value chain, and the need to coordinate with each of the established players in that market;
• The dominant tendency to embrace complacency and the status quo with existing building materials and functionality; there's no strong impetus to act for most people;
• Current low-cost options for everything from windows to lighting to building materials, making it difficult to select more sustainable, much more expensive options; and
  
• The lack of policies and incentives to stimulate changing existing functionality and options.

• Partner with entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, universities and other innovators to solve a real problem with real paying customers.
• Work with utilities and policy-makers to facilitate and incentivize wider and faster adoption.
• Identify and sell to areas of greatest need rather than focusing on educating a market that doesn't yet feel a need.
• Collaborate and partner with all players in the value chain.
• Offer integrated solutions leveraging the latest technology to manage and automate energy usage.
• Use energy efficiency as an entry point, speaking to the ROI, but also provide additional information which provides added value and information beyond energy usage trends.
• Leverage the passion of sustainability enthusiasts.
• Facilitate the adoption of sustainability standards.
• Generate measurable results and speak to each person in the value chain based on what's most important to them.

The bottom line is that there are huge opportunities in this space, but also huge barriers to success, like the Google and Microsoft projects. The successful innovators will understand the market needs and deliver products and services which address those needs, working with all pieces of the value chain, collaborating in creating a standard for the market overall.

FountainBlue's September 12 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum, on the topic of Energy Storage and Management, featuring:

Facilitator Steve Adelman, Managing Director, Nexus Partners

Panelist Matthew Denesuk, Ph.D., STSM, Manager of Natural Resources Modeling and Social Analytics, IBM Research Partner, IBM Venture Capital Group

Panelist Scott Elrod, Vice President, Director of Hardware Systems Laboratory, PARC

Panelist Jon Eric Thalman, Director, Regulatory Strategy & Support, PG&E

Presenting Entrepreneur Steve Bisset, CEO, Terrajoule

Please join us in thanking our hosts at PARC for their support of this event and this series. Thank you also to our speakers for taking the time to share their advice and thoughts. Below are notes from the conversation. 

Energy storage and management is a critical piece of the energy equation as storing and managing generated energy makes energy more predictably available, with less variability. The challenge is to proactively generate large quantities of energy and make it readily and dynamically available to a ever-growing and demanding audience.

The panelists concurred on the major challenges for providing efficient storage and management systems:

• Storage and management solutions must be scalable and cost-effective.
• They must work within the existing infrastructure.
• Solutions must be easy-to-use in order for customers to adopt it.
• To fit the above three criteria, solutions must leverage proven, solid technologies in order to be cost-effective, scalable, and readily trusted and adopted.

• Create sensors as components of the grid, to help monitor, track and manage energy flow and distribution.
• Provide services which would help governments and utilities and homeowners and businesses to monitor and upgrade pieces of the infrastructure in a cost-effective, as needed way. A mass overhaul of infrastructure might be cleaner and even necessary, but it's too daunting and expensive a task and it would be hard to find someone to pay for it.
• As such, perhaps the lower-hanging fruit is in emerging countries with huge energy needs, without the barriers of aging, outdated infrastructure.
• Leverage hardware and software to automate and manage energy usage to prevent un-intended problems.
• However, this may lead to intentional problems caused by hackers, rebels, militants and others bent on compromising access to energy, so there's an opportunity to provide security services and solutions to prevent this.
• Convert renewable energy into liquid fuel, as we already have an infrastructure to deal with liquid fuels, through our traditional vehicle fueling stations.
• Consider how software and IT can be applied to existing problems in energy management and storage.
• Find technologies where you don't need new materials, new equipment and new factories which take a lot of money. Applying existing solutions in new ways that make sense not only saves you time and money, but it also makes the idea more fundable, and is easier to develop and distribute.
• As the EV industry grows, we may progress from having resources adjust to the load to having the load adjust to the resources. There will be opportunities for those who can help various stakeholders adjust to new requirements.

In the end, whether we are talking about compressed air, pumped hydro (good solution, but many of the prime sites are taken), batteries (cost effective challenges here, but re-used EV batteries might be an opportunity), liquid fuel, solar thermal, biofuel, etc., successful clean energy storage and management companies will need to leverage existing and proven solutions in hardware, software, and other areas, to address the demanding and growing need for huge volumes of reliable energy with less variability and lower cost.

Resources:

• Eric Wesoff: September 12, 2011: Terrajoule Unstealths: Distributed Power via Solar, Steam and Storage http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Terrajoule-Unstealths-Distributed-Power-via-Solar-And-Energy-Storage/

FountainBlue's August 1 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was on the topic of Transportation Greening Advances and featured:

Facilitator Jim DiSanto, GM, Earthrise Technologies

Panelist Ray Jenks, Electric Vehicles & Energy Storage, Interstate Batteries

Presenting Entrepreneur Biswa Ghosh, VP of Engineering, Tula Technology

Presenting Entrepreneur Simon Saba, Founder and CEO, SABA Motors Inc.

Please join us in thanking our sponsors at KPMG and our hosts at SRI for their ongoing support of the series. Below are notes from the conversation. 

We may be crossing the chasm in the green automotive world. Driving factors for this shift include 1) the advancements in a range of technologies (from hardware to software to biofuels to networks), 2) the slowly evolving infrastructure necessary to support alternative transportation options, and 3) the increased global demand for green transportation options ranging from materials innovations to alternative fuels to novel manufacturing to software enablers in transportation from telematics to vehicle controls to customer communications.

Based on their current and past work in the clean transportation area, our panelists covered a wide range of perspectives, from batteries to electrification of vehicles, from telematics to auto manufacturing, from drive trains to cylinder optimization, and including a wide range of software solutions for dealers, automakers and drivers, as well as software which helps cars self-manage and optimize settings!

They commented both on the technology advancements creating new opportunities and the challenges and barriers to innovation and adoption and spoke about the exciting possibilities ahead. Below are some of their thoughts and advice.

Thoughts about the industry overall:

• Green transportation companies often needs to work with both automakers and oil companies - industries which are both powerful, having lived with entitlement for a century or so, *and* slow-to-change, plus less likely to be techno-philic.
• Investors are reticent to fund capital-intensive clean transportation solutions, especially if it requires manufacturing, advanced technology development which takes a long time, etc. Investors, especially those experienced in high tech investments, tend to favor green transportation are leaning toward proven technologies, perhaps involving software, for a ready market, headed by an experienced team.
• Companies from other more traditional sectors from batteries to oil to semiconductors, are recognizing and responding to the green transportation opportunities and innovating into different slices of the opportunity, depending on where their established technologies, markets, channels, etc.

Thoughts on the Opportunities Ahead:

• Today's vehicles are too heavy, and too energy-inefficient and the industry is too fragmented, too slow-to-adopt, and too dependent on dated infrastructure, and the customers are too ROI-conscious, too complacent with the status quo, and the manufacturing process is too labor-intensive, too expensive, too distributed, etc. There are opportunities in all these 'toos'.

• As with any other industry, you must have the right technology, for a proven market and execute on milestones, particularly when funding is tight, when investors have felt burned by previous investments, when capital-efficient solutions and innovative business models are so important.
• The exploding markets in India, Brazil and China will provide huge opportunities for a large range of vehicles, and they are markets which may be easier to enter than the US markets, where regulations and policies and entitlements make it harder to grow an industry and serve a market.
• Consider the question of who will pay for necessary infrastructure upgrades, required up-front investments, etc and find a business or financing model which would make it easier for them to approve a purchase decision.
• Policy changes will impact purchaser buying decisions and create new opportunities, so track them and strategize how these changes will impact your customers and potential customers.
  

• Boston Consulting Group Report: Batteries for Electric Cars: Challenges, Opportunities and Outlook to 2020, http://www.bcg.com/documents/file36615.pdf
• Forbes Blog, August 1, 2011: How to Build a Car that Gets 54.5 MPG, by Jim Gorzelany, http://blogs.forbes.com/jimgorzelany/2011/08/01/how-to-build-a-car-that-gets-54-5-mpg/?partner=daily_newsletter

Policy Updates of Interest

1. On July 25, 2011, the CPUC issued Decision 11-07-029. http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/FINAL_DECISION/139969.htm This decision relates to the role of electric vehicles in California. Specifically, it does the following:

• Directs electric utilities to collaborate with automakers and other stakeholders to develop an assessment report to be filed in this proceeding to address a notification processes through which utilities can identify where Electric Vehicles charging will likely occur on their electric systems and plan accordingly;
• Affirms that, with certain exceptions, the electric utilities' existing residential Electric Vehicle rates are sufficient for early Electric Vehicle market development, and, similarly, that existing commercial and industrial rates are sufficient in the early Electric Vehicle market for non-residential customers. The decision also sets out a process to reexamine Electric Vehicle rates in 2013;
• Considers opportunities to migrate toward new and lower cost metering technologies for Electric Vehicle charging and sets out a process to develop an Electric Vehicle metering protocol to accommodate increased Electric Vehicle metering options, such as submetering;
• Determines that, on an interim basis, until June 30, 2013, the costs of any distribution or service facility upgrades necessary to accommodate basic residential Electric Vehicle charging will be treated as shared cost;
• Defines the role that utilities may play in education and outreach related to Electric Vehicles;
• Requires utilities to perform load research to inform future Commission policy; and
• Addresses utility ownership of electric vehicle service equipment.

2. CAFE Standards Set to Rise to 54.5 mpg for 2025

• Will Your 54.5 MPG Car in 2025 Be Electric or Gasoline? International Business Times Staff Reporter, August 2, 2011 http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/191144/20110802/cars-vehicles-miles-per-gallon-mpg-fuel-efficiency.htm Fuel efficiency in the United States will rise substantially under an agreement reached by the U.S. Government, auto manufacturers, and the state of California.
• The new efficiency standard will cover cars and light trucks for model years 2017-2025, and require a performance equal to 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) in 2025. The standard will reduce greenhouse gas emission to 163 grams per mile, and it also betters the previous requirement of 35.5 mpg by 2016. The new standard will reduce U.S. oil consumption by 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2025. The United States currently imports 9.1 million bpd of oil.

FountainBlue's July 11 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was on the topic of Clean Green Financing Options and featured:

Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Director, CFO Advisory Services, KPMG

Panelist Tobias Kraus, Manager of R&D Finance, Tesla Motors

Panelist Shannon Fraser, U.S. Export Assistance Center - Silicon Valley, US Department of Commerce

Panelist Matt Lecar, Principal, Smart Grid Center of Excellence, Energy Applications & Systems Engineering, GE

Presenting Entrepreneur Brian Farhi, Vice President, Marketing & Business Development, Solar Nexus

Presenting Entrepreneur Michael Niver, Director of Project Finance, SolarCity

We would like to thank our sponsors at KPMG for sponsoring this event and the series. Below are notes from the conversation.

Our panelists agreed that the lack venture fundings have impacted the industry overall, making it very difficult for all-but-the-best to secure funding. So those with the great technology innovations who were able to bootstrap the technology development, partner with corporates, academics and others, leverage government grants, and otherwise show traction for the their clean energy innovation are those who have gotten funding during the downturn, and are well positioned to receive funding now that there is more money in investment funds.
The panelists commented on venture funding opportunities and trends, predicting that there will be a shake-out in the venture industry, and only those who have proven investment track records will remain, a bifurcation between those who found money for their funds before the monies dried up and those that didn't. The remaining investors will be chasing the entrepreneurs who have gone into hiding during the downturn, working with corporations, consulting, or developing in stealth mode. But the time will come soon when those investors and those entrepreneurs will again meet, and we shall all benefit from the union.
In regards to policy, our panelists advise us to collaboratively create aligned, stable, predictable, transparent, economic-based policies at the widest possible level which are based on research and facts, not arbitrary numbers and standards, which are transparent, easy-to-implement, fair, and spark technology innovation and getting sustainable products and services into the hands of consumers, businesses and utilities.

In general, clean tech companies are extremely capital-intensive, so our panelists advised entrepreneurs to create a solution which follows the strategy of software companies who can produce technologies and generate revenues more quickly. You may also opt to create a smaller-scale solution of the end product which shows the validity and scalability of both the technology and market. Below is additional advice from our panelists:

Work with the best people to deliver proven, measurable value.

• Work with the best and brightest who have a proven track record, an innovative technology and a large market. Then prove that the technology works and the customers are willing to buy it. It's not about the volume or impact, it's about working smarter to build momentum and credibility, making your company attractive and fundable.
• Create win-win partnerships with corporates in your space to validate technology and market, to leverage their financial resources and channels, as well as their space and infrastructure.
• Minimize risk as you grow your business and keep reaching for the next milestone, the next level and types of customers.

• Leverage government grants to fund early stage development efforts as they generally don't take much equity share. But wean yourself both from government grants and from customer incentives, rebates and policies as you want to prove that your business can stand on its own, and isn't just a result of an artificial market.
• Build strategic and broad network with potential investors. Then ask for a large amount of money to do big things, but run your company leanly and efficiently.

• Customers are interested in sustainable solutions, but may not want to invest the big check up front, so think of revenue model including financing and leasing that would help you win these customers over while growing your business.
• Consider building a strong residential base first to help you sustain your company are you expand to target corporations and utilities, who have much longer sales cycles.
• Don't rely on stimulus dollars or other monies to stimulate the economy and the clean energy sector, but do partner with all stakeholders to foster quicker and easier adoption of rapidly-scalable, innovative, game-changing technologies.

Below are some suggestions for some hot new clean energy opportunities:

• Provide online infrastructure and support tools which would help current providers better communicate and better serve their customers, leveraging the best of todays technology enterprise solutions, from ERP to cloud to automation.
• As the industry matures, consider targeting niche markets - the long tail of the market.
  

In summary, note that success breeds success - the more you succeed and build traction and momentum, the more likely you are to earn more wins. And there are plenty of opportunities for the biggest and dirtiest industry on the planet. If all stakeholders work together to forge change, to spark entrepreneurship and innovation, we may see the biggest changes in our lifetime, and a more promising future for those who come after us.

FountainBlue's Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum on the topic of Software and Sensors in Green Tech: Managing Our Energy Resources featuring:

Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Director, CFO Advisory Services, KPMG

Panelist Rachel Pike, Analyst, Draper, Fisher Jurvetson

Panelist Aravindan Sankaramurthy, Director, Product Management, Oracle

Panelist Andrew Williamson, Director, Physic Ventures

Presenting Entrepreneur John Magnasco, CEO and Co-founder at Geneva CleanTech

Presenting Entrepreneur Mischa Steiner-Jovic, Awesense

Please join us in thanking our sponsors at KPMG for sponsoring this event and for their ongoing support of the series. Below are notes from the conversation. 

With investor investments in clean energy more conservative today, capital-efficient energy efficiency companies are much more attractive than the renewable energy businesses from wind to biofuels to solar farms, and other renewables solutions requiring multi-million-dollar investments and a longer return cycle. So energy efficiency solutions that monitor and maximize energy consumption and minimize waste are much more attractive today.

And sensors and software work hand-in-hand in managing energy resources. Technology advances have enabled sensors to be smaller, more functional, more integrated and more ubiquitous. The problem is not that sensor technologies are not available. The challenge is that the software managing the data and the analytics in the solution must be customized to provide value to the user, and seamlessly integrated with existing sensors, appliances, networks, systems, etc so that users, whether they are home owners or facility managers or utilities, can make immediate informed decisions for proactively managing their energy resources.

Sensors and software must track and report on energy usage, and see patterns of where losses occur, either due to antiquated equipment, like old HVAC units or refrigerators, or even energy theft, where utilities might be interested in tracking where customers might be installing their own transformers into distribution grid.

Below is advice for entrepreneurs innovating in this space:

• Partner with high profile customers as customers, as channel partners, and as potential purchases.
• Partner with installers, retrofitters, HVAC companies, appliance companies, etc who would find your sensor and software solution a value-add for their customers.
• Integrate your solution with existing wifi network, appliances, sensors, etc.
• Respect the need for privacy around energy usage.
• Have solid sensor technology, but focus on software solutions which would add value and generate more returns more quickly.
• Do your part in supporting the creation of standards and policies that support innovation.
• Adopt an open source rather than proprietary standards and focus on solutions, not just more gadgets.
• When going into international markets, consider cultural/political/infrastructure factors such as standardization, which is easier in China, and infrastructure which may be more of a hurdle in India, and government subsidies, which you might see more of in Europe.

• Develop software solutions which communicate between sensors or report on energy usage across devices and appliances.
• Design energy efficiency solutions for commercial buildings where both facility managers and CFOs see a quick ROI
• Integrate sensors directly into the grid is in its infancy stage and will continue to evolve.
• Leverage business analytics and the power of data to efficiently understand not just usage, but also trends, and not just for the data, but to drive proactive, informed decision-making for the users.
• Leverage visualization to have rich data simply presented.
• Design solutions which would help consumers, facility managers, manufacturers, service providers and utilities proactively manage peak loads.

The bottom line is that there are a lot of opportunities within and outside the US. There may be more opportunities in the US as we have historically used more energy, hence there may be more opportunities to optimize the energy used. Plus corporations, manufacturers, consumers, investors, and entrepreneurs alike will find win-win sensor-and-software solutions which save both time and money.

FountainBlue's May 2 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was on the topic of Renewable Energy Generation: Breakthroughs and Challenges, and featured:

Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue

Panelist Ann C. Chan, Member, Board of Directors, Carpe Diem West, founder and former director, Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP)

Panelist Annie Hazlehurst, Associate, DFJ

Panelist Jim Hurd, Director, Molecular Business Consultants, VP for Strategic Alliances, GIVE Eco Energy

Panelist Roy Kornbluh, Principal Research Engineer, Engineering R&D Division, SRI International

Presenting Entrepreneur Eric Cherniss, White Hat Renewables

Presenting Entrepreneur Geoff Sharples, Clear Path Energy

Please join us in thanking our hosts at PARC for graciously hosting us at their facilities and to our sponsors at KPMG for their ongoing support of our program and the series. Below are notes from the conversation. 

Our panelists had extensive knowledge and experience in the renewable energy space over the past two decades, and have witnessed in and participated in the emergence of a new industry. They concur that as the industry is maturing, more experienced, knowledgeable and connected people are in leadership positions which can help drive and grow the industry overall.

This network of experienced leaders understand the technology, infrastructure, utility, policy and other challenges inherent in the industry, and are forging alliances and partnerships with the many stakeholders involved in the industry. This is driven in part by increasing oil prices, and the growing public demand for renewable energy options. Below is a list of stakeholders and some of the factors which are driving their behavior around the adoption and growth of renewable energy.

• Policymakers are generally not business people or technologists, and the best ones seek knowledge and education to best support this emerging industry.
• Utilities are invested in adopting renewable energy, to meet the policy standards, however infrastructure challenges make it difficult to include renewable energy options at rates similar to standard oil, coal and gas options and policy mandates do not specify how the standards can be met, and other policies actually make it *more* difficult to meet the mandate.
• The media has reported on our track record over the last decade or two has been mixed at best, due to some overinvestment in technologies providing incremental rather than disruptive, game-changing improvements, and high-profile examples of large-investment companies who had executed poorly and generated poor returns and sometimes failed companies. Thus, public opinion around renewables has been much less enthusiastic.
• Because of the investment track record over the past two decades, investors today are funding shorter term, less capital-intensive, more mature companies rather than early-stage renewable companies.
• Customers are educated enough to want more sustainable energy choices, but not yet passionate enough to select renewable energy options which are measurably more expensive than standard energy options. So the technology and business model challenge is to provide customers options which meet both requirements.

• Large companies as varied as technology companies like Google, the large oil and gas companies, large chemical companies like DOW, and other companies are beginning to see opportunities in renewable energies. Some of them are beginning to invest in research, in the interest of generating 3-5x returns, with the potential increasing both their market share and their corporate image.
• Corporations, research institutions, academics, entrepreneurs and others are forging technology innovations in all renewable sectors. In addition, technologies launched even in the 70s and 80s are more attractive today because of increasing oil prices and because of software, networking and other innovations which make the technology option more viable.
• Customers in emerging countries such as China, Brazil and India are becoming increasingly affluent, which is driving the demand for more energy, delivered more cost-effectively. This ready-made market is incentivizing collaboration and innovation amongst the stakeholders, and the market will only grow from here.

• Although the focus is on innovative, game-changing technology, it's always about the people and whether they have the experience, ability, fortitude and attitude to make it happen. So act like you have the train on track, and show measurable results on milestones which make sense.
• Seek proven technology innovations and create and implement a business model which would generate returns while serving the market.
• Design your solution to scale cost-effectively.
• Large companies are investing in R&D and approaching renewables from many directions - from chemicals to oil and gas to software and sensors and algae. Seek a potential corporate partner and alliance which would invest in your technology/idea/research.
• Solve a renewables integration problem, including storage, smart grid, monitoring and sensing, distribution, etc
• Look beyond wind and solar and consider geothermal and biofuels and wave technology, provided they are solutions that can be capital efficient leveraging tested technology.

In the end, remember that the renewables industry is still in its infancy. Work with all stakeholders to grow the industry, and have the patience and fortitude to invest in its success as the market for renewable energy is huge, and will only get bigger.

FountainBlue's April 4 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum, on the topic of Getting Plugged Into the Utilities, featuring:

Facilitator Christine Hertzog, Managing Director, Smart Grid Library

Panelist Lucian Ion, Director, Smart Grid Solutions Strategy, GE

Panelist Raj Krishnamurthy, Automatiks

Panelist Randall Wong, Emerging Technologies Program Manager, PG&E

Panelist Danny Yu, CEO, Daintree Networks Inc.

Presenting Entrepreneur Dr. Ed Cazalet, Vice-President and Co-Founder, MegaWatt Storage Farms

Presenting Entrepreneur Michael Leppitsch, Founder and CEO, Gridata

Please join us in thanking our hosts at SRI and our sponsors at KPMG for their support of this program and the series. Below are notes from the conversation. 

The panel remarked that utilities serve three masters: shareholders, customers, commissioners, and this must be taken into consideration as entrepreneurs consider how their solution works with utilities. Because of decoupling, our local utility, PG&E, is motivated not to sell more energy, but to most efficiently deliver energy to its customers, so they actively encourage entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs to present energy efficient options for review and incentivize customers to adopt these solutions.

One of the themes that came through in the conversation is the need to work with all stakeholders to encourage and support better storage and distribution technologies and processes, which would create an infrastructure conducive to getting energy cost-effectively into the hands of consumers, helping them better understand and better manage how energy is used. The PUC now has a mandate to put storage on the grid, so changes are imminent, and hopefully things will improve as a result.

Pricing also greatly impacts the energy usage decisions of users, particularly corporate users. Our panel covered solutions for optimizing heating, cooling and lighting for facilities managers, and mentioned that they get the ROI, particularly if the sensors and software solutions allow for automation and self-management, and has a transparent, easy-to-understand user interface.

The panelists commented on the importance of dynamic pricing of energy cost, and dynamic choices made by users and automated through sensors and software. Current demand response requirements are starting to pay attention to pricing, but does not meet dynamic pricing goals which are more immediate, more detailed, more like stock exchange, which is instantly updated based on huge volumes of transactions.

The panelists made the following suggestions for entrepreneurs innovating in this space:

As with any business, understand your target market and customer and their needs. In the energy usage space, the customer might be utilities, facility managers/corporations, and residents.

• Focus on how energy creates value for your customer and work from there.
• Consider how better managing and understanding energy usage patterns can lead to savings and opportunities for the customer

• Partner with PG&E and corporations like GE to better vet your technologies and serve their markets.
• Collaborate with other stakeholders to adopt and update policies which embrace new innovations in energy storage and usage, and facilitates further communication and partnerships between entrepreneurs, utilities, corporations, academics and end users.

• There are many existing technologies out there that could be bought and integrated into successful service and product offerings. You don't need to re-invent those technologies to start a business.
• Provide a service to help others in this space, helping them create software and hardware solutions which fit standards and policies and making it easier to deliver their solution to the end customer.

• Energy generation innovations will help our state reach our renewables mandates over the next decade. If you are innovating in this space, consider the current mix of energy sources, like hydro, gas, coal, nuclear etc and how your generation method fits in and how it would work with existing storage and distribution infrastructure.

The panelists highlighted the following hot areas of opportunity:

• Wireless advanced lighting control with hardware and software elements
• More detailed, real-time data on energy usage
• Managing loads and quality in the last mile
• Electric vehicles – growing adoption curve
• More sophisticated sensor-hardware-software integration getting into the hands of facilities managers and residents

The bottom line is that energy users don't want to be mandated how they use their energy, but want to adopt software and sensor self-management solutions which allows them to be more aware of usage patterns, and also select optimal comfort and flexibility. Simple as that sounds, with all the policies, standards and politics, along with the wide range of stakeholders and the high stakes involved, this is not as easy as it looks.

Resources and Additional Information:

• PG&E's Emerging Technology Coordinating Council (ETCC) activities can be found at www.etcc-ca.com which is the statewide website. Upcoming dates and locations are listed below and there are also emerging technology roundtables for companies with existing technologies.

o    May 5     ET Open Forum            SMUD, Sacramento

o    May 12   TRIO Symposium          SCE, UC Irvine

o    July 12    TRIO Symposium          PG&E, Mission Bay Conference Center @ UCSF

• Christine Hertzog's Smart Grid Dictionary http://www.smartgridlibrary.com/smart-grid-dictionary/

Christine Hertzog's Smart Grid Dictionary provides definitions of over 1200 Smart Grid terms, jargon, and acronyms and contains descriptions of the most important international, national, and regional regulatory agencies, industry associations, and standards organizations that influence Smart Grid technologies and their website addresses for convenient reference.  

FountainBlue's March 7 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum on the topic of Title: Leveraging Software for Clean Green Solutions, featuring:

Facilitator Cal Sloan

Panelist Erin Cubbison, Regional Leader, Gensler Consulting

Panelist Griff Weber, Consultant to IBM Research

Presenting Entrepreneur Eric Alderman, Founder and President, Solar Nexus

Presenting Jim DiSanto, President and General Manager, Earthrise Technologies, Inc.

Please join us in thanking our hosts at EMC and our sponsors from KPMG for their support of this program and the series. Below are notes from the conversation. 

Our panel represented the wide range of clean tech solutions leveraging software: from transportation to solar to buildings and energy efficiency and water and energy management. Software is enabling the growth of each of these clean energy sub-sectors, and opening up new opportunities and better serves the energy, time and resource management needs of its end users. The software solutions are becoming ever more complex, and the volumes of data generated is overwhelming. The challenge is to capture the data through equipment and devices and tools, convert this data into standardized formats which are easily compiled and analyzed, and draw conclusions, create reports and otherwise make the data into actionable information so that a user can make decisions, or so that automated actions can take place. IBM would call this the 'instrumented' (with appropriate devices and tools part of the system), 'integrated' (with data massaged and coordinated and compiled to get the best picture of what's happening, real time), and 'intelligent' (with compiled reports and recommendations so that measured, data-enabled decisions can be made).

Each of our panelists are responding to the changing needs of their client base, as they align strategic, financial and marketing objectives to reduce, recycle and re-use, and also more proactively manage energy and water consumption and reduce the carbon footprint. The hope is to solve real-world, in-your-face problems, changing user behaviors and decisions, helping them select the option to do more with less, while reducing the environmental impact overall. The panelists specifically mentioned the tremendous opportunity for software solutions enabling clean energy offerings. Below are examples of opportunities in individual sub-industries.

• In the building industry, there are opportunities to proactively monitor energy usage in the form of lighting, heating and cooling, and water usage, to adopt designs and materials and policies which better manage space and user preferences, to re-design, update and create new workspaces which support the preferences of companies today to serve the mobile worker, and to manage a building's carbon footprint and usage patterns overall, in support of corporate initiatives and the desires of employees and the community.
• In the transportation industry, there has been an astronomical proliferation of software built into today’s modern vehicles which do everything from managing safety and maintenance needs to managing fuel usage and engine performance to managing traffic patterns and generating and updating maps. Indeed, there is so much software that individual cars have a network within themselves and unfortunately, they don't talk to other cars, even if they are of the same make, much less if they are from different manufacturers.  Integrating the software solutions and massaging the volumes of data into an actionable format offers a daunting task, and also a promising opportunity.
• In the renewables and energy management space, there is a host of opportunities to proactively manage the full value chain of providers and stakeholders in delivering quality clean energy solutions for customers. Software to manage and connect the suppliers, local and federal policy-makers (for everything from permits to rebates), installers, entrepreneurs and customers will be instrumental in delivering an efficient, pain-manageable solution for all, and facilitate the more rapid, broader adoption of sustainable solutions.

• Business analytics solutions to compile, manage, manage and integrate disparate data types into integrated formats and actionable reports. This opportunity is in every clean energy sector.
• Public sector solutions which would help cities and municipalities more proactively manage everything from traffic flow to permitting to water treatment and management.
• Design and software solutions which would allow facilities managers and homeowners alike to proactive see, understand and manage their consumption and their impact.
• Sensors to better detect and send standardized information to systems which can help manage overall energy consumption.
• Software solutions which would facilitate the adoption of standards on data storage and availability, security and formatting
• Web and mobile solutions which helps us understand and manage the way we work, shop, socialize, plan, etc. and addressing ongoing needs of users and groups.

• Note that each of the clean energy sub-industries have existing stakeholders who are reticent to change overall, and motivated to maintain the status quo for various reasons, generally associated with maintaining existing market share and leadership and presence. This is an expected if daunting hurdle and entrepreneurs need to accept it and work with it and around it, until change happens.
• Note also that policy-makers at all levels are motivated to get on the clean/green bandwagon, and have had some success with some shorter term policies around rebates and incentives, but no integrated, long-term solution which would nurture the growth of an industry. Ditto here.
• Automate the operations and work flow of clean energy solutions through a combination of software solutions and low-tech solutions with a software component. Much of clean energy solutions rely on old infrastructure and solutions which are too expensive to replace, so choosing to take a picture of an existing monitoring device and leveraging that might be a faster path to revenue than recreating the low-tech sensor from scratch, and creating something new that doesn't integrate with the old.

In summary, it takes political will and deep pockets to make the tough choices against the wishes of established, influential stakeholders motivated to maintain the status quo. But there's a ray of hope for the entrepreneurs in this space flying around with their hair on fire, trying to make it work. Change needs to happen, and it WILL happen over time. Innovating in this space despite the odds, in collaboration with like-minded others will help foster this change. Those that adopt the change most gracefully and most efficiently will maintain that market share and help take the clean energy industry to the next level.

FountainBlue's February 14 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum on the topic of The Opportunities in Managing and Monitoring Energy Usage, featuring:

Facilitator Marcel K. Bingham, Partner, Hickman Palermo Truong & Becker

Panelist David Engelbrecht, SAP

Panelist Southard Jones, Manager of IDSM Products - Energy Management Systems and Buildings, PG&E

Panelist Dr Amit Narayan, Director of Smart Grid Research in Modeling & Simulation, Stanford University

Presenting Entrepreneur Blake Burris, CEO, Dynamo Labs

Presenting Entrepreneur John Magnasco, Co-Founder, Geneva CleanTech

Please join us in thanking our hosts at SAP and our sponsors from Hickman Palermo and KPMG for their support of this program and the series. Below are notes from the conversation. 

The panelists agreed that technology advancements in networking and sensing, computer hardware and storage/cloud computing as well as data management are fueling new innovations in this space, but barriers to success include lack of financing, policy challenges, customer apathy/complacency, low energy costs and high development/research costs.

Critically important for the development of the industry in California and beyond is the ability to raise customer awareness of their energy usage patterns and encourage behavior change through social media, peer pressure, and mobile applications. As a state, California is taking leadership role in energy management and efficiency with specific goals on renewal usage and reduced energy consumption. As our local utility, PG&E actually benefits when customers save energy, and work with entrepreneurs to test and launch the latest and greatest technologies and prove that they save energy, and incentivize customers to take specific action to save energy.

The panelists also remarked on the importance of collaborations between industry leaders, entrepreneurs, academicians, and others throughout the value chain will reach a tipping point, helping ensure that we meet these energy targets and that we will adopt more sustainable practices throughout the energy supply chain. Working together, we can also manage energy generation, storage and distribution and help ensure energy usage data is provided to customers and work with them to encourage sustainable behavior changes that would better curb our use patterns overall.

Below is advice to entrepreneurs provided by our panelists:

• Facilities managers for large commercial buildings know that there is room for innovation and quickly understand the ROI and payback periods. However, sometimes it takes a large financial and time investment to get to the next level, and this may not be enough incentive for them to go in this direction, so the sell may go beyond the straight ROI.
• In the area of energy management for the home, there is a constant push-pull between residential customers who WANT to choose more sustainable energy usage practices, and the practical costs and hassle of implementing those choices. Whereas in commercial settings, it's a straight ROI conversation, factoring in estimated payback periods, factors such as social pressure, prestige, and ease of access and use are just as important for the residential customer.
• Enterprise and residential customers both face the issue of diminishing returns. In order for them to take action, they need to see something appreciably better than what they are already doing, and it needs to save or earn them an amount which is worth the effort.
• PG&E has given out 200 million dollars in incentives, not just to end customers, but all over the value chain. Their goal is to deliver safe, reliable and clean energy and incentivize customers to upgrade their appliances and devices and change their usage behavior so that less energy is required.
• Companies like SAP help enterprises aggregate data sources and make real time energy management decisions for maximal energy efficiency and risk abatement. They provide resources and support for select entrepreneurs innovating in this area to help vet technologies and investigate market opportunities.
• It is a tough time and a tough space to raise money, so you must have a very clear path to market and a customer as well as an experienced leadership team to increase the likelihood of a funding event. It is essential to work with corporations and academic institutions and utilities to get visibility, credibility and feedback. 
• Partner with utilities, but don't count on them to come through for you, as their timeframes are not the same as it is for start-ups.
• Patience and perseverance will take you a long way, but not all the way if you don't have a good idea in the first place. Customers come first, so listen to your customer and segment your customer base according to their needs. 
• Countries with the largest regulations and most expensive energy, like Japan and Europe, and countries with lots of new building construction, like Asia, will be the fastest-growing markets for energy monitoring and management.

• The volumes of smart grid information need to be converted into actionable reports real-time in order to benefit users.
• There is a debate about data ownership and data security, which is another opportunity AND a challenge.
• There are tremendous opportunities in smart grid. People like John Chambers are saying that it will be bigger than the internet. Entrepreneurs innovating in this area are betting on this inevitable and finding a way to piece things together until their company takes off.
• Mobile and social media apps integrated with home and enterprise devices will be on the rise, so there will be great opportunities here as well. Apps targeting an educating kids will also likely be on the rise.

Resources:

• GreenTech Media, December 9, 2010 Peter Wagner of Accel Partners on Smart Grid Trends, Facebook's lead VC on the next wave of opportunities on the smart grid. http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/peter-wagner-of-accel-on-smart-grid/
• California's Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings, Title 24, Part 6, of the California Code of Regulations http://www.energy.ca.gov/title24/

FountainBlue's Fourth Annual Clean Green Conference: Past Successes, New Opportunities, featuring:

Facilitator Eric Wesoff, Senior Analyst, Greentech Media, Publisher of the Venture Power newsletter

Chuck Berghoff, President and CEO, OptoElectronix

Jit Bhattacharya, CEO, Mission Motors

Don Bray, Co-Founder and CEO, Altaterra Research

Matthew Denesuk, PhD, Partner, IBM Venture Capital Group

Jim DiSanto, President and General Manager, Earthrise Technologies Inc., Executive Director of BBE BioEnergy

Robert Horstmeyer, Managing Director, GrowthPoint Technology Partners

Gary Kremen, Founder Clean Power Finance

Matt Lecar, Principal, Smart Grid Center of Excellence, Energy Consulting, General Electric

Jonathan Livingston, President, Livingston Energy Innovations LLC

Ron Mosso, VP of Engineering, Enervault

Thomas Price, Director, North American Utilities, EMC

Fatemeh Shirazi, Ph.D, Chief Executive Officer, Microvi Biotech Inc.

John Suh, GM Advanced Technology Group in Silicon Valley

Robert Walsh, Independent Energy Consultant, former CEO and Director, Aurora Biofuels

Please join us in thanking our hosts at EMC and our sponsors at KPMG for their support of this program and the series. Below are notes from the conversation. 

The growth and adaption of sustainability initiatives in the last five years has snowballed, as it moves from the fringes to the mainstream with the adaption by carbon, energy and environmental programs by major companies and institutions and the fervent buying power of consumers and corporate customers locally and worldwide. The stakeholder and brand image concerns will continue to drive the adoption of sustainability initiatives, but there will be a increasing demand for demonstrated ROI to sell sustainability as a competitive advantage. Moreover, when there is demand at the top of the value chain with corporations and institutions, and demand at the bottom of the value chain with the retail customers, suppliers throughout the chain will be increasingly rewarded for delivering sustainable products and services, using efficient processes as well, thereby exacerbating the momentum and growth of the movement, resulting in a 'northbound train' for solar, lighting, HVAC optimization, and other enterprise and home solutions.

Below is a compilation of anticipated trends for the industry in 2011, based on compiled panelist remarks.

Our host of panelists have concurred on three trends impacting the clean energy sub-industry:

1.       Software and IT solutions applied the clean energy sector will become an increasingly dominant part of fundable clean energy offerings. Opportunities in IT range from monitoring buildings to traffic controls to energy storage and monitoring to vehicle controls in connected both EV and hybrid and petroleum-burning vehicles.

2.       The convergence of people, thinking and industries is fundamental to industry growth and opportunity. For example, proven technologies are being applied in new ways which increase sustainability, and proven technology executives are applying their skills, knowledge and networks to build momentum and results in the sector.

3.       There will be a proliferation of clean energy solutions will begin encouraging behavior changes that make a difference and apply social pressure and ROI data to encourage and rewarded these behavioral changes.

4.       Leading companies will learn to successfully navigate the policy, politics and pricing challenges inherent in the industry, and provide solutions which fit the infrastructure, budget and ROI needs of its customers locally, nationally and world-wide will remain dominant. The market and opportunity will be there for those companies who can persevere despite the challenges.

5.       Collaborations between intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs, investors, and policy-makers will increase the likelihood of success. This is always true, but more so in the clean energy sector, which is often politically-charged.

6.       The block-and-tackle solutions of infrastructure upgrades, piping, data integration and other offerings across the clean tech sector which optimize the generation, measurement and channeling of the energy and water are often the 'lowest-hanging fruit'. Although addressing fundamental infrastructure challenges, from building ducts to water and oil pipes these solutions may even have existed at the time of the Flintstones, and although they may not be as sexy as change-the-world technologies that take converts waste to energy, or creates a new energy source from materials that are plentiful, they are often less capital intensive, and much more likely to succeed and may even be a necessary requirement for rapid mass adoption. Therefore, the opportunity is ripe for entrepreneurial companies who can do this well.

7.       There will be a conflict between addressing customized, targeted, localized needs of customers and scaling solutions so that they serve locally, and scale globally yet cost-effectively, and winning companies, leveraging technology and data analytics, and scalable business models will navigate this well.

8.       The rising middle class in countries such as India and China will dramatically impact the demand for energy, just as natural resources become depleted and demographic changes mean that fewer people will be in the workforce to deliver the energy. Proactively plan for the uptick in energy usage, and create and implement policies favoring the research and creation of green companies forging collaborations between corporations, entrepreneurs, academics and researchers, customers, policy-makers and others.

9.       The increased demand for energy will drive up energy costs, so we must both minimize waste, optimize our processes and systems, and create and deliver cost-effective energy to a broader range of consumers worldwide.

10.    Clean energy solutions will become an increasingly accepted business offerings that are  good for companies, people, and the earth.

Below is advice provided by the panelists on how to better position the clean energy industry to survive and thrive in 2011.

1.    To move sustainability from just a marketing ploy and gimmick to a transformational change for the earth, led by reputable companies, leaders need to make a stand for measurable standards of achievement and results and be transparent about what is offered, and the difference it is making for companies, institutions, countries, customers and the earth overall.

2.    Practical, workable financing options will help homeowners and companies choose the more sustainable solution, particularly when this is coupled with technology and offerings that approach grid parity - where the sustainable solution costs approximately the same as the old-school coal-gas-and-oil options.

3.    Integrating the reporting of energy and carbon usage results will facilitate the change in user behavior fundamental to any energy optimization program. ROI reporting at the corporate level will ensure the long-term adoption of sustainability initiatives as must-haves rather than nice-to-haves.

4.    Money will flow into the sector, provided that the IPO and M&A results, currently a mixed bag, are there. What the industry needs is more 'sure-things', greater, longer-term, more predictable returns, much like we had with the IT sector.

5.    Forward-thinking countries are currently embracing the opportunities around clean energy much more proactively than we in the US are doing to date. In order to maintain a leadership role, US politics and policies must be clear, welcoming and predictable. In addition, America should look at improving its image as the Saudi Arabia of energy usage and seize it as an opportunity to change its mind-set and actions and lead through innovation, better optimizing how energy is generated and used.

6.    Successful clean energy companies are beginning to move from being a commodity to a value-added manufacturing, packaging and service options.

7.    Successful clean energy companies will be able to work with people, organizations and associations which typically move slowly, are resistant to change, and may be technology-phobic. They must be able to both prove the business case, and build core relationships while making the case, and delivering results which would help make their customers advocates.

8.    Creative entrepreneurs will leverage the technology successes from other industries, like micro-organism-eating microbes for waste water treatment, and leverage technologies and processes to provide solutions for a clean energy need, like clean water.

9.    Find the win-win, working with key stakeholders who would benefit from a new opportunity, a new offering. For example, selling tomato farmers on planting rape seed during off-seasons would be full of benefits with little down-sides as the land would have lain fallow anyway, and there is not much need for irrigation or maintenance, yet an up-side for developed crop which is convertible to fuel.

10. Storage and management solutions which smooth the ebbs and flows of energy usage will help better manage and distribute energy to a larger customer base. This is a huge opportunity - not understood yet by utilities, but essential to managing the ebbs and flows and growing 

In conclusion, entrepreneurial leaders who can navigate these policy, pricing, political hurdles of opportunities while serving the customers will succeed, regardless of offerings, ethnicity and passion.

---------------------------------

Notes from the Energy Efficiency Breakout Group, led by Jonathan Livingston, President, Livingston Energy Innovations LLC, was the featured panelist at this breakout session. Three questions were posed to him at the beginning of the breakout session:

1. What effect will consolidation have on the energy efficiency industry?
2. Are "energy dashboards" bad?
3. Many startups seem to be focusing on utilities as their go-to-market strategy. Is this a good idea?

Consolidation

• Consolidation is a good sign -- market is active, reassures investors that there are "exits" available to startups
• Big change in companies from 10-15 years ago: back then, most startups were founded by "lab rats" -- experts in energy technologies, generally getting government grants to pursue research. Pace was slow, little effect on market. Today, most companies are being founded by serial entrepreneurs out of the IT space. Much more focused on creating successful, fast growth businesses.
• Big players are acquiring startups in this space to get technology/knowledge lacking in the larger firms -- jumpstart their entry into space

Energy Dashboards

• Opower is the big success here, but is their business model sustainable?
• Most people don't care about energy efficiency (at least enough to want to look at a dashboard every day)
• Dashboards have to be sexy, entertaining to retain consumer interest
• Most just want it to be invisible -- "do the right thing".  Ecofactor (HVAC control) is example.
• Demand/Response is challenging. EnerNOC is the leader, but implements "Demand/Response 1.0"; early communications were daily FAXes and pages! Business model may need serious revising. Future "D/R 2.0" companies could displace them. Look OpenDR, developed at Lawrence Berkeley Labs, as model and opportunity for new players.

Utilities as Basis of Go-to-Market Strategy

• Utilities are strange beasts. Subject to regulatory "whims". Companies wanting to work through utilities must understand regulatory environment and that utilities can change strategies quickly if regulatory "winds" are blowing a different direction.
• Recommendation is to focus on reaching the end-user, consider getting utilities on-board as "icing on the cake". Example: EnerNOC is moving away from model dependent on sales to utilities.
• At least a dozen states have decoupled energy consumption from profits, so utilities there are not incented to increase demand
• However, utilities are still rewarded for doing CapX, so like big capital-intensive projects  (e.g., doing Smart Meters as big CapX, not because more efficient)

Final Thoughts

• Very exciting time in this area, finally getting a lot of smart Silicon Valley brains working hard on new approaches to these problems
• PARC working on totally new A/C design - No CFCs, much more efficient
• LED lighting will take over -- biggest lighting innovation in 130 years

FountainBlue's December 6 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was on the topic of Monitoring Energy Usage in the Home and at Work featured:

Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Director, CFO Advisory Services

Panelist Matt Lecar, Principal, Smart Grid Strategy within Energy Consulting, GE

Panelist Martha Lyons, HP Labs Strategy and Innovation Office, HP

Presenting Entrepreneur Sandra Kwak, Founder, Powerzoa

Presenting Entrepreneur Sunil Maulik, Vice President, Business Development & Program Management, People Power Company

Please join us in thanking our sponsors at KPMG and our hosts at SRI for their support of this program and the series. Below are notes from the conversation. 

Our panelists agreed that proactively monitoring energy is critical for managing and reducing usage overall and spoke in depth on technology and business model innovations in energy monitoring space from a range of perspectives. Whether it's HP talking about their Smart Home solutions to proactive energy management to GE's perspective on smart appliances or People's Power's perspective on holistic energy efficiency monitoring and control solutions or Powerzoa's perspective on measuring one appliance at a time through a plug and play device, each panelist talked both about the importance of focusing on making solutions painless and easy for both home and corporate customers facilitating a rapid adoption curve, making products and services readily and inexpensively available for the users and otherwise facilitating changes in practices and behaviors of users for the long term.

One of the challenges to the adoption of energy efficient solutions is that energy is currently readily available and inexpensive for most Americans, although it varies across regions and is more expensive elsewhere. But this means that customers are less motivated to make the time and financial commitment for energy management solutions. Current customers are more likely to do it as it is the 'right thing to do' rather than as a financial incentive, plus current customers are willing to adopt the learning-and-installation curve. Therefore, the current market is far less than the potential market, and will continue to be so until 1) the cost of energy is higher, incentivizing more users to experiment with energy monitoring options, 2) the price of products and services have shorter ROIs (several months to a year for example), and 3) the user experience for the installation and management of the solution is meaningful and actionable, integrated and seamless, based on recognized standards.

In addressing the privacy and security questions, the panelists commented on the importance of leveraging aggregated data for monitoring, managing, controlling and comparing and using existing software and web standards for security. With aggregated data, we can incentivize individual users to self-manage and compete with themselves, their fellow building-mates, their community, their region, etc. on specific energy/water usage patterns, without compromising the privacy of individual users. And by adopting the standards from existing software and internet solutions will also be applied to the energy monitoring space. No system is 100% secure, but energy monitoring solutions are no less secure than already-adopted standards.

During the standards discussion, the entrepreneurial panelists noted that there is a trend for adopting open source standards, or integrating formats for multiple standards while supporting standard network protocols including "WiFi" and "ZigBee", while selling value-added reports and services running off those standards. For the entrepreneurial companies who adopt these open standards, developers and partners are encouraged to integrate their solutions using these standards and customers can receive dynamically-generated custom reports.

The panelists also commented on policy and security issues around energy monitoring and agreed that policy does not really impact users as much in this clean energy sub-industry as it does in other areas. However, protocols and standards need to be respected and integrated into solutions to optimize adoption. State and national government does have some incentive programs, but they are not necessarily well leveraged, communicated or managed, and most companies and users plan strategies independent of standards and rebates.

The panelists commented on the opportunities ahead in this space:

• Leverage social media tools around energy monitoring so that members can better track their energy usage patterns and compete with themselves and others to improve these patterns, while also creating communities and discussions on the best products and services designed to optimize energy usage.
• Design smart appliances which can self-monitor and report on energy usage.
• Integrate energy monitoring functionality into entertainment and mobile devices.
• Design and run cloud-based energy management solutions which allow users to customize security, comfort, convenience and spoken in language users can understand rather than numbers and charts and measures (like btus and therms) that may not mean much to them.
• Help data centers proactively manage energy usage: from keeping systems cooled to creating smaller more efficient centers integrated with other ones to better reporting and managing usage for the data center administrators and individual customers storing information at the data center.
• Provide data smoothing and data integration services will help customers upload larger volumes of energy usage data collected and integrate them together to create a big picture description of usage patterns.
• Design multi-modal sensing solutions to fine-tune comfort settings for various areas of the home and work.
• Offer detailed diligence and pipe-work services rather than about a sexy new integrated hardware-software application. This may be the lowest hanging fruit right now! With that said, it might make sense in some cases to aim for a game-changing solution, parallel to what the personal computer or wireless networks did, rather than creating solutions which monitor efficiently and save money incrementally.
• Identify and serve niche consumer market across geographical areas.
• Sell easy-to-use-and-implement SaaS-based enterprise solutions to building and facilities managers and CFOs who will more likely get the bottom-line impact of energy efficient solutions over homeowners who spend less on energy than on their phone bills.
• Design solutions that not only monitor usage but could flag and detect patterns of usage and make proactive recommendations based on usage patterns will add greater, longer-term customer value.
• Look for side benefits for monitoring energy usage and capitalize on that. For example, a Los Angeles parking lot was showing customers available parking spaces for the convenience of the customer, but the City winded up ticketing five times more cars as it was easier to track which cars were in violation of the parking timelines!

Throughout the panel discussion, the panelists spoke passionately about the hardware, software, networking innovations which make new energy efficiency solutions and business models possible, but in the end, they concurred that it's an emotional decision right now, as there are too many barriers to adoption. Successful offerings will focus more on understanding how to motivate and encourage users to make long-term changes, making it easy for them to track and compare usage patterns and change behavior, preferably automatically, based on the statistics, and encouraging others around them to do the same. It is this long-term behavioral change, one user at a time, at work and at home, that will ultimately impact average energy usage across the board.

Facilitator Tom Thayer, Thayer and Associates, Clean Tech Open Adviser, FountainBlue Clean Energy Program Adviser

Panelist Scott Elrod, VP, Director of Hardware Systems Laboratory, PARC

Panelist Matthew Garratt, Senior Associate, Battery Ventures

Panelist Phil Metz, Business Development, SolFocus

Panelist Abe Yokell, Principal, RockPort Ventures

Presenting Entrepreneur Steve Bisset, CEO, Solar Storage Company

Presenting Entrepreneur Thomas Dinkel, CEO, Sun Reports

Presenting Entrepreneur Helmuth Treichel, CEO, SunSonix

Please join me in thanking our sponsors at KPMG and our hosts at PARC for their support of this event and the series overall. Below are notes from the conversation.

Our panelists represented the range of solar solutions: from solar thermal storage to energy monitoring to solar panel manufacturing and concentrated photovoltaics. Their experience ranges from high tech entrepreneurs to physicists, chemists and researchers and academicians, and they have been involved in the solar and/or semiconductor industry for decades, and have seen the industry shift and mature, and are consistently bullish about the future prospects for the solar industry.

Whether it is from the perspective as a clean energy investor or a serial entrepreneur, our experienced panelists offered a view into a promising industry, poised for growth based on the advances in the technology including the convergence of research and science in multiple areas, the ever-increasing hunger for power, the integration of business processes and systems to better, more cost-effectively deliver services, and the commitment of countries and companies to capitalize on the market opportunities around the delivery of solar solutions.

The panelists commented on the target markets for solar solutions, ranging from solar panel manufacturers to governments and companies to residential customers, to customers from different countries. Regardless of who the target customer is, policy-makers from different countries definitely impact the adoption of technology, and the growth of businesses providing these solutions. A clear example of this is Germany, where there is very little sunlight, yet solar panels are pervasively present, as compared to many parts of south-western US, despite the ample sunlight.

The panelists recommended that entrepreneurs focus more on making processes and systems more efficient, and implementing more cost-effective customer acquisition plans over investing in the next generation solar technology research. Much of the technology is available today, and making money leveraging existing and proven solutions in novel ways to efficiently deliver services is a more promising prospect than committing to years of research on a solution which would also be capital intensive to implement. They added that innovation is more likely to take place in the smaller companies, but only with those that find a way to leverage the research of the academic institutions and the channels and operations of corporate partners.

There have been a decade of investments in the solar industry, with over 200 companies funded, and too many 'me-too' solutions. The market will soon define who will succeed, but the shake-up has not yet happened, so the panelists are anticipating this downturn, yet remain bullish about the industry overall, provided that we only invest in novel, game-changing solar solutions with teams that will deliver on milestones.

Hurdles to the adoption of solar solutions, regardless of target market, include regulatory challenges (particularly regulatory instability when people don't know how long a policy will have effect), infrastructure challenges (when you have to work within the requirements of local utilities), cost of energy (which is too low cause enough pain to instigate change), and up-front cost (which makes it difficult for customers to adopt technologies they will need for the long-term).

Countries outside the US have had more consistently favorable and predictable policy around the adoption of solar, and have even been proactive in support the R&D and operations and distribution of solar solutions, giving them an edge over countries like the US.

But regardless of the hurdles, companies that provide cost-effective solutions will find a market, and finding solutions that work with the existing infrastructure, capitalizing on low customer acquisition cost strategies, focusing more on operational and process efficiency through business (rather than technology) innovation, and leveraging software (rather than lab) innovation to better communicate and serve customers will separate the winners from the also-rans as the industry evolves and matures, currently at breakneck speed.

Resources and Articles:

• Eric Wesoff, Green Tech Media: November 3, 2010, VCs and Solar Startups at PARC: Is there still room for new technology and VC investment in the solar industry?http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/VCs-and-Solar-Startups-at-PARC/
• Utility Solar: U.S. Market Takes Off, Jon Guice, Larry Sherwood, and Eric Paul, AltaTerra Research, Monday, November 01, 2010,

  This report presents an overview of the development of utility solar in the United States with installation data, profiles of all of the largest projects, and project case studies. It covers commissioned installations having utilities and other purchasers of wholesale power as customers, rather than equipment sales or project announcements. The focus is on photovoltaic (PV) plants larger than 10 MW. The report includes comprehensive installation data for PV and concentrating solar thermal power from 2004 through the present, with early results and informed projections for 2010. The full report may be purchased at https://altaterra.site-ym.com/store/view_product.asp?id=605817

FountainBlue's October 4 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs Forum was on the topic of Sustainable Solutions for the Built Environment and featured:

Facilitator Craig Lobdell, CFO Advisory Group, KPMG

Panelist Michael D'Amour, President and CEO, LUMEnergi Inc.

Panelist John Kerley, Donnelly Kerley Builders 

Panelist Kevin Kopczynski, Senior Associate, RockPort Capital

Panelist Josh Schoonmaker, SmartHome Manager, HP

Panelist Kevin Surace, CEO, Serious Materials

Presenting Entrepreneur Matt Golden, Founder and President, Recurve

Presenting Entrepreneur Greg Howes, CEO, IDEAbuilder

Presenting Entrepreneur Brian Pierson, CEO, Tru2Earth

Please join me in thanking our panelists for their insight advice and comments, and in thanking KPMG for their support and sponsorship. Below are notes from the conversation.

Our esteemed panel represented the range of Built Environment solutions: everything from building materials to software design solutions to devices and solutions to monitor the energy within the home or organization. The core theme of the discussion was the need for each of the stakeholders providing solutions for the built environment to collaborate and partner in providing integrated solutions to the customers for mutual benefit. The panel repeatedly talked about how difficult it was to bring together builders, policy-makers, home-owners, building managers, integrators and others to develop collaborative solutions ranging from building construction to retrofitting to energy management.

The panelists also talked about the human factor, and how difficult it was to manage energy usage even in LEED compliant buildings as users find many ways to circumvent systems designed to efficiently manage energy usage overall. For example, a user may unwittingly turn on air conditioning in one room, and the heater in the next or even the same room. The controls are difficult to understand, much less dynamically manage, so these types of energy waste stories occur in many ways, every day, in homes and in companies.

The panelists speak of solutions which proactively manage energy usage, integrate all the pieces of the puzzle - from the lighting, heating and cooling mechanisms themselves to the software solutions that manage and integrate individual units, and the overall solution as a whole. But in many cases, this is a future solution. We don't have enough standards and collaboration to currently provide these solutions, and it will take leadership and standards and cooperation to bring us there. In addition, many of the stakeholders in the industry are conservative by nature, and not necessarily early adopters, as their industry rewards proven solutions and is risk-adverse about adopting unproven solutions which could fail and lead to injuries and lawsuits. The up-side is that we can easily develop and leverage technology solutions from databases to 3D modeling from robotics to SaaS-based energy management solutions to provide sustainable building options for our customers.

Technology advancements and market changes are also necessary to ensure that customers get 1-5 year ROI on their build environment management solutions. It's best to sell to the business side of a customer rather than to the customers who do the right thing for the building and environment because it's the right thing to do - a much smaller target audience. So technology advancements are needed to reach grid parity for everything from materials upgrades to building retrofits to energy management solutions.

Fortunately, our esteemed panelists and their solutions and programs are supporting, funding, and developing these technological changes, and creating and selling to markets who see the ROI and opt for these more advanced built environment solutions.

The question arose about the policy changes necessary to support the adoption of higher standards for the built environment, and the panelists concurred that the focus should be on the business model, rather than relying on policy-makers to issue refunds, grants and mandates to create a market.

Any way you turn it, the entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, investors alike will find a way to continue developing value for their customers, enhancing technologies, increasing channels and markets, and collaborating with each other and other stakeholders to address all the pieces of the puzzle and provide more financially attractive, sustainable solutions that provide value without changing the lifestyles, and serve homeowners and building managers alike.

FountainBlue's September 13 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was on the topic of Energy Storage and Management, and featured:

Facilitator Kathy Fields, Partner, Goodwin Procter

Panelist Matthew Denesuk, Ph.D., STSM, Partner, IBM Venture Capital Group, Scientist, IBM Research

Panelist Dr. Angel Sanjurjo, Director Materials Research Laboratory, SRI International

Presenting Entrepreneur Jit Bhattacharya, CEO, Mission Motors

Presenting Entrepreneur David Henkel-Wallace, Co-Founder, Solar Storage Company Presenting Entrepreneur Linda Maepa, Founder & COO, ElectronVault, Inc.

Please join me in thanking SRI for graciously hosting us for this event, and KPMG and Goodwin Procter for their sponsorship. Below are notes from the conversation:     

There is a wide range of solutions for both energy storage and management, and our panel represented a large range of solutions in these areas.

Our entrepreneurs came from different industries from robotics to medical devices, from high tech to life science. Yet they shared a desire to develop energy storage and management solutions for both the social impact and for financial gain. They pay attention to the needs of the customer, and work with government policies where relevant to better deliver services to their customers. They are resourceful about creating initial products, services and momentum, and nimble about changing their messaging and model, as their customers and market demands. These are all key attributes of a successful entrepreneur in this promising space.

There are tremendous opportunities locally and globally for energy storage and management. The trick is to find the funding and customers to deliver useful products that would sell, not just by relying on incentives, but standing on its own merit. It may take identifying and targeting a niche market of customers who feel the pain, but a small enough slice of the market so that current players can't address their needs well.

The panelists agree that in general, we are not quite a grid parity with clean energy storage and management solutions, so the customer has to see the value of a solution, beyond the feel-good/social impact of making green solutions. The product or service must be worth the time to adopt and implement in the short term and provide ongoing cost and resource savings in the long term.

In the energy storage arena, whether it's about battery storage or solar thermal systems, the solution must work with the existing infrastructure that measures, manages and distributions energy. It must suit the customer requirements for reliable energy, when he/she wants it, at a reasonable cost. An attractive storage solution might better address the customer desire for 24/7 access to energy, much preferred over peak-demand management solutions which monitor and even restrict and penalize usage during peak hours.

Our panel talked about what it takes to run a capital efficient company, emphasizing the importance of both working efficiently, being customer-centric, and creating the collaborations with corporations, academic and research institutions and governments, as well as funding support to make it happen. The focus is not just on costs but also on manufacturability and safety/reliability as well as end-of-life strategies for batteries and systems, for example.

Several times, the panelists remarked on the market opportunities in Asia, with its explosion of two-wheel vehicles, its hunger for power and the storage and management thereof, and the large market size overall. It's not just Asia that's hot. Panelists advocate working with emerging countries with unstable grids overall, provided there are government and other finances to pay for energy monitoring and management solutions.

When the conversation turned to US policies specifically, the panelists remarked that 1) with the large amounts of funds available, it's easier for larger companies to ask for larger amounts than for early-stage companies to ask for smaller amounts, even if the latter might pose greater opportunities for technology innovation; 2) most early-stage entrepreneurs don't have the time and resources to lobby or even to complete the paperwork involved in seeking funding; 3) companies which rely on subsidies to build a business may be counting on false markets that are not sustainable; 4) other nations have more favorable policies for companies embracing the clean energy opportunity; 5) collaborating with research institutions and large companies may be one way entrepreneurs can impact policy direction overall; 6) the federal government is better positioned to support the 6) our state may have more favorable policies and attractive grants, depending on the solution you are providing; and 7) consider governments to be potential large, ongoing customers for clean energy solutions overall.

As we progress this and other clean energy sub-industries, our panelists recognize the energy prices will keep rising and focus on non-linear rather than incremental technology developments that will change the world, serving the way customers around the world store, use, and management of energy, sold on performance, while considering its impact on the earth.

FountainBlue's August 2 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs Forum was on the topic of Transportation Greening Advances, featuring our esteemed panel of speakers:

Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Director, CFO Advisory Services, KPMG

Panelist Ann Chan, Director, California Programs, Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP)

Panelist Dave Lyons, Entrepreneur in Residence, Accel Partners

Panelist Byron Shaw, Managing Director, GM Advanced Technology

Presenting Entrepreneur Krish Ram, Founder and CEO, OpticLanes

Presenting Entrepreneur Paul McGrath, CEO, RideSpring

Presenting Entrepreneur Simon Saba, Founder and CEO, Saba Motors

Emcee and Program Chair Tom Thayer

Please join me in thanking our sponsors for this event from KPMG and Goodwin Procter and Silicon Valley Bank. Below are notes from the conversation:   

There has been a lot of energy around the clean energy transportation sub-industry, with everything from electric cars to telematics and fuel efficiency, from community solutions to hardware and safety and communication advances. Part of the buzz is due to the release of new electric cars from big-name carmakers as well as the recent IPO of Tesla.

Each of our panelists represented a different perspective about the innovation, funding and policy challenges yet everyone remained optimistic about the upcoming opportunities as well. Everyone shared ideas about leveraging technology solutions to build community and support a shared sustainability cause, while also providing practical solutions ranging from new cars to retrofitted engines, and software solutions to manage ridesharing and traffic flow. There was an emphasis on identifying real problems for specific customers, while also saving money on fuel or manufacturing or facilities management.

The panelists shared their views on policy, and how it is impacting the industry.

• Rally behind policy changes that would support the growth of an industry, but don’t make policy and incentives a clutch for adopting products and services, creating a false market. Support policies which can be easily adopted by those who have to enforce it. Even if a new policy makes more sense in the long term, if it forces too much change, people will be resistant to adopting it.
• Stay engaged with policymakers - change can be slow, but with persistence and collaboration, entrepreneurs can continue to have a voice in shaping policy direction to support innovation.
• Establish relationships that support both short term benefits as well as the long term sweep, which takes sustained leadership.
• With the current situation of tightening standards, we are likely to get better, more efficient vehicles. It would be nice to have predictability with policy and standards, so that companies small and large, as well as their customers can play accordingly.
• Many are looking to California to see how their policy and business standards are supporting technology innovation and job growth in the industry.
• The US State Department is putting 3-4x more funding into global partnerships for climate treaties and clean tech treaties, and also partnering closely with businesses on same.

• Design, materials and manufacturing innovations which would lead to lighter vehicles and save on everything from batteries to fuels to production time
• Retrofit solutions designed for existing vehicles such as light trucks, vans and suvs that are add-on that doesn't compromise factory power train light integration and doesn't involve full scale conversion, using standard, readily available gasoline
• Combination electric and gasoline powered vehicles 
• Biofuels could be a hot area, as evidenced by the support Japanese, Brazilian and German governments in this area. 
• Car batteries which are smaller, more effective and more efficient; in general that that would improve the life, range and storage capacity of batteries
  

• Innovations which would drive down price points and development curves, from new materials to new processes and design

The panelists had the following advice for entrepreneurs in this space:

• Think from the customer’s perspective: Quantify overall energy savings as well as deferral of replacement costs, as well as overall ROI and incentives. 
• Transportation innovations can take years to design and implement, and entrepreneurs need to collaborate with intrapreneurs and investors to build solutions that will meet the needs of the customers. 
• No matter what your transportation innovation, factor in that the price of gasoline has been and will continue to increase when you plan your business. 
• Infrastructure upgrades are needed for mass adoption of some transportation solutions, including electric vehicles and their charging needs. 
• There are many local, state and federal grants available, but many times, funds are spent unwisely or wasted because of the lack of information, and/or poor implementation. There may be an opportunity for grant funding if you take the time to identify grant sources of funding and work with decision-makers to lobby for your solution. 
• Understand the objectives of what your company and how it supports sustainability – is it more about energy independence or climate change for example. 
• Partnerships are the lifeblood for early stage companies. Partners can help with R&D, channels, funding, outreach, and everything in between.
• The Chinese government is putting lots of $$, far more than the US. There are 85 oem vehicle manufacturers in China today – similar to where the US was in the early 1900s, and we now have 3. In China, there is a huge market for cars in the $2500-$3500 range which are as clean as possible 
• Silicon Valley expertise in software, security, communications and chips can support the evolution of the industry, as we emerge from the more mechanical domain to more electrical differentiators. The Silicon Valley edge is around the ability to innovate and iterate, creating much faster product cycles, more quickly meeting the changing needs of customers, even in a space which has traditionally moved slowly. 
• Innovations which would drive down price points and development curves, from new materials to new processes and design

In conclusion, quality IS what counts, particularly in the transportation sector where lives are at stake. We stand on the shoulders of giants who have launched the transportation sector, and have a wide range of opportunities ahead for innovation throughout the sector.

FountainBlue's Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was on the topic of Financing Clean Energy Solutions, and featured our esteemed panel of speakers:

Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Director, CFO Advisory Services, KPMG

Panelist Michael Niver, Director of Project Finance, SolarCity

Panelist Brian Hubert, Applied Ventures

Presenting Entrepreneur Jim DiSanto, President and General Manager, Earthrise Technologies, Inc.

Presenting Entrepreneur Steven Malloy, Founder, yoUtilBill

Presenting Entrepreneur Fareed Sfard, PhD, CEO, Ahura Energy Inc.

Please join me in thanking our sponsors for this event from KPMG and Goodwin Procter. Below are notes from the conversation:     

Successful clean energy companies from solar to transportation, from installations to products and services need both the financing to launch and grow a company, and the support and outreach so that the right customers can afford these offerings. Successful clean energy entrepreneurs have figured out how to bootstrap beyond the initial prototype, and how to sign on initial customers who can partner with them to offer and refine their offerings. They partner with customers and investors from angels to VCs to corporate investors to fund, grow and expand the company, and expand into logical new areas and markets. They learn to work with the utilities, and with the government where necessary, so that minimal infrastructure and standards are in place to support market adoption for their product or service and for the industry overall.

But it's not an easy path to follow. It takes leadership and resiliency to understand and select the right opportunity, to execute at a highly professional level in an entrepreneurial setting, to select the right customers and partners for the near term, and the long term. And it takes fortitude and ingenuity to strategize how to work with funders from angels to corporates to venture to grants to support the company’s financing needs and expansion challenges.

Resilient entrepreneurs are undaunted by the task, and are investigating some high-potential clean energy sub-industries including solid state lighting technologies, home energy management, LEDs, Fuel cells, biofuels and other eco-friendly fuels and batteries. In addition, there are a proliferation of management and services consumers need today: from energy assessment and upgrading/management, to energy monitoring and smart grid solutions.

The panel offered the following advice to entrepreneurs launching companies:

• Work on a good idea, where customers will take action to change something. Don’t force them to make too big a change in behavior patterns or they won't buy and/or it won't stick. A clear example of a behavior-changing challenge is related to electric vehicles, and the need to spend about 8 hours to recharge vehicles. This is a big change from what consumers are experiencing today, and coupled with the need to and cost of upgrading the electrical infrastructure of a house, there will be a huge barrier to mass adoption, and a need for both technical advancement (so that it takes less time to charge and might work with existing infrastructure) as well as a cultural shift (to accept the time, expense and hassle factor which electrical cars might have over current offerings).
• When you've found a good idea, make sure that it is scalable, from both the 'steel-in-the-ground' and the 'boots-on-the-roof' perspective, and cost effective, particularly if it takes a lot of one-on-one consulting time with little automation. Leverage software tools to automate services as appropriate, so that you can best automate your one-on-one time with the right experts and providers.
• Factor in where you will offer solutions and what kinds of programs and incentives might drive adoption. For example, energy management is more practical in CA, with its tiered pricing model, and the PACE program made energy management solutions attract in specific areas. However, change your strategy and model as policies change, and your customers are more or less motivated to sign up based on these changes. For example, as PACE policies change and are treated more like a loan, fewer customers are attracted to this option, and less motivated to assess the energy management systems for their homes, and select more sustainable appliances, windows, tools, etc. The bottom line is: don't depend on tax credits, grants or loan guarantees to build your business as things will change and they may be unpredictable. A viable business will remain valid despite these unanticipated changes rather than being one-trick pony.
• If you are working on a longer-term clean energy solution, recruit an investor who will stay alongside your company over many years. The investors must also want a long-term investment, and also be predictable and transparent about their needs and objectives, and proactive about communicating it if these needs change.
• Pricing motivates customers to change, and utilities and policy-makers can influence pricing for electricity as well as rebates. 
• The federal renewable energy standard and the clean energy development agency as well as PACE programs will evolve and influence the development of the clean energy sector, so entrepreneurs need to keep apprised of these offerings and influence their direction to better support innovation in the sector when possible. Many consumers are very confused about all these policies, incentives and rebates, and don't know what to do and why. So there’s an opportunity there, but more stability and predictability are needed to build a business and an industry overall.
• Companies like WalMart are choosing sustainable solutions to both save money, while addressing the needs of their customers and build loyalty and get great PR. When sustainability is adopted at the scale WalMart is doing it, there are huge opportunities for entrepreneurs, and a domino effect for other providers and customers.
• Optimize existing technologies with a sustainable angle. What was tried a decade ago might be more viable now with advancements in technology, with the preponderance of social media solutions, and with the sustainability banner everyone can get behind.
• If you’re working on a solar solution, read "What Really Matters in Thin Film Solar Startups?" From Greentech: where Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla opines on thin film solar and the potential of "new Black Swan improbable pyro-nano-quantum-thingamajig technology" http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/2010/06/solar-vinod-khosla-what-really-matters.html

In conclusion, the panel remains upbeat about the clean green opportunities ahead, but the path is full of roadblocks, and only the best companies with the best ideas and proven execution will continue to succeed despite the odds.

FountainBlue's June 7 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was on the topic of Opportunities and Challenges with Air, Water and Waste and featured:

Facilitator Kathy Fields, Partner, Goodwin Procter

Panelist Cheryl McGovern, US EPA, Region 9

Panelist Nitin Parekh, Director of Business Development, PARC

Panelist G. G. Pique, President and CEO, Energy Recover Inc.

Presenting Entrepreneur Peter Frykman, Founder and CEO, DripTech

Presenting Entrepreneur Dr. Fatemeh Shirazi, Chief Executive Officer & President, Microvi Biotech Inc.

Presenting Entrepreneur Reza M Sheikhrezai, CEO, Windation

Please join me in thanking our speakers above, as well as our sponsors at Goodwin Procter and KPMG and our hosts at Parc, all of whom make our work possible.

Below are notes from the conversation.

The wide range of technology and business solutions and offerings in the air, water and waste clean energy sub-industry have taken many years to develop and cultivate, leveraging stakeholders from academia to corporates to investors. It takes a promising technology, a resilient entrepreneur, and receptive customers to keep driving innovations and successes in this space, yet it holds so much promise for both the earth and the bottom line for companies.

Savvy entrepreneurs and executives are all well aware of the finite resources available and the pressing need to reuse natural resources and even generate energy from air, water and waste. But the challenges are abundant: from the lack of funding of projects to the cost of research, development and distribution, to the lack of market acceptance due to pricing, cultural and other issues.

At times, government grants and policies have supported the growth of a company from the company set-up and marketing and distribution to infrastructure, but not the development of actual technologies. The panelists suggested that companies partner with academics, research institutions, entrepreneurs and others to develop innovations in the air, water and waste space rather than seek grant funding for the technology development. In the end, few companies get funded, and it is often a long road to success in bringing products to market.

Strategic partnerships with corporations, contract manufacturers, customers, distributors and others can help with the end-to-end development, distribution and manufacturing of solutions. More frequently, these strategic partnerships are developing across country borders, and entrepreneurs must expect and plan for these international collaborations. In approaching a potential strategic partner, be organized and prepared, be strategic about who you approach, and have enough of your own time and energy invested prior to approaching them – not just an idea on a napkin, closer to a prototype developed.

The panelists also recommended partnering with policy-makers to encourage the adoption of policies that support the adoption of clean green technologies, without creating an artificial market. Many policy-makers have neither the technology nor business background to understand the investment landscape, so it’s difficult to be strategic in allocating funding or in crafting policies, so it is necessary for people technology and business leaders to educate and inform them, and collaborate with them to build a sustainable industry.

Drivers such as water scarcity, increasing pollution, water contaminants, energy costs, global warming, and other factors will force and encourage a collaborative conversation between all stakeholders.

Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Director, CFO Advisory Services, KPMG

Panelist Paul Davis, Partner, Goodwin Procter LLP

Panelist Karl Littau, Synthetic Fuels Program Manager, PARC

Panelist Uday Mathur, Principal, Energy Procurement, Pacific Gas & Electric Company

Presenting Entrepreneur Kevin Gao, Founder and Vice President, CASolar

Presenting Entrepreneur David Henkel-Wallace, Solar Storage Company

Presenting Entrepreneur Mark Mah, CEO, Nergyos.

Below are notes from the conversation.

Renewable Energy may encompass energy derived from various power sources such as solar, biomass, wind, wave and tidal energy, and more traditional hydro projects. The upside of renewables is that they leverage less resource-intense energy sources other than carbon and petroleum, but although renewables have been around a while, generating, storing and distributing renewables has not reached grid parity, and mass adoption is difficult if the less environmentally-conscious options are readily, and less-expensively available.

We are therefore in search of technology and business model advances which provide more concentrated, more reliable, energy that fits into the existing infrastructure, including synthetic fuels, nuclear power, compressed air, solar thermal, advanced batteries, and other technology advances hold much promise. Business model innovations which are not dependent on policies and subsidies are also helpful in facilitation a renewables adoption breakthrough.

Policy and pricing also obviously impact the adoption of and innovations for renewable energy. But we must be careful to adopt and enforce policies and pricing which would support development and adoption of the solutions, rather than create dependencies or have policies and pricing measures meet anything other than the desired intent.

One of the obstacles of adopting good policies is that decision-makers are not necessarily technologies nor business people, and although their intention might be to support technology innovations, the end effect might be less desirable, particularly if officials try to dictate technology direction. The panelists recommended collaborating with local, state and federal policy-makers and getting involved to keep them informed and to help guide policies to support future and current innovations.

The panelists recommended the following opportunities in the renewable energy space:

• Energy efficiency and storage across communities and for communities on the edge of the grid;
• Renewable energy storage, management and distribution, which would fit into existing infrastructure;
• Local and distributed generation, which feeds into the grid;
• Solutions which would manage the inherent intermittent nature of renewables;
• Project financing which would support the mass adoption of renewables, without creating a crutch;
• Partnerships with utilities, power purchase agreements, etc.
• New and rebuilt building leveraging renewable energy – from solar to wind to lighting;
• Renewables generating fuel for transportation.

• Frequently Asked Questions about PG&E’s Power Purchase Agreement for Small Renewable Generation “Feed-in Tariffs” http://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdfs/b2b/wholesaleelectricsuppliersolicitation/Feedin_Tariffs_FAQs.pdf

Facilitator Ryan Murr, Partner, Goodwin Procter LLC

Panelist Jonathan Livingston, President, Livingston Energy Innovations, LLC

Panelist Craig Lobdell, Director, CFO Advisory Services, KPMG

Panelist Shiva Swaminathan, Senior Resource Manager, City of Palo Alto Utilities

Panelist Robyn Zander, Southern California Edison Technology Resource Incubator Outreach Program

Presenting Entrepreneur Steven Malloy, yoUtilBill

Presenting Entrepreneur Michael McDonald, CEO, CleanShare

Below are notes from the conversation.

Entrepreneurs with solutions working with the utilities must consider all the pieces of the value chain:

• CPUC California Public Utilities Commission: http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/puc/
• The CPUC regulates investor owned electric, natural gas, telecommunications, water, railroad, rail transit, and passenger transportation companies. The CPUC is located in San Francisco and serves the public interest by protecting consumers and ensuring the provision of safe, reliable utility service and infrastructure at reasonable rates, with a commitment to environmental enhancement and a healthy California economy.  We regulate utility services, stimulate innovation, and promote competitive markets, where possible.  On this website you'll find information about the many initiatives underway at the CPUC.
  
• CSI, California’s Solar Initiative: http://www.gosolarcalifornia.org/csi/index.html
• The California Solar Initiative is part of the Go Solar California campaign and builds on 10 years of state solar photovoltaic (PV) rebates offered to customers in California's investor-owned utility territories: Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E.) The California Solar Initiative is overseen by the California Public Utilities Commission.
• CEC, California Energy Commission: http://www.energy.ca.gov/commission/index.html
• The California Energy Commission is the state's primary energy policy and planning agency. Created by the Legislature in 1974 and located in Sacramento, the Commission responsibilities include:
• Forecasting future energy needs and keeping historical energy data.
• Licensing thermal power plants 50 megawatts or larger.
• Promoting energy efficiency by setting the state's appliance and building efficiency standards and working with local government to enforce those standards.
• Supporting public interest energy research that advances energy science and technology through research, development, and demonstration programs.
• Supporting renewable energy by providing market support to existing, new, and emerging renewable technologies; providing incentives for small wind and fuel cell electricity systems; and providing incentives for solar electricity systems in new home construction.
• Implementing the state's Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program.
• Planning for and directing state response to energy emergencies.
• California Air Resources Board: http://www.arb.ca.gov/html/brochure/arb.htm
• California's Legislature established the Air Resources Board (ARB) in 1967 to:
• Attain and maintain healthy air quality.
• Conduct research into the causes of and solutions to air pollution.
• Systematically attack the serious problems caused by motor vehicles, which are a major cause of air pollution in the State.
• California's major initiatives for reducing climate change or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are outlined in Assembly Bill 32 (signed into law 2006), 2005 Executive Order and a 2004 ARB regulation to reduce passenger car GHG emissions. These efforts aim at reducing GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 - a reduction of approximately 30 percent, and then an 80 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2050. The Scoping Plan, approved by the ARB Board December 12, 2008, provides the outline for actions to reduce California’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  The Scoping Plan now requires the Air Resources Board (ARB) and other state agencies to adopt regulations and other initiatives reducing GHGs.  ARB has already adopted a number of “early action” measures required by the Scoping Plan, and is now working on the Plan’s other measures.   The majority of this work must be completed by December 31, 2010, with most regulations and other initiatives adopted by the start of 2011.  This means more than 20 additional Scoping Plan measures will be adopted by ARB in 2009 and 2010.  http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/cc.htm
• California Independent System Operator: organization that brings power in and out of California http://www.caiso.com/docs/2005/08/18/200508181043065591.html
• California ISO Mission (through the provision of timely and accurate information):
• Operate the grid reliably and efficiently
• Provide fair and open transmission access
• Promote environmental stewardship
• Facilitate effective markets and promote infrastructure development
• Individual Utilities: manage the purchase and delivery of electricity and natural gas locally to wholesale and retail customers, operate nuclear, hydroelectric, and some natural gas fired power plants, as well as natural gas storage and pumped hydro electric storage facilities.  The utilities also administer energy efficiency, demand response, renewable energy, and smart grid initiatives including project subsidies (rebate programs) and education for end use customers.
• Pacific Gas and Electric Company&E http://www.pge.com
• Southern California Edison http://www.sce.com http://www.etcc-ca.gov or http://www.edison.com
• San Diego Gas and Electric http://www.sdge.com/index/
• Southern California Gas Company http://www.socalgas.com/index/
• Numerous municipal utilities including City of Palo Alto Utilities (CPAU) http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/depts/utl/default.asp, Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) http://www.smud.org/en/Pages/index.aspx, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/homepage.jsp
• DOE, Department of Energy: http://www.energy.gov/about/index.htm
• The Department of Energy's overarching mission is to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States; to promote scientific and technological innovation in support of that mission; and to ensure the environmental cleanup of the national nuclear weapons complex. This includes major funding of the national laboratories (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Pacific Northwest National Lab, National Renewable Energy Lab, Oak Ridge National Lab) where significant research and development on energy efficiency, demand response, and renewable energy technologies and policy is performed.  DOE also administers the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) program.
• DOE and EPA jointly administer the ENERGY STAR program, helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.  Results are already adding up. Americans, with the help of ENERGY STAR, saved enough energy in 2009 alone to avoid greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 30 million cars — all while saving nearly $17 billion on their utility bills. http://www.energystar.gov/
• EPA, Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov/epahome/whatwedo.htm 
• The mission of EPA is to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment -- air, water and land -- upon which life depends.
• all Americans are protected from significant risks to human health and the environment where they live, learn and work;
• national efforts to reduce environmental risk are based on the best available scientific information;
• federal laws protecting human health and the environment are enforced fairly and effectively;
• environmental protection is an integral consideration in U.S. policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth, energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international trade, and these factors are similarly considered in establishing environmental policy;
• all parts of society -- communities, individuals, businesses, and state, local and tribal governments -- have access to accurate information sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks;
• environmental protection contributes to making our communities and ecosystems diverse, sustainable and economically productive; and
• the United States plays a leadership role in working with other nations to protect the global environment.

Utilities in general would prefer to proactively manage energy, rather than be put in the emergency position of demand response where some customers lose access to power during peak usage times. They are therefore incentivized to communicate energy efficiency and management solutions to their customers, and embrace innovations which would help customers get access to more energy, or more proactively manage existing energy.

Even though it is in the best interest of all parties from energy generators to utilities who manage and distribute energy and customers who optimize energy usage, particularly during peak times, it is also challenging to do so, primarily because it is difficult to understand how much and through which activities. Utilities are working hard to be more transparent about how energy is monitored and proactively communicating it to customers, however it is still difficult to understand the volumes of usage data in a way which allows customers to strategically manage their usage. Therefore, there are huge opportunities in energy metering and management (including a plethora of home detection hardware/software solutions which dynamically monitor and manage where energy is distributed and when), in community energy generation, in consulting, construction and retrofitting, all around energy usage.

Indeed, this goes far beyond any short term federal stimulus dollars. California Energy Action Plan provides an ongoing policy framework as energy efficiency has been and remains the #1 priority, more important than renewable power plants and clean energy generation. Two years ago, the CPUC led the creation of a 20-year strategic energy efficiency plan to transform key aspects of energy-using equipment and facilities, and to develop zero net energy buildings which produce as much energy as they generate.

With all this need and policies in place, it is still difficult to work with utilities to get solutions adopted. Many utilities are risk adverse, as they are rewarded for maximal up-time, it makes sense to adopt sure and solid new technologies and solutions. Therefore, entrepreneurs are encouraged to de-risk by getting prototypes and systems and solutions up and running prior to connecting with utilities. Also try to get independent assessments and validations from academic institutions, corporate strategic partners, and others. To facilitate these efforts, the statewide Technology Resource Incubator Outreach (TRIO) program led by Southern California Edison is providing symposiums, training, and support services to help entrepreneurs, investors, research institutions, and corporate strategic partners understand the utility environment and access the tools necessary to develop cost effective energy efficiency and integrated demand-side management (IDSM) technologies and programs.  http://www.etcc-ca.com/component/content/article/2952

The bottom line is that it takes a lot of blocking and tackling to deliver solutions in partnership with utilities. But the opportunities are massive: from generation and management, to lighting and furnaces, to financing and consulting, to social media for reducing energy usage one community at a time. Have fortitude and perseverance and keep building relationships and making yourself heard to relevant stakeholders across the value chain.

Resources:

• E3 Energy Efficiency Calculators - Utility Planning Versions for 2010-2012 http://www.ethree.com/cpuc_cee_tools.html    
• Property Assessed Clean Energy Bonds http://www.pacenow.org
• A PACE bond is a bond where the proceeds are lent to commercial and residential property owners to finance energy retrofits (efficiency measures and small renewable energy systems) and who then repay their loans over 20 years via an annual assessment on their property tax bill. PACE bonds can be issued by municipal financing districts or finance companies and the proceeds can be typically used to retrofit both commercial and residential properties. Consider financing options for creating prototypes or financing energy efficient solutions for your home or business.

Facilitator Dave Miller, Partner, KPMG

Panelist Andy Gordon, VP of Sales, Federspiel Controls

Panelist John Suh, Member of the Technical Staff, General Motors Advanced Technology Silicon Valley Office

Panelist Dharmesh Thakker, Advanced Technology Ventures

Panelist Eileen Tanghal, Investment Director, Applied Ventures

Presenting Entrepreneur Eric Alderman, Founder, President and CEO, SolarNexus

Presenting Entrepreneur Mark Friedman, President, Green Axle

Presenting Entrepreneur Zachary Gentry, Chief Strategy Officer & Co-founder, Adura Technologies

Below are notes from the conversation.

With the convergence of technologies and industries and the general public acceptance of clean green solutions and leveraging technology to implement such solutions, and the wide range of offerings to huge markets, individuals and companies big and small are exploring and implementing solutions from transportation to buildings, from data center efficiency to water management and distribution, from smart grid to lighting, to a growing customer base.

From an investor’s perspective, there are three target clean energy customers: utilities, commercial/industrial, and residential. If your solution can serve each of these, it’s better to have a strategy first targeting one of these customers before extending to the next customer base.

Entrepreneurs providing enterprise solutions should consider not just how the solution improves productivity while saving costs with minimal overhead, but also that the solution might be popular with their staff, partners and customers. Understanding this may help companies enlist others to be internal ambassadors to the sales and adoption process. In addition, for entrepreneurs selling to corporations, identify a customer where the leadership team embraces sustainability solutions.

For example, Coca Cola is on a campaign asking its customers their ideas are how to reduce their carbon footprint while improving energy efficiency. What kind of software solution might interest Coca Cola in its green initiatives? What other non-technology customer might embrace a software solution, as it’s in their best interest to improve their company and operations while improving their brand and their reach? What software solution would a sub-set of their customer base embrace (Gen Y for example) over another?

One opportunity for a green software solution for the enterprise is to compile, manage, and interpret the volumes of information available to manage everything to energy usage to computer security to data analytics. The problem is that there are few hardware and software standards for vendors, customers and utilities. As the standards evolve, it will be simpler to provide a solution to coordinate data with different origination points into a document or solution that provides a compiled report, one that can trigger assessments and actions. With that said, there are business opportunities for companies who can help establish an adopted standard. A similar statement can be made for lighting solutions sold to municipalities.

The software opportunities in the transportation sector are related to 1) the design and engineering, from manufacturing to weight distribution and aerodynamics, to 2) the embedded systems from microprocesses to navigation, radio and cruise control and energy efficiency and emission, and to 3) telematics including back-end servers and systems, safety solutions, security and entertainment. Knowing where your software fits into the thousands of transportation software applications will help you understand your market and build the right relationships and customers to move your company forward.

The panel discussed the software solutions targeting consumers, and recommended that entrepreneurs leverage current business trends, from the mass adoption of social media with social gaming and virtual goods, to the energy management and personal fitness devices and mobile solutions targeting consumers.

One of the challenges of providing clean green software services is the need to change the current status quo behavior of the customer, whether it’s a CIO managing database solutions or a resident managing energy usage. The key question is to understand what is the trigger is for individual purchases for the mass adoption.

Another challenge is that policies impact whether customers adopt solutions, and the overall trend of the industry. Not knowing when policies will change and what the new policies are makes it difficult for entrepreneurs to make strategic plans for their business. In addition, as small businesses, it is difficult to impact the policy directions impacting an industry. So the advice of the panel is to create a strategy which does not depend on short-term policies, even if the policies are beneficial for your organization in the short term.

In conclusion, the panel remarked on the markets and the opportunities and challenges for leveraging software for clean green solutions, but advised clean green software start-ups to implement the standard business practices: 1) ensure that there is a large market for a solution, 2) ensure that the customer feels a real pain that they know about, 3) connections to the right customer who feels that pain, and has the authority to select your solution, 4) quantify the solution and how it reduces costs and increases productivity, 5) create a team to envision and implement the solution.

Resource: More information about what’s driving consumer behavior: http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/DICE-2010-Design-Outside-the-Box-Presentation/

FountainBlue's February 5 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of The Opportunities in Managing and Monitoring Energy Usage and featured:

Facilitator Craig Lobdell Director, CFO Advisory Services - KPMG

Panelist Don Bray, co-founder and President, Altaterra Research

Panelist Jeff Fara, Solution Manager, SAP Sustainability

Panelist Micah Myers, Associate, Claremont Creek Ventures

Panelist Nick Ward, Director, Global Product Management Automation Services, Applied Materials

Panelist Elise Zoli, Chair, Clean Energy Practice, Goodwin Procter LLP

Presenting Entrepreneur John Steinberg, CEO - Co-Founder, EcoFactor

Presenting Entrepreneur Gene Wang, CEO and Chairman, People Power Company

Below are notes from our conversation.

Our panelists agreed that proactively managing and monitoring energy usage is an integral part of a home and a company's sustainability program. Energy efficiency suggestions ranged from creating, encouraging and rewarding proactive energy conservation measures from leveraging peer pressure, like using social media and competitions to measure and communicate usage, to leveraging technology to automate the optimization of energy-using devices.

The panel agreed that a major challenge is the sheer volume of data about energy usage, and the difficulty in understanding what that information means and how to change energy use patterns to optimize conservation. Couple this with the lack of standards between devices, organizations and people, the debate on who should get access to what usage data, plus other factors, and you have a confusing morass of information which makes it difficult for consumers and businesses alike to adopt efficiency measures, goals and standards.

The opportunity in this challenge centers around software management solutions that can help residents and businesses to measure, understand and act on energy usage patterns and communicate about this usage, set standards for energy reduction, adopt targeted measures for reducing consumption based on hot spots, reduce risks involved when energy reduction measures are taken, and encourage continued adoption of energy efficient standards and solutions.

Another challenge is that the cost of electricity varies widely depending on factors such as time of usage and overall usage amount for month, PLUS the billing cycle for charging for the electricity and the complexity of the bills makes it difficult for customers to discern what they did and how they can better conserve going forward.

The panel recommended creating energy efficiency solutions which are simple, reliable, obvious and interoperable,  ones that provide detailed information on demand, but assume that the average consumer doesn’t want to have access to this level of information, but would rather that automated choices be made to optimize energy consumption based on patterns of usage by inhabitants, dynamically updated as well as building characteristics – e.g. the Prius-like ability to decide whether it’s better to use the gas or electric engine dynamically, while making data available to driver, but applied to energy usage in the home/business for the inhabitant/facilities manager.

In other words, the panelists were not looking for a panacea to energy efficiency issues overall, but more ‘blocking and tackling’ solutions which will make incremental and even game-changing differences on how much energy is saved.

To encourage the adoption of energy efficiency standards, the panelists recommended that 1) policymakers provide definite guidelines for electricity policies, so consumers and companies find it difficult to plan ahead; 2) entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs show a proven and relative short-term ROI for their solution 3) investors, municipalities and financial institutions provide financing solutions which don’t impact the balance sheets and add value to the home or facility in the long term and 4) everyone collaborate to leverage the ubiquity of the internet and the volume of energy usage data to better measure usage, better communicate goals, and reward energy efficient companies and individuals.

The bottom line is that we as consumers, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, investors, etc. are all stakeholders and can collaborate to embrace energy-efficient solutions that make incremental changes, and even ground-breaking, paradigm-shifting changes such as re-architecting the computer and other devices to be more sustainable. The opportunities are huge, but innovation and collaboration and policy updates and appropriate accountability structures are necessary to realize these opportunities.

Resources:

·         People Power is on a mission to "Unplug for Earth Day 2010" and asks everyone to reduce their personal CO2 emissions on April 22, 2010, and invite friends to join now on this great mission. Unplugging appliances in the home is easy and significantly reduces carbon pollution. Unplugging is important because many appliances continue to draw power even in the standby/off position. The Unplug application on Facebook features the GreenX™ Calculator, which calculates carbon pollution reduction and helps users see their positive impact in terms of taking cars off the road and/or miles not driven by simply unplugging appliances. Users can then invite friends, view their plugs unplugged, and track their collective commitment to reducing carbon emissions. Leveraging Facebook, the GreenX™ Calculator empowers people to band together and make a substantial and positive impact on the environment. http://apps.facebook.com/unplugit

·         Ecofactor Residential Energy Management: so consumers don’t have to choose between savings, comfort and convenience  http://ecofactor.com/democenter.php

·         McKinsey Report: Reducing US Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost? http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/ccsi/greenhousegas.asp

The central conclusion:

The United States could reduce GHG emissions in 2030 by 3.0 to 4.5 gigatons of CO2e using tested approaches and high-potential emerging technologies. These reductions would involve pursuing a wide array of abatement options with marginal costs less than $50 per ton, with the average net cost to the economy being far lower if the nation can capture sizable gains from energy efficiency. Achieving these reductions at the lowest cost to the economy, however, will require strong, coordinated, economy-wide action that begins in the near future.

FountainBlue's January 29 Clean Green Annual Conference was on the topic of Past Successes, New Opportunities and feature two panels and an audience-participation MashUp.

Our the State of the Industry: Past Successes, New Opportunities panel consisted of:

Moderator Eric Wesoff, Greentech Media, Publisher of the Venture Power newsletter

Panelist Dan Adler, President, California Clean Energy Fund

Panelist Matt Maloney, Head of Relationship Management, Silicon Valley Bank

Panelist Tim Woodward, Managing Director, Nth Power

Panelist Laurie Yoler, Managing Director, GrowthPoint Technology Partners

Panelist Elise Zoli, Partner and Chair, Energy Practice, Goodwin Procter

Our Corporate Panel: Doing Well While Doing Good consisted of:

Moderator Craig Lobdell, Director, CFO Advisory Services, KPMG

Panelist Ray Homan, SAP Sustainability

Panelist Jeremy Rodriguez, Senior Manager, Global Data Center Efficiency, VMWare

Panelist Peter Williams, Distinguished Engineer, Chief Technology Officer, Big Green Innovations, IBM

Panelist Kathrin Winkler, Chief Sustainability Officer, EMC 

Below are notes from the panel discussions, as well as input from all attendees from the MashUps.

The program began speaking on clean energy trends, covering how the industry is involving and opportunities ahead. The industry as a whole has developed a veneer of more respectability and more attention, due to the recent wins of BrightSource and Soliant and Solyndra and other companies, and the attention of investors, corporations, government, etc. and the leadership of tech execs transferring into the industry.

A great part of the initial conversation centered around policy changes that need to happen, and the role of government necessary to support this emerging industry. The panelists concurred that investors and entrepreneurs are reticent to join the clean energy industry with its current policy and infrastructure challenges. It is difficult to start a company when policies are unclear or downright unsupportive and infrastructure is non-existent or not well positioned to growth. The silos between the stakeholders are an additional hurdle to growth. Specific examples of challenges raised are listed below:

·         Developing alternative energy, storage, distribution and other solutions which work within the current grid.

·         Partnering with utilities to upgrade standards for energy storage, distribution and management.

·         Legacy processes, ownership and protocol are at least 100 years old – they are owned by few people, and don’t encourage the kind of innovation and entrepreneurship needed to offer viable solutions for customers.

·         Standardization for alternative fuels, and having an infrastructure for fueling alternative transportation options are another hurdle.

·         Confusing and inconsistent incentives for consumers and corporations to adopt clean energy solutions – indeed the European governments have much more consistently supported clean energy solutions for decades through policies and incentives and the US is falling behind.

What’s more, lobbying from powerful entities from farmers to unions to oil and gas is making it difficult to embrace more clean-energy friendly policies, and silos of powerful stakeholders are entrenched in what’s-in-it-for-them thinking, rather than more open and collaborative options for moving the industry forward.

Our corporate panel chimed in with specific ideas on how industry is leveraging clean energy opportunities, throughout the value chain, improving both the bottom line and impacting the environment and also providing positive social impact. Alignment of business objectives from the top, and accountability of all stakeholders throughout the system help corporate leaders make progress on their sustainability goals. There were colorful and specific stories of how measuring results is driving progress, but also the warning that measurement is not enough – actions need to follow measurements, and behaviors need to change to positive impact sustainability measures. Indeed, the likelihood of action decreases with time, so be timely with your measurements and in taking action based on those results.

Each corporate panelist remarked on the groundswell of young employees motivated to adopt and even drive corporate sustainability efforts. It’s up to the leaders to engage these employees, yet ensure that their efforts are aligned with corporate goals. In addition, there is little tolerance for the hypocrisy of saying one thing, and doing another thing, especially when it comes to making sustainable choices for the company. The most forward-thinking, sustainable organizations integrate sustainability into their governance and into their charter, and have cross-department committees to ensure execution of sustainability practice across the company, and involving and communicating with all stakeholders, particularly grassroots employee groups, throughout the company, and into individual households of employees.

Both panels shared interesting ideas for advancing the industry, despite the challenges. They advocated a focus on engineering and innovation rather than on creating short-term jobs by doing everything from offering loan guarantee programs, to creating additional ARPAe, the DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program, and other grants and programs, and continuing public/private partnerships to bring technologies out of the labs.

Specific advice for clean energy entrepreneurs are itemized below:

·         Be resourceful and drive momentum despite challenges.

·         Be creative about alliances, partners, collaboration, etc. and be open to serendipitous opportunities.

·         Focus on the market over the technology.

·         Partner with universities and research institutions to innovate and bring technologies to market.

·         Look for adjacent markets for current successful solutions.

·         Look for seasoned tech executives who can help you take your company to the next level with their depth of experience and connections.

·         Don’t be afraid of the incumbencies inherent in clean energy right now – from policy to utility to brown companies. The winners to manage through these hurdles and be the new industry leaders.

·         Consider the role of social media in driving clean energy markets and solutions.

·         Always be accountable to your stakeholders.

Below are specific challenges and opportunities for life science sub-industries:

Air Water and Waste

Technologies available to the Flintstones can be the hot technologies of today. But whether you’re leveraging water, air or waste to generate energy, or whether you’re looking at filtering, metering, monitoring storing, or otherwise managing and treating water, you must focus on the market need and the business model for the solution: What is the technology, how can you efficiently deliver the solution, and who is going to pay for it?

Clean air, clean water, and waste management challenges are a direct result of globalization and population growth. But with advanced technology at our disposal, there are opportunities to collaborate and do everything from identify areas of water stress, efficiently deliver drinkable water, develop and manage win-win waste-management strategies, and otherwise utilize plentiful resources as sea water and CO2 to cost-effectively address real and immediately needs.

Water Project Challenges include the need for project financing as wary investors are shying away from this area (Efficiency projects are not successful because price of water is too low). In addition, policy and infrastructure challenges are discouraging investments. Getting clarity on the following will help progress the industry:

-      Differentiated policy needs to discriminate between water for public use vs industrial use vs agricultural use, which would impact pricing

-      Fed controls water on hills and mountains

-      Not clear who controls headwaters vs Ground water

-      Wells are controlled by meters (and yet places like Fresno does not yet have water meters)

-      People need to be educated about the importance of water and its tie to energy generation and potential

Energy Efficiency

Lack of intelligent measurement & control and standardization provides both opportunities and challenges for energy efficiency solutions. Electricity is relatively cheap, but consumers and corporations shy away from the up-front costs of adopting more energy efficiency solutions, even though much energy efficiency is  economical now, without subsidies. However, with that said, corporations are highly incented to invest in energy efficient solutions – as it 1) reduces there operating costs, making them more competitive,  2) can lead to fundamental changes in processes that may yield overwhelming market advantages,  3) meets the clean/green/sustainability requests and interests of current staff and partners.

There are advancements in building efficiencies from HVAC and lighting to materials and energy metering and distributed generation. Financing and management of energy efficient solutions are additional opportunities. The challenges include the policy/infrastructure challenges mentioned earlier, the relative low cost of energy, which does not incentivize customers to adopt energy efficient solutions, and the up-front cost for converting to energy efficient solutions.

Renewables

Solar, one of the first clean energy sub-industry, has had its ups and downs, and investors are wary that it might be one of those ‘over-cooked’ sectors. However, as one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors, there are huge opportunities ahead. However, be wary about the wind market as there is little room for innovation, and innovation in biofuels may not be the type of capital-efficient investments sought by VCs today.

Smart Grid

Smart Grid segments include storage, supply reliability, energy security, capacity and management of capacity, intermittent renewables, and other solutions that help people to participate in energy movement. One challenge is that policies might support energy generation, but ‘storage’ is still not accounted for, yet just as necessary, and energy distribution is also a challenge, particularly given existing infrastructure.

Challenges include education, lack of coordination and lack of funding, as well as lack of incentive to adopt new solutions due to infrastructure challenges and high cost of adoption.

Transportation

In transportation, there is an opportunity in power electronics to increase efficiency, such as internal combustion engine, battery innovations and engine retrofitting. However, costs, weight and efficiency are limiting progress in this area. There is also plenty of opportunity for development of low grade fuel and cleaner burn assisted driving, but technologies need to be commercialized and the infrastructure must support innovations in these areas. 

Policy changes which might support transportation innovations might include:

Cap and Trade – or similar legislation to boost renewables to fuel electric vehicles

Carbon tax on automotive fuels to stimulate plug-in demand

Supporting mass transit

Resources:

·         Green Tech Media, 2009 year-end Greentech Venture Capital Totals: VC investment in green technologies totaled $4.85 billion in 356 deals in 2009. Although the dollar total is down from 2008’s $7.6 billion, the number of deals total actually exceeded last year’s total. http://www.greentechmedia.com/green-light/post/greentech-venture-capital-summary-20091/

·         Green Tech Media blog for the first panel http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/greentech-panel-with-vcs-ibs-and-the-law/

·         Case Study: Dynamic Power Management: Adjusting Data Center Capacity in Real-Time

posted, Tuesday, January 12, 2010; Source: Power Assure at Silicon Valley Leadership Group's Data Center Energy Efficiency Summit (Review, editing and finalization by AltaTerra Research), October 2009 http://www.altaterra.net/members/blog_view.asp?id=272897&post=88645

·         Fresh Dialogues, Laurie Yoler: On Tesla, Venture Capital and Obama, February 3, 2010, http://www.freshdialogues.com/2010/02/03/laurie-yoler-on-tesla-venture-capital-and-obama/

·         Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-van-diggelen/advice-to-obama-green-job_b_458839.html

The bottom line is that we should all partner to create an ecosystem ripe for innovation in all clean energy sub-industries, encouraging the cross-section of markets, policy and technology, driving policy and infrastructure changes necessary to embrace the industry, forging innovation and job creation alike. We need more collaboration, more leadership, more success stories to address the huge market opportunities ahead.

• Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Director, CFO Advisory Services, KPMG
• Panelist Matthew Denesuk, Partner, IBM Venture Capital Group, IBM
• Panelist Kathy Fields, Co-Chair, Silicon Valley Office, Partner, Corporate and Private Equity and Technology Companies Group, Goodwin Procter LLP
• Panelist Barbara Heydorn, Director, Center of Excellence in Energy, SRI International
• Panelist Seth A. Hindman, Industry Manager, Autodesk, Inc.
• Panelist Sendil Palani, Senior Financial Analyst, Tesla Motors 
• Presenting Entrepreneur Bob Frostholm, President, QSolar
• Presenting Entrepreneur Michael D'Amour, CEO and President, LUMEnergi
• Presenting Entrepreneur Tony McGettigan, President and CEO, Luxim

• What are some simple, non-sexy, solutions with existing technologies that can be re-worked with a clean-green objective? An example might be simple monitoring and feedback systems that work with existing devices. (The impact could be 10 to almost 80% energy reduction!)
• Even though solar is a crowded market, there are many solar opportunities ahead as well. But the technology and business model innovations must be there as well.
• Lighting retrofits for both home and business will continue to grow, and there’s an opportunity to partner with government and builders to create new lighting standards.
• Innovations in transportation including electric vehicles provide opportunities for innovation, and reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

• Through January 2010, Autodesk is offering software grants to clean energy/clean technology engineers, designers, product developers, and manufacturers so they can visualize, simulate, and design digital prototypes of their products before building them. The Autodesk software grant, valued at up to $150,000, is being offered to emerging clean tech companies in North America who are ready to engage in an implementation plan with the support of our local reseller partners. For more information and to apply for a grant, visit http://www.autodesk.com/cleantech.
• For more information about Luxim and its lighting technology, visit http://www.lifi.com.
• For more information about LUMEnergi’s product line, visit http://www.lumenergi.com/products/ov/.

FountainBlue’s November 5 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Financing Clean Energy Solutions and featured:

• Facilitator Ryan Murr, Partner, Goodwin Procter LLP
• Panelist Jessie Denver, San Jose Solar Program Coordinator, Environmental Services Department, City of San Jose
• Panelist Paul Detering, CEO, Tioga Energy
• Panelist Jeremy Panacheril, US Head Clean Tech and Renewable Energy, Strategic and Commercial Intelligence, KPMG
• Presenting Entrepreneur Lee Edward Colin, VP Business Development, Green Vehicles Inc.
• Presenting Entrepreneur Taber Smith, CEO, Focal Point Energy  

Below are notes from our conversation.

An inordinate amount of energy and attention has been focused on clean energy investments and trends and potential. With the peaks and troughs of clean energy investment trends of VCs, policy-makers and others, it has been difficult to navigate the financing path and options, and difficult to develop and maintain the range of relationships – from investor to policy-maker to foundations – necessary to fund the development and deployment of clean energy solutions. Add to this mix the change in administration, both in terms of leaders and direction, and you have an unpredictable funding climate indeed.

This month’s panel provided the following advice on how to finance early-stage clean energy solutions:

• In today’s funding climate, be creative and resourceful and collaborative in getting as far as possible on minimal funds. Building a working prototype and proof of concept with a great team will position you and your company for financing.
• Collaborate with partners who can help you remove barriers to R&D and manufacturing, whether the barriers are with permitting, with the utilities, with development, with production, etc.
• Visionary local, state, national and international leaders want to work with entrepreneurs to remove barriers and build the industry.  These policy-makers will impact whether a clean energy company gets financing, so understand who they are, what their motivations and objectives are, and build relationships with them at the local, state and federal level.
• Get creative about financing options working in collaboration with investors, policy-makers, intrapreneurs, grant-makers, and other potential funders.
• When working with policy-makers to secure financing, consider some of their ‘hot buttons’: job creation, advancing the industry overall, solutions providing public benefit, etc.

There was a separate question about how customers of clean energy solutions can fund these purchases, and the following advice was given on that front:

• If you’ve created enough of a robust solution where customers want it, and need help paying for it, it’s a good problem to have! But remember that you must partner with your customers so that they can pay for the solution in order to build traction for your company.
• The biggest barrier to adoption of clean energy solutions is the cost, and entrepreneurs must work with their customers so that they can assume that cost, particularly if it’s not a need-to-have solution, and if it costs more than the existing solution in the short term.
• Consider federal and local grant programs which would help homeowners fund clean energy solutions, particularly when grants and loans and subsidies are involved. However, don’t build your business plan relying on these types of programs, as your product or service must be sustainable on its own merits for the long term.
• Partners who can help with performance guarantees can incentivize customers to make a purchasing decision.
• Long-term loans, perhaps tied to property taxes which may transfer to new owners, may motivate customers to take the plunge and invest in your company’s product or service.

The panel added the following advice to entrepreneurs:

• The clean energy industry is garnering international attention, and stakeholders from around the world are motivated to drive the industry forward. The market potential is huge as the stakes are high, the demand keeps growing, and collaboration between stakeholders becomes key.
• Although you must factor in incentives and how they will impact your short-term revenue goals, be as market-driven as possible and create a sustainable business to your customers, and be as flexible and nimble as possible in responding to the changing needs of customers and markets.
• Drive to grid parity, where your clean energy product or service costs about the same as more traditional energy options including coal and oil and electricity, but until you get there, leverage subsidies, partnerships and incentives to help customers make a purchase decision in your direction.
• When working with policy-makers either financing your own company or helping customers to finance your solution, remember that each local, state and federal entity is different, with different policies, requirements, and standards for different reasons.
• Take a systemic view of the industry, rather than focusing on any single element. For example, look not at where we are limited in a natural resource such as lithium, but instead focus on how the lithium supply chain can be streamlined so that we can cost-efficiently deliver attractive grid-parity battery options for everything from automobiles to electronics.
• The clean energy industry is a feel-good industry – people want to make a difference and select clean green products and services. Leverage this inherent advantage as part of your strategy for securing funding for your company and financing options for your customers.
• Note that because it’s a feel-good industry, sometimes emotions can overly taint the perspective of entrepreneurs, policy-makers and investors alike, and bad business decisions may result.

The panel concluded by remarking on the overall size of the industry – and the huge market potential in so many clean energy sub-industries. With such a huge market, and so many stakeholders working at collaborating to advance the industry, there will be a lot of winners in each sub-category. It is the resourceful, collaborative, persistent entrepreneurs who will reap the benefits for this booming industry, and their customers who will also benefit from the product and service offerings.

Resources:

• For more information about incentives and policies for renewables and efficiency within the state of California, visit http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/index.cfm?re=1&ee=1&spv=0&st=0&srp=1&state=CA. 
• For more information about the Property Assessed Clean Energy PACE Bonds: Innovative Funding to Accelerate the Retrofitting of America's Buildings for Energy Independence, visit http://www.pacenow.org.
• For more information about the City of San Jose’s green vision goals, visit http://www.sanjoseca.gov/mayor/goals/environment/GreenVision/GreenVision.asp.
• For more information about Focal Point Energy, visit http://focalpointenergy.com.
• For more information about Goodwin Procter’s clean energy publications and reports, visit http://www.goodwinprocter.com/Practices/Tech-Companies-and-Life-Sciences/Clean-Tech.aspx?tab=publications&pa={BD7EEF90-E784-440C-BD51-EF900B57AC6D}.
• For more information about Green Vehicles, visit http://www.greenvehicles.com.
• For more information about KPMG’s Living Green Annual Report, visit http://www.kpmgcampus.com/gonotes/2008livinggreen_annual_report.pdf.
• For more information about Tioga Energy, visit http://www.tiogaenergy.com.

FountainBlue’s October 5 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Sustainable Solutions for the Built Environment and featured:

• Facilitator Kathy Fields, Partner, Goodwin Procter LLP
• Panelist Ann Chan, Director, California Programs, Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP)
• Panelist Kathleen Cruise, Portfolio Management Division, U.S. General Services Administration, Pacific Rim Division
• Panelist Dave Shroyer, Facilities Controls Engineer, NetApp
• Panelist Kevin Surace, President and CEO, Serious Materials
• Panelist Brian Walsh, Senior Associate, Nth Power
• Presenting Entrepreneur Barry Fitzgerald, Suntulit
• Presenting Entrepreneur Greg Howes, CEO, IDEAbuilder
• Presenting Entrepreneur Jason Lu, President, EnFocus Engineering

Below are notes from our conversation.

The panelists and presenters all commented on the vast range of business solutions for the built environment and the huge opportunities ahead. Based on a report by Energy Star, drawing from the reports of Annual Energy Outlook (DOE/EIA-0383(2007)), International Energy Outlook 2007 (DOE/EIA-0484(2007), Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2005 (April 2007) (EPA 430-R-07-002), http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=business.bus_energy_strategy

• Global demand for all energy sources is forecast to grow by 57% over the next 25 years.
• U.S. demand for all types of energy is expected to increase by 31% within 25 years.
• By 2030, 56% of the world’s energy use will be in Asia.
• Electricity demand in the U.S. will grow by at least 40% by 2032.
• New power generation equal to nearly 300 (1,000MW) power plants will be needed to meet electricity demand by 2030.
• Currently, 50% of U.S. electrical generation relies on coal, a fossil fuel; while 85% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions result from energy-consuming activities supported by fossil fuels.

With the market potential as a given, the panel raised some questions which could lead to hot built environment business opportunities:

• If 90% of US buildings are not being replaced, what are the retrofit opportunities? How can the opportunities expand beyond just caulking and lighting - what needs to happen and who needs to be involved?
• See http://www.pacenow.org/ for more information about the Property Assessed Clean energy “PACE” Bonds: Innovative Funding to Accelerate the Retrofitting of American’s Buildings for Energy Independence.
• What opportunities will the policy mandates around carbon emissions, around data centers, around LEED compliant new building construction create?
• How can more sustainable practices adopted outside the US – for example in window technology – get introduced into the US market and what opportunities would arise should that happen?
• There is a perfect storm, with the huge demand for green buildings, the need and opportunity to change construction/building processes leveraging technology solutions, and the evolving roles and responsibilities of the many players in the industry, from general contractor to design team to building owners. How can technology solutions help manage and drive this change and how can your solution help build buy-in from the key stakeholders?

• Successful policies have focused more on incentives and rewards (reimbursements and ‘carrots’) than punitives (mandates and ‘sticks’).
• To support the growth and expansion of the industry, a cultural paradigm shift must take place within the building and construction industry, done in partnership with all stakeholders from policy-makers to entrepreneurs to technologists to designers.
• It takes commitment, collaboration, political will, persistence and time to drive this cultural shift and encourage a broader, more customer/market-oriented perspective for delivering solutions for the built environment.
• It’s tough for individual stakeholders to see beyond the immediate rewards and incentives (for example installing marble counter tops rather than more sustainable building materials as the countertops would more likely guarantee shorter term rewards/sale price). It takes education and commitment to get all parties to see beyond their immediate needs, and a market of consumers who would encourage/reward that longer-term viewpoint.
• All stakeholders must think and act differently to follow through/execute on the commitment to provide more sustainable built environment solutions.
• Building channels and relationships with all the stakeholders in the building and construction community is essential for success. It’s not just about having the better mousetrap, it’s about creating a relationship so that the decision-makers will invest in the better mousetrap.
• The DOE’s Solar America Initiative and other R&D grants provide funding opportunities for early stage companies which don’t compromise valuation. Investigate grants which might support YOUR early stage company.
• Creating new solutions for the built environment requires a tremendous amount of R&D and manufacturing investments, which need huge time and financial commitments. Build strategic partnerships with corporations, with utilities, with academia and with others who can help you develop a strategic plan and a fundable proof of concept.
• The Obama administration’s new team is working on more efficiently responding to the needs of companies and markets and driving job creation. But it still takes time and commitment to submit applications and get approvals.

Additional information and resources:

• More information on CCAP’s programs in the US, http://www.ccap.org/index.php?component=pages&id=15 including
• U.S. Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), convening leading companies, federal, state and local governments and environmental organizations to discuss and advance a national climate policy solution; 
• Urban Leaders Adaptation Initiative, partnering with large counties and cities to build resiliency to adapt to climate change impacts through smart land-use and urban planning;
• California Climate Program, assisting California state agencies to design and implement California’s landmark climate policies, including AB 32 and SB 375; and
• Transportation and Climate Change Program, reducing transportation emissions with improved land use and travel efficiency.
• More information on Energy Star’s Guidelines for Energy Management http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=guidelines.guidelines_index
• More information about EnFocus Engineering, http://www.enfocuscorp.com
• Recent Goodwin Procter publications http://www.goodwinprocter.com/Publications/FindaPublication.aspx?id={4DCF1E90-1155-440F-9BC3-4E76894F5D75}
• More information about IDEAbuilder, http://www.ideabuilderhomes.com  
• Stimulus funding provides boost for clean energy: KPMG report, Mon, August 31, 2009
• Results from KPMG’s annual report into merger and acquisition activity in renewable energy has found that while financing of clean energy projects is proving more difficult since the recession – especially for smaller companies – government stimulus spending is providing a boost for the sector. http://ecogeneration.com.au/news/boost_for_investment_in_clean_energy_kpmg_report/005025/ http://www.kpmg.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/The-Winds-of-Change-2009.pdf
• NetApp’s Data Center Power Efficiency Team http://partners.netapp.com/go/techontap/matl/DC_slideshow/index.html
• Portfolio of Nth Power investments http://www.nthpower.com/portfolio.html
• More information about Serious Materials http://www.seriousmaterials.com/html/overview.html
• More information about Suntulit, http://www.suntulit.com
• More information about US General Services Administration, Pacific Rim Region http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/programView.do?programId=16851&programPage=%2Fep%2Fprogram%2FgsaOverview.jsp&P=9FM&pageTypeId=8199&ooid=12311&channelId=-25075 

In conclusion, there are tremendous opportunities for solutions for the built environment, but it would take a collaborative, long-term commitment from all stakeholders, and strategic leaders to drive the cause and realize financial, economic, and market rewards.

FountainBlue's September 8 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was on the topic of Energy Storage and Management: Smart Grid & Energy Efficiency and featured:

• Facilitator Craig Lobdell, KPMG
• Panelist Matthew Denesuk, IBM Ventures
• Panelist Kirk Phelps, Associate, Foundation Capital
• Panelist Dan Rastler, Technical Leader, Energy Storage and Distributed Generation Program, Electric Power Research Institute
• Panelist Tom Thomassen, Senior Development Manager, Office of the CTO, Symantec 
• Panelist Elise Zoli, Chair, Energy Practice, Goodwin Procter LLP
• Presenting Entrepreneur: Ed Cazalet, CEO, MegaWatt Storage Farms Inc.
• Presenting Entrepreneur: Charlie Duncheon, CEO, EIG America
• Presenting Entrepreneur: Bill Gray, CEO, Velkess Inc.

Below are notes from our conversation. You have our permission to forward these notes INTACT to interested others, with proper acknowledgement to FountainBlue and to our speakers. We will also post our notes to our community on both BigTent https://www.bigtent.com/groups/fountainblue and LinkedIn and invite interactive conversations around these notes through those communities.

About Energy Storage and Management

Energy storage is in that in-between space, it’s not generation, it’s not efficiency. Corporate, residential, government and utility customers need to invest huge up-front costs and massive ongoing maintenance fees to provide viable storage solutions. Indeed, the up-front and ongoing cost commitments prove cost-prohibitive for everyone but the government and utilities, who can provide the support and infrastructure to absorb the costs and serve the customers.

Technology advancements in chemistry, manufacturing and overall scientific discovery for energy storage solutions have advanced at an incredible pace. Notable technology advancements include: more efficient gas turbines, flow-type batteries, technologies that de-couple power and energy, battery innovations including iron chrome, lithium zinc chloride and advanced lead acid.

Despite the amazing technology advancements, we have not reached the point of grid parity, making it challenging for customers of all ilks to select ‘greener’ storage options. The panelists suggested that innovations in business models are necessary to move the industry forward, particularly when they involve partnerships between key players: customers, utilities, investors, government, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, etc.

The Challenges of Energy Storage and Management

One of the great challenges for storage is the intermittent availability of power from renewable energy sources from solar to wind to biofuels and even vehicles. The challenge is to have energy available to meet frequency regulation needs, most notably 6 a.m. – 9 a.m., and reserving any excess energy generated off-peak (cheapest kw hours) hours, in a form which would fit existing infrastructure requirements, to support the demand.

Panelists suggested that if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC, http://www.ferc.org) defined energy storage as either a generation or transmission asset, it could significantly assist utilities in incorporating these types of deployments into their existing planning processes.  The Smart Grid technology contribution to improving the market options for energy storage is dynamic pricing. 

Another challenge is that energy storage and management is a politically-charged issue. Whether the issue is independence from foreign oil, or whether it’s serving local jurisdictions and personal agendas of politicians in charge, there is a tremendous amount of pressure to do what’s right for a sub-set of constituents, for the short term. Couple this with the lack of business and technology training for most politicians and it’s nearly impossible to select and support the optimal companies and solutions in support of the energy storage and management industry overall. As such, our panelists advise that we steer clear of policies which prescribe which energy storage and management solutions to support, and gravitate toward higher-level policies and goals, and even open standards, while steering clear of policies overall when possible. An additional challenge from the policy front is the possibility to be overly-dependent on imposed policies, which cause false markets, thereby serving non-existing needs.

The panelists highlighted several times how financial commitments are creating barriers to progressing the energy storage and management industry. Innovations in financing solutions, engaging key stakeholders will be necessary to resolve this hurdle.

Advice for Entrepreneurs in This Space

To address financing barriers, the panelists recommend working with various government departments and grant programs to support early-stage R&D, in order to showcase viable technologies worthy of investment to the venture community. Virtual DOE co-labs may offer one opportunity for showcasing new technologies.  Traditional VC model may make sense to prove technologies, and then transition capital financing to government/utility partnerships for project demonstrations and deployment. Only the right, mature technologies with proven markets will secure the funding necessary to succeed, and even if your company fits the criteria, you need to consistently hitting those milestones in order to warrant current and future investment dollars.

When considering entrepreneurial opportunities, focus on the whole ecosystem of stakeholders and the role each might play in a disruptive technology or market development and build a collaboration between stakeholders to make this happen.

Early stage entrepreneurs don’t have the influence or time to work with policy-makers to ensure that early stage R&D gets funded and supported by government programs and grants intended to support these efforts. Until entrepreneurs find that voice, larger companies and other programs will continue to receive the R&D grants which might be better suited to smaller companies with perhaps a better idea. What can YOU do as a citizen, entrepreneur, intrapreneur or investor to change this cycle?

Thoughts on Opportunities Within the Energy Storage and Management Sub-Industry

• Remote management of energy storage and usage will provide many opportunities, including software solutions for reporting usage to corporate, residential and utility customers, security solutions which proactively manages who gets access to what information, and dynamic, real-time management of energy usage to manage peak loads and incentivize customers to collaborate to manage peak loads, feed back into the system during peak loads, and even perhaps minimize overall demand.
• There are tremendous opportunities for creating energy efficient systems, so that we use less energy for everything from our home appliances and lighting to our vehicles and office equipment.
• With that said, cost-efficient energy generation and storage options are necessary to serve the needs of a growing population. There are fundamental hardware, geothermal and other innovations in everything from batteries to equipment to nanomaterial will help bring renewable energy to grid parity.
• There is a need and an opportunity to address security and data management issues and opportunities.  With the Smart Grid, the security attack surface expands from power plant physical access to attacks that can be launched from anywhere in the world from the cybersphere.  Smart meters and other pieces of the Smart Grid are designed to be cost effective but CAN be compromised; their ability to network makes this security vulnerability scalable. Given the above, what is the opportunity for YOUR company and how can you work with larger organizations to fulfill this growing need?
• There is an opportunity with the managing, owning, processing, etc. the massive amounts of data that will be generated and utilized by the Smart Grid.  The scale of the data and the numbers of entities to be managed is extremely large.  (PG&E in Northern California is deploying over 5 million smart meters by themselves and this kind of deployment is happening all over the US and globally.) Where is there an entrepreneurial opportunity for YOUR company here?
• There may be a shift from large-scale storage to more community-based storage. What innovations can you create to support community-based storage options? What does this mean for the utility companies, customers, government and thus to you?

In the end, the panel emphasizes focusing on business model innovations leveraging technology solutions. When investigating opportunities in this space, one must consider the real needs of the user (not a fabricated need based on policy incentives for example), how to best serve that need, who to partner with to serve that need (many big players in the industry are slow-to-change or not incentivized by bottom line concerns), and how to build a business serving that need. Nobody said this would be easy, but those who can crack this nut will benefit us all!

FountainBlue’s August 3 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs’ Forum on the topic of Energy Generation Breakthroughs and Challenges featured:

• Facilitator Awais Khan, Director, Venture Capital Practice, KPMG
• Panelist Jonathan Forrester, Principal, Structured Transactions, PG&E
• Panelist Ripudaman Malhotra, Senior Scientist, SRI International
• Panelist Ryan Murr, Attorney, Goodwin Procter LLP
• Panelist Abe Yokell, Principal, Rockport Capital
• Presenting Entrepreneur: Fareed Sfard, CEO, Ahura Energy Inc.
• Presenting Entrepreneur: Jim DiSanto, CEO, BBE Energy
• Presenting Entrepreneur: Andres Wydler, CEO, Real Green Power

Below are notes from the conversation. The notes above are copyrighted by FountainBlue in 2006-09 and all rights are reserved. You have our permission to forward the notes on to others, to help support further discussion and connections, but please ensure that the notes are INTACT, and that there is proper acknowledgement for our speakers and to FountainBlue.

The Demand for Energy

As global consumption of energy moves from 3 cubic miles of oil a year today to almost 9 cubic miles of oil a year by 2050, due to population growth and growing affluence. People, companies and countries are challenged to meet the overwhelming demand for energy, delivered in a way that works with existing systems and infrastructure and policies. Even with a concerted and collaborative and global effort at conservation, we could reduce the projected demand to 6 CMO/year by 2050.

Even then we would have the challenge of generating more energy. Generating 1 CMO/year requires a battery of about 2500 one-GW nuclear power plants of energy. To meet this need, we would have to install one new nuclear plant, or one thousand wind turbines, or one quarter million roof to PV systems (2 kW each), each every week for fifty years, assuming the systems installed in the first year are still working.  See the attached SRI report detailing our growing global energy demands.

Technology Advancements

Advancements in technologies for energy generation are being developed to meet the energy needs, however, finding cost-effective alternatives to fossil fuels remain a challenge. In solar generation for example, there are mechanical, optical, nano and other materials and system innovations, as well as business model and financing reforms, which would make it more attractive for people to adopt these technologies. Indeed, with hardware and software technology advancements AND the rising cost of power, we may in some regions approach grid parity, the point at which photovoltaic electricity is equal to or cheaper than grid power provided by local utilities, particularly in areas where there is plenty of sunshine and high energy rates.

Political and Social Factors Weigh In

Unfortunately, the political and social pressures are precluding energy generation options for different reasons related to safety, ecology, etc. There is continued and growing pressure from consumers to reduce the carbon footprint and produce energy at reasonable costs. With the overwhelming and increasing demand for energy, it is important to consider each energy generation option, from fossil fuel to nuclear to hydro, geo-thermal and other methods. It is important to work together and embrace the up-sides of these options, while working to mitigate the downsides through technology and policy and business model advancement. It is equally important to simultaneously remain unbiased during the decision-making process and focus on the bottom line results rather than on personal and political agendas at the personal, company and country levels.

Financing as a Hurdle

In addition, financing options for energy generation solutions can be quite expensive, and funding sources are limited, especially as venture firms continue to avoid capital intensive projects with projected returns beyond the 3-5 year mark. The vast majority of energy generation worldwide has been planned and paid for by government with some corporate support. Venture capital has played a very small role in energy and cleantech to date. So start-ups are challenged to come up with funds to de-risk their technology solutions sufficient to be worthy of additional investment. Options for financing include government grants and corporate partnerships.

The panel offered their insights on the opportunities ahead.

• Leverage opportunities provided by utilities like PG&E who are providing power purchase agreements which would encourage cost-effective production of energy ready to feed into the grid, particularly when there is the greatest demand – in the summers and during the afternoon hours. For more information, visit http://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdfs/b2b/wholesaleelectricsuppliersolicitation/Feedin_Tariffs_FAQs.pdf
• Consider the various modules for the solution you are providing, and how technology innovation in any one component can increase the productivity of the overall system. For example, innovation in an inverter for solar panels, which accounts for roughly 7-10% of the overall cost of the panel, can maximize the output of the panels themselves, and also be cost-effectively manufactured.
• Consider the entrepreneurial opportunities around the storage of energy, including chemical (battery), compressed air, pumped hydro and other options.
• Although all sources of energy generation should be considered, some options will take a much larger investment to produce results. For example, tidal and wave energy might be a ready, natural and available energy source, but capturing it efficiently has historically been cost-prohibitive due to extremely harsh marine environment.

Leadership is Key

As we continue to face the growing global energy demands, the verdict is out on whether today’s leaders can maintain a bottom line perspective on our energy options, while showing political will power to deliver results which would benefit all. During this crisis, we need to focus on objectives. If it’s merely making life better for billions, we will need more energy. With climate change, we will need to solve new problems including effective desalination, building dykes and sensible zoning, amongst other challenges. In conclusion, we should all be informed and feel empowered to influence who leads and how they lead us through this problem-that-must-be-solved.

FountainBlue’s July 2 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Clean Green Transportation Machines and featured:

• Facilitator Lafe Vittitoe, Relationship Manager, Silicon Valley Bank
• Panelist Ann Chan, Director, California Programs, Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP)
• Panelist Brad Mattson, Partner, Vantage Point Venture Partners
• Panelist John Suh, General Motors
• Panelist Elise Zoli, Partner and Clean Tech Chair, Goodwin Procter LLP

Our presenting entrepreneurs were:

• Panelist Neil Maguire, VP of Business Development, Imara
• Panelist Fraser Smith, CEO, ElectraDrive 
• Panelist John Zajac, CEO, Zajac Motors
• Forrest North, Mission Motors
• Lee Colin, Green Vehicles

Below are notes from the conversation.

Our panelists agreed that the transportation industry is at a crossroads, and policy, technology, business and other innovations are necessary to revitalize the industry. Success is dependent on focusing on the needs of the customer – from the economic need for cost-effective products and services, to the social need for eco-friendly products and services, to the individual needs for comfort, safety, convenience and speed. But success is also focused on a successful collaboration between various stakeholders, (including policy-makers, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, investors, providers, and others) who can work together to ensure the efficient delivery of products and services which would best suit the needs of the customers.

Transportation is such a broad category, with many opportunities for innovation – from software to fuels to hardware to infrastructure. Although there are many opportunities with such a broad category, entrepreneurs should consider barriers to innovation in any of these categories including:

• The large auto dealers are embracing new technologies and solutions, but manufacturing, distribution, sales and marketing channels pose challenges to adoption of these technologies.
• Infrastructure challenges from roads to mass-transit to fuel storage and distribution, to compatibility of fuels, parts, etc., make it more difficult to forge changes in the industry.
• Policy-makers may not be informed about the technology adoption challenges, or why it’s so important to help the large players in the transportation industry to adopt new technologies. This and other factors make it difficult for policy-makers to adopt policies that help the industry adopt changes which are an integral part of revamping the industry.
• Decision-makers in the automobile industry are trained and rewarded to be risk-adverse. Transformative cultural change needs to happen in these organizations in order to embrace the opportunities that change can provide.
• International companies are proving more nimble at adopting and leveraging new technologies, and competing with existing American products and services. There are even examples of how American innovation has been adopted by international organizations.
• The lack of a gas tax deters consumers from proactively electing more gas-efficient options.
• Development, testing, manufacturing, distribution, and other challenges are making it difficult for entrepreneurs to provide cost-effective products and services that compete well with existing offerings.
• Many transportation solutions require a huge financial investment, and investors who are leaning toward capital-efficient solutions are reticent to invest. However, with the federal stimulus package, dollars are still available, but entrepreneurs who are seeking those dollars need a new strategy to secure the funding, and policy-makers need to better explain the process for securing funding.

The panelists advised entrepreneurs to be nimble and innovative, while also focusing on strategic partnerships and investments, and finding a way to partner with corporate entities who may be resistant to the newest innovations. They also advised entrepreneurs to focus on modular solutions which would be compatible with the existing infrastructure, yet flexible enough to evolve with the infrastructure, while also ensuring that solutions address the larger objectives of climate change challenges and foreign oil dependency.

The panelists agreed that it will also take innovative approaches for the development, testing, manufacturing, and distribution of products and services, and entrepreneurs must partner with other stakeholders to realize real change in these areas. The odds and the challenges ARE overwhelming, with everyone having only ONE piece of the puzzle. But a positive attitude and a resilient disposition from all stakeholders are essential components for success.

Each panelist provided a different perspective about why all stakeholders should be heard during this crossroads in the industry. Working together, we can help policy-makers provide limits and constraints, and reconsider the allocation of subsidies, while also jumpstarting R&D efforts that would forge technological innovations benefiting customers worldwide. And working together, making clean/green purchasing decisions every day, advocating for the same in others, entrepreneurs can lead the transportation industry out of this economic funk and into a new era of innovation for clean green transportation machines.

FountainBlue’s June 1 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Next Generation Solar Solutions and featured:

• Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Partner, KPMG
• Panelist Matthew Garratt, Senior Associate, Battery Ventures
• Panelist Bob MacDonald, CEO, Skyline Solar
• Panelist Lorenza Moro, Senior Researcher, Materials Science Laboratory, SRI International
• Panelist Ryan Murr, Partner, Business Law Department, Goodwin Procter LLC
• Panelist PR Yu, CEO, Optony

Notes on the conversation are below:

Although it is not the revolutionary technology, silicon solutions remain in the forefront for residential, commercial and utility solutions due to 1) their low cost with the current glut of availability in the market and general availability of silicon as a natural resource, 2) their alignment with current infrastructure needs, and 3) the availability of technical resources transferring from the semiconductor to the clean energy market. With that said, there is predicted to be many evolutionary changes to improve the silicon solution design, for example: making current designs more modular, making the manufacturing process even more efficient and cost-effective, improving energy storage and distribution capabilities, and affecting business model innovations needed to ensure wider adoption, including increasing financial options and turnkey solutions. 

The next generation of silicon will be thin film, but the general consensus is that thin film’s efficiency levels do not justify the higher costs overall, and we are not likely to reach grid parity for 3-5 years, depending on factors such as land cost, cost of energy, availability of technical resources, infrastructure readiness, etc.,

We were cautioned not to be complacent with the dominance of silicon in the near term, but to proactively consider the next generation solar solutions as the US PV market is growing at a healthy clip, expected to grow ten times in the next year from 300-350 megawatts to 3000 or so, and orders of magnitude growth is expected for larger projects. There will therefore be an increased demand for all solar solutions provided that they are efficiently priced and delivered, including silicon, concentrated photovoltaics, thin film, compressed air technologies (CATs), and solar cells with nano and organic and other novel materials.

In conclusion, the panel advises us to bank on a range of solutions, depending on the needs of the customer, from commercial, to residential to industrial, to local available resources, energy pricing, policy standards and requirements, etc. Each case is different. Crystalline silicon solutions, for example, make perfect sense for retrofitting existing residential structures, but PV solutions might be better for new construction projects. Farms of solar panels might make sense in sunny regions with access to water, like Hawaii, but CAT might be better for desert-like areas like Arizona, which has sun but no water. Large industrial plants with ‘buffer zones’ may consider using the land for solar panels, wind turbines, etc., depending on local conditions and regulations. Consider these types of variables when making solar technology decisions.

FountainBlue’s May 4 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Local to Global Clean Energy Solutions and featured:

• Facilitator Elise Zoli, Clean Tech Practice Lead, Goodwin Procter LLC
• Panelist Tony Chao, Associate, Applied Ventures
• Panelist Wayne Gluhan, Director of Sales and Principal, Raident Technologies
• Panelist Gerd Goette, Managing Partner, Siemens Ventures
• Panelist Andres Wydler, co-founder and shareholder, BPL Global

Below are note from the conversation:

In this day and age, adopting a local to global business strategy is both a necessity and a challenge for clean energy entrepreneurs. It’s a necessity as 1) global markets and products can be served through a global strategy, 2) global companies can take advantage of labor, financing and raw materials from countries around the world, 3) local presences in different countries across the globe make it easier to navigate taxes and regulations and other local requirements for doing business and 4) high-level corporate and investor partnerships require entrepreneurs to adopt and implement a global strategy.

However, with the time and finance challenges of early stage entrepreneurs, this becomes a bit of a challenge. Below are some pointers from our esteemed panel on how to make this work.

• Have an underlying global strategy and understand why, when and with whom you would partner to implement this strategy.
• Hire an experienced team with the international connections and mindset to plan and implement that strategy.
• Adopt a step by step, one continent at a time, approach.
• When going global as a young company, sometimes opportunistic decisions are made in the sales room rather than in the board room. In other words, the sales staff might be able to take advantage of serendipitous events through their established channels and relationships. And, provided that the strategy is in alignment with the overall goals and objectives of the company, this may be a good thing for the company, accelerating growth plans into a new market.
• Have the tools to manage international relationships so that you can leverage the advantages (a round-the-clock team in different geographic locations, less invested in salary, etc.,) while minimizing the disadvantages (communication problems, task/role confusion, time zone issues, etc.,)
• Design the product or service to serve the needs of customers around the globe, even if you’re not yet targeting that particular country or continent.
• Treat foreign employees as well as you would headquarter employees.
• Make it easy for your channel partners to sell to their local networks.
• Timing is everything – position yourself for serendipitous events by working hard and being persistent, and taking advantage of opportunities as they arise.
• Patent only your core technologies, and only in the predominant countries for which you plan to have a presence. Patents are expensive, and it may not be worthwhile to also file application specific patents in multiple countries as that would be expensive and time-consuming, especially for a small start-up.
• Consider that the patent protection period is about 18 months, and it might be a better option to be in stealth mode rather than announcing your technology through the patent issuance before your company is ready.
• Partner with strong, established, regional firms with the relationships and track record needed to help your business. It’s better to work with people with which you have a history, but sometimes entrepreneurs must just take that chance with a new entity, provided that due diligence has been performed, and that the partnership starts on a small projects initially.
• To find the right partner, turn to your personal network, and those of all those you trust in your network, quality service providers, peers, other partners and entrepreneurs, the US Department of Commerce, etc.,
• Consider doing a non-circumvent partnership agreement rather than an exclusivity agreement, which is not generally granted or an NDA, which may not provide adequate protection.
• It’s difficult to find the right partner on another continent, and sometimes you have to work with people in power who do not have the experience or judgment to make or drive a successful partnership.
• Consider acquisitions as part of your growth strategy, but if you do this make sure that you have a team experienced in managing this, and make sure that you start small, and that it’s the right/best way to grow, adding new products and markets which are in alignment with your company’s objectives.
• Consider your target market – whether it’s utilities or consumers or commercial, whether they are local or global.

The panel also discussed how the US compares with other countries around the world in different clean energy sub-industries. For example, Germany has a dominance in solar, with wind being prominent in Denmark, biofuels in Brazil, Renewables in the Middle East and nuclear in Japan and China. The US continues to lead in the smart grid and biomass areas, and with its capacity and history of reinventing itself, may again be a leader in other clean energy sub-industries. The bottom line is that there is a tremendous opportunity for clean energy solutions, and government investment and support has impacted the success of this nascent industry.

The panel ended with remarks about the current administration and the huge investment in growing USUS to again assume leadership in clean energy technologies and businesses. leadership in the clean green space – from simplifying the application process to focusing on helping specific companies to succeed, to the sheer volume of financial support – ten times more than venture investment dollars. Everyone is watching to see how these activities will help positioning the

FountainBlue’s April 6 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Working with the Utilities and featured:

• Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Director, KPMG
• Panelist Lee Cooper, Manager, Emerging Technologies, Customer Energy Efficiency Pacific Gas and Electric Company
• Panelist Stu Dalton, Director, Generation, Electric Power Research Institute
• Panelist Matt Lecar, Fund Manager, Clean Energy Angel Fund (CalCEF)
• Panelist Stefan Wolf, Solution Management for Utilities, SAP
• Panelist Elise Zoli, Partner and Chair, Clean Energy Practice, Goodwin Procter LLC

Below are notes from the conversation at the event, and from the prep call prior to the event.

Advice for Entrepreneurs Working with the Utilities:

• Utilities are not just about roof-top solar – siting, land use, right of way and other issues need to be addressed
• When working with utilities, remember that their job is to maintain reliability of access and the people who run it have a risk-avoidance mind set, which have made them successful at what they do.
• Consider targeting smaller niches amenable to technology improvement, and then partnering with larger corporations who are partnering with the utilities for Smart Grid, for example Cisco, IBM, Intel, Google, etc., Don’t try doing an end-to-end generation-to-storage-to-distribution solution as a start-up.
• Utilities work with a range of solutions, from in-house lighting to integrating rooftop solar into the grid to distributing power to customers. Often, these groups are silo-ed to best address the carrot – and – stick factors around federal and state policies. Do the research to know your customer – which group you’re addressing and what the pain points are for that group. What do they want to nurture and what are the longer term opportunities?
• PPAs are a common type of agreement made with utilities, but the same vehicle is used for small and large deals alike. PPAs can impact long term revenues, credit standards, security requirements, etc., so negotiate them with care to protect your company and its potential.
• Improving energy density, availability and simplicity for energy storage is much needed when discussing electricity storage devices but there are already commercially available solutions which transform electricity for example into ice during low cost periods and then use the ice to cool the building during high cost periods for electricity. This is energy storage too but not feasible for the residential customer.
• Distribution automation is the main focus of the smart grid beyond Smart Metering. This is an area where reliability and safety issues as well as compliance are very critical and need to be addressed by innovation.
• EPRI can partner with entrepreneurs to evaluate technologies, advise on grant options, facilitate introductions to utilities, private investors, etc.,
• Whether you’re working with utilities or not – Know thy customer, and Know thy market.

Trends and Opportunities:

• Like policy, electricity is local. Consider solutions which would manage the local generation of electricity.
• Consider generation, storage, and infrastructure opportunities in low-density areas.
• What are the opportunities in generation, storage, distribution and how will you work with utilities and policy-makers and partners?
• What are the customer-side applications – home area networks – and will solutions interact with utilities? When Customer-Side Applications don’t interact with the Utility, they are limited in the value they can provide.
• Utility collect a large volume of customer specific data. A whole set of companies is looking into what appliances, mobile devices, etc., can produce and receive what data and how this will be communicated to the utilities systems.
• Energy efficiency programs will not solve how we can address our energy demands, but they do provide relatively low-hanging fruit for entrepreneurs. How can YOUR company’s solution help homes and businesses better manage energy – how much is used, when it is used?
• Energy efficiency programs cannot solve the problem alone but they are big part of the solution. Energy efficiency is about avoiding consumption where reasonable, demand response is about shifting consumption to a better point in time. The room for innovation is huge to bring both closer and more conveniently to the end consumer.
• How is the Renewable sector hitting its stride and what does that mean for YOUR start-up?

Thoughts on the Impact of Policy:

• Policy leaders need help to reach renewable and efficiency standards.
• When considering rebates and stimulus dollars, don’t rely on them too much to build or grow your business. Your business must stand on its own.
• The successful rise of solar usage in Germany and Spain (despite the US early successes in solar technology) is indicative of how policy trumps economics, which in turn trumps technology. Policies are in place in those nations to encourage the adoption of solar, and economic incentives are in place to reward the adoption of solar.

Resources:

• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act with its 60 billion dollars of investments/funding opportunities (10 times more than the investments in clean energy last year) is worth exploring immediately, as the opportunities are due to time out in 24 months. http://www.energy.gov/recovery/funding.htm
• Securing grant dollars may validate the technology and give the company credibility to private investors, to customers, to partners, to staff, etc.
• Do not rely on grant-to-grant funding for your business.
• Clean Tech Open - Stimulus Opportunity And Resources (SOAR) program
• An entrepreneur's guide to Clean Tech Stimulus funding
• To access, first sign up as a CTO member (free) at www.cleantechopen.com.
• To access the private SOAR area, go to www.cleantechopen.com/soar (and enter member login).

FountainBlue’s March 2 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs’ Forum was on the topic of Clean Green Policy Changes in a New Administration and featured:

• Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Director, KPMG

• Panelist David Arfin, VP of Customer Financing, Solar City
• Panelist Peter Williams, Chief Technology Officer, Big Green Innovations, IBM
• Panelist Marianne Wu, Partner at Mohr Davidow

Below are notes from the conversation:

Thoughts on the Stimulus Package, and How It Might Affect the Clean Energy Industry:

• As much as 50 billion dollars of the stimulus package is dedicated to clean tech and renewable energy efforts.
• An investment tax credit for as much as 30% of project cost could be used as a credit for ‘shovel-ready’ projects, ready to be implemented within the next 18 months or so.
• Accelerated depreciation of expenditures will provide additional tax incentives for clean tech/renewable energy businesses.
• The states are also authorized to incentivize clean tech and renewable energy businesses, but each state will do so in its own way.
• There are many tangible signs that the current administration is committed to evaluating and funding real programs that would stimulate clean tech and renewable energy businesses.

o        Selecting experienced leaders who head up programs

o        Evaluating options for best distributing stimulus dollars

o        Investing in ‘shovel-ready’ projects

o        Investigating creative financing options, including direct loan vs banking channel vs new clean tech bank

o        Balancing Investment Tax Credits where companies get 30% refund after initial investments and Production Tax Credits, where monies are paid up front for anticipated watts produced

o        Subsidizing manufacturing tax guarantees that go beyond ‘solar farms’

o        Investing in infrastructure upgrades that support more efficiently generating, storing and distributing energy locally, state-wide, nationally

o        Focusing on both the supply-side and the demand-side energy needs

o        Processing applications real-time, through rolling windows, rather than the traditional government application process which involved long waits and multiple approvals/steps

Despite the Fact that the Government Is Stimulating Clean Energy, Do Not Focus Your Business on These Incentive Programs

• Don’t create a business based on what the stimulus package will support. Your business must be sustainable/viable regardless of whether there is a stimulus package.
• Hot clean energy areas, regardless of incentives are listed below:

o        Material science innovations, for photovoltaics, for example

o        Information systems solutions that manage environment, human activity or the interaction of the two.

o        Provisions around water, its management, storage, quality, distribution, etc.,

o        Smart grid solutions

o        Energy generation solutions which might cost the same as what utility charge

o        Proactive planning of energy usage from the consumer, business, utility management perspective

o        Sensor technologies around usage and management of energy

o        Data analytics

o        Modeling with multiple variables, to proactively manage energy generation and usage

o        Convergence of multiple trends listed above

Thoughts on the Viability of the Clean Tech Industry in General:

• For reasons related to national security, job creation, environmental sustainability, etc., the clean energy industry is here to stay, regardless of whether there are incentives to grow the industry.
• For as long as people need and want energy, for as long as the population increases, there will be a demand for energy, and there will therefore be a growing market for providing cost-effective energy generation, storage, management, and distribution options.
• Creating an ecosystem of multiple interested parties – from chemists to utility and IT execs to policy makers and investors, etc., is essential for the viability of this broad industry. We all have a piece of the puzzle, and making connections will help create successful teams and businesses.
• With the current economic challenges, there will be some consolidation in the markets, but that will be a good thing in the long run, as companies can emerge stronger following planned strategic consolidations.
• The evolution of policies and standards will impact the evolution of the industry.
• Politicians will act on behalf of their local voting base, and what would help their local constituencies. It would take collaboration across parties, geographies, interests, to approve policies which would benefit each of the local interests across the nation.

FountainBlue’s February 6 Clean Energy Entrepreneurs' Breakfast Forum was on the topic of Clean Energy Investor’s Panel: Predictions for 2009 and featured:

•         Facilitator Elise Zoli, Partner and Chair, Clean Energy Practice, Goodwin Procter LLC

•         Panelist Andrew Chung, Principal, Lightspeed Venture Partners

•         Panelist Matt Horton, Partner @Ventures

•         Panelist Rodrigo Prudencio, Nth Power

•         Panelist Dharmesh Thakker, Vice President, Advanced Technology Partners

We honor their involvement with the notes we’ve taken below.

Prediction #1: Clean tech investment and innovation will advance despite the economic downturn, though not as exuberantly, with committed government support and a fairly substantial sector correction.

‘A downturn is a terrible thing to waste’ is the mantra for the entrepreneurial and optimistic. It is a time of vast economic upheaval, and transition in administration and Congress. There is a public and business commitment to clean energy, as well as a sense of urgency to take strategic and dramatic measures to improve our economy, our sustainability, at the local, national and global levels.

Although the clean energy industry can’t defy gravity, and WILL be impacted by the macro economic challenges, it will not be impacted as severely or as immediately, and it will be quicker to recover. Factors that affect the resiliency of the sector include:

• ·         Energy is an essential service, a MUST-HAVE, not a nice-to-have.
• ·         With increasing population and increasing energy demand, and a finite supply of traditional energy sources, solutions must be had. The increased supply factor is 2X in the US, but as high as 10X in developing countries such as India and China.
• ·         Climate change does impact purchasing decisions for consumers, creating huge trillion dollar markets.
• ·         The new administration has made a commitment to support clean energy infrastructure development and job creation, and is following up with actions.

Prediction #2: The dominant Cleantech technologies may change, with a tail-off in wind and solar investment and an uptick in geothermal/ground source, green building and energy-storage management.

Early clean energy investments in capital-intensive solar and wind solutions have not generated the expected returns in required timeframes to satisfy the needs of shareholders. This is partly due to the fact that it’s a new industry, and we’ll learning as we go, and that there were huge initial investments in too many of these solutions.

As we enter a more challenging economic period with capital markets drying up, the most viable and fittest solar, wind and other early clean energy investments will continue to do fine. However, there will inevitably be some high-profile failures, which will reflect badly on the industry. In addition, there will be very limited opportunities for new capital-intensive companies, especially in the solar and wind \space.

The opportunities will arise in other areas, such as geothermal/ground source, green building and energy-storage management. For example, there is sufficient energy within 1 kilometer of the earth’s surface to fuel us for 30,000 years. The question is how can we easily access that energy, convert it to something usable, and distribute it to people in need? Part of the answer may lie with the drop in oil prices. Forward-thinking companies might consider retooling their equipment to the search for geothermal rather than oil and gas drilling.

As for the green building and energy storage solutions, capital-efficient energy savings opportunities would supplement well solutions addressing the supply side solutions beyond solar and wind.

Prediction #3: Cleantech investment will continue, but at a slower pace.

Prediction #1 shows Cleantech as an essential service, so naturally investments must continue there. However, with the condition of the capital markets, limited partners who had invested in venture firms have been skittish at best, and investors are unsure of how much investment dollars they have to work with. They are therefore much more conservative about where they invest, and how far along a company must be before an investment is made.

Given the above, the panel recommends the following:

• ·         Follow the money – if government investments are in infrastructure, where is the money going, and how can YOUR clean energy company serve that market? (For example, if schools and road are getting infrastructure funding, how could that change your initial target market?)
• ·         Federal loan guarantee programs are excellent options for later stage entrepreneurs. The DOE is trying to make this a more user-friendly, cost-effective and efficient submission process.
• ·         Investors are looking at later stage companies with attractive valuations or very early stage companies which will not be capital intensive for the first year or two.
• ·         Projects which can commence within 120 days are viewed favorably by the current administration.
• ·         Stimulus-backed projects will flow through the states and the municipalities. Build relationships with them and find out what programs they have to support your company.

Hot areas to consider include:

• ·         Industrial solutions such as capturing wasted heat
• ·         Geothermal, as it is ubiquitous
• ·         Disruptive biofuel and solar solutions requiring small initial investments for research
• ·         Energy management and efficiency solutions
• ·         Supporting technologies in the solar value chain
• ·         Smart grid solutions working with the utility network
• ·         Smart metering which is standardized across the 50 states, working with the PUC
• ·         Manage the increasing amount of generation points and integrating that into the overall energy distribution system
• ·         Solutions which fit into the existing infrastructure of how power is made, stored, distributed and used
• ·         Infrastructure-building services which bring together the demand side and the supply side
• ·         Providing basic energy storage and distribution infrastructure in rural areas in under-developed countries
• ·         Waste water treatment

The Bottom Line is that we need to work together to stimulate continuing clean energy investments:

• Policy-makers should encourage R&D and facilitate infrastructure creation
• Washington is scrumming about the size of the stimulus package, and whether the impact should be immediate or longer term. Their policies will impact how monies are distributed and which clean energy companies will receive support.
• Entrepreneurs should tightly manage expenses while thinking creatively about how to partner with others with existing tools in complementary markets. Example: mashing of biofuels and ethanol?
• Entrepreneurs may consider licensing their technology for co-development with more established firms, with idle resources, looking for new technologies and markets.
• Wait for the fall-out of over-hyped sub-industries, but don’t be discourage from exploring other clean sub-industries.

Prediction #4: Carbon regulation will lag with a corresponding effect on relevant technologies, e.g., carbon-sequestration and carbon-markets management in the Cleantech sector. No details were covered on the panel on this prediction.

Resources:

• See Lightspeed’s 2009 clean tech predictions http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/2009-cleantech-predictions/
• See @Venture’s Presentation on ‘What’s Wrong with Venture Capital’ http://cleantechinvesting.greentechmedia.com/2008/12/11/whats-wrong-with-cleantech-venture-capital-577/
• Advanced Technology Partners’ clean energy investment areas http://www.atvcapital.com/initiatives
• Nth Power’s investment criteria http://nthpower.com/invest_criteria.html
• For a copy of Elise Zoli’s, Chair of the Clean Energy Practice at Goodwin Procter’s slides, please send an e-mail to info@fountainblue.biz with a brief paragraph about your background and interest in clean energy and we will forward them on to you.