Top 10 cleantech innovators announced by BNEF

Bloomberg New Energy Finance on Monday announced its selection of ten leading companies for energy technology and business transformation.

The 2016 New Energy Pioneers recognises innovative firms that are disrupting and transforming the energy sector.

The diverse group represents a range of industries including advanced transportation, bioenergy, energy storage, solar, wind and energy smart technologies.

The 10 winners were given the awards at the ninth annual Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit in New York City.

The awards are designed by BNEF to accelerate low-carbon development and the transition towards new business models, technologies, market structures and commercial opportunities.

An independent panel of industry experts, assisted by analysts and technology experts selected the 10 winners from hundreds of applicants from around the world with each candidate being assessed against three criteria: potential scale, innovation and momentum.

The New Energy Pioneers are required to demonstrate a combination of innovative technologies and business models, substantive progress in its activities, and the potential for global scale.

Michael Wilshire, selection committee chair and head of analysis and transformation at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: “This year, we were impressed by the very strong set of candidates we received for the New Energy Pioneers programme, and the range of activities that they cover – including solar, wind, storage, transport, bioenergy, energy smart technologies and machine learning.”

Mr Wilshere added: “We were delighted to see the breadth of innovation that is happening in the industry and struck by the impact that those organisations could have on the energy system of the future. We are as always very grateful to our group of external judges on the selection committee who had the challenging task of narrowing the field of entries to a final set of 10 winners.”

The 2016 New Energy Pioneers are:

• 24M (USA) - has developed an innovative, more cost-effective semi-solid lithium-ion technology.
• AutoGrid Systems (USA) - provides intelligent and scalable software solutions that optimise supply and demand flexibility across a diverse portfolio of energy resources.
• Emergya Wind Technologies (The Netherlands) - provides localised, distributed energy, at below grid power pricing.
• FirstFuel (USA) - develops advanced data analytics and insights to optimise energy consumption in buildings.
• Mobisol (Germany) - provides rural homes and businesses with solar power systems in Tanzania and Rwanda and is one of Africa’s largest and fastest growing providers of off-grid solar systems to homes and businesses.
• Newlight Technologies (USA) - uses carbon capture technology to convert greenhouse gas emissions into AirCarbon, a high-performance material that replaces a wide range of oil-based plastics by out-competing on price and performance.
• Sentient Science (USA) – pre-emptively predicts failures in wind components, using advanced materials science and high performance computing to determine when cracks initiate and grow within metal components.
• SolarKiosk (Germany) – provides modular off-grid solar powered business centres, enabling distribution of products and services to remote rural areas worldwide.
• Verdezyne (USA) - bio-based chemicals company, with a synthetic biology platform that produces a variety of chemicals from renewable, non-food sources.
• Vigilent (USA) - pioneering the use of internet-of-things, machine learning, and predictive analytics to deliver dynamic cooling management for facilities including data centres.