November 18, 2009—The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) 22nd Clean Energy Industry Growth Forum attracted nearly 600 investors, entrepreneurs, scientists and policymakers recently to Denver. More than $2.5 billion has been raised by companies presenting at the Forum since 2003.
The forum highlighted clean energy industry technology and business developments, with the aim of bringing about transformational change to the energy industry. NREL also introduced the first NREL Opportunity Forum showcasing the latest clean energy opportunities in Colorado and across the country.
Three entrepreneurial companies were singled out from the 34 competitively-selected presenters to win the 2009 Clean Energy Venture Awards sponsored by Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors:
- Best Venture award: Ecovative Design; the company creates compostable products that replace commonly used packaging materials like Styrofoam;
- Outstanding Venture award: Exro Technologies, for bringing to market a unique clean-energy electrical generator capable of delivering double-digit increases to the annual kilowatt hours produced out of a wind turbine, without increasing capital costs; and
- Outstanding Venture award: Evolutionary Genomics, for developing and successfully patenting a cost-effective technology platform to identify the key genes that control fundamental biofuel plant and algae traits such as biomass, stalk sugar, grain yield, and oil content.
Cash prizes include $10,000 for Best Venture and $5,000 each for the two Outstanding Presentation Awards. NREL will provide the winners with in-kind commercialization support matching the cash award to help increase their chances of commercial success.
For a list of participating companies and sponsors, please visit the Industry Growth Forum Web site.
