CleanTech Crucible

Sustainable Business - The Event put on their very own Dragon's Den-style search for innovation in the lowcarbon marketplace.

Sponsored by Angian Water, the CleanTech Crucible, which took place on Wednesday 25 May looked at finding the technologiesof tomorrow that provide solutions to water resource efficiency, transport, energy generation and efficiency and transport challenges.

Feedback received via the magazine, website andSB’s series of Round Table Debates suggests that there is a strong appetite among the business community to learn about emerging technologies and solutions. And that is exactly what the CleanTech Crucible, developed in partnership with Isle Utilities, wated to achieve.

Each of the five competing technologies – all of which are yet to be commercialised –  presented in front of a select group of industry experts, as well as the audience. They each had eight minutes in which to showcase their solution and explain why it deserves to reach a wider audience – and attract investment. They then answered questions from the audience, as well as the judges, who later retired after all of the presentations had been given to discuss what they have seen and choose a winner.

Judges
Piers Clarke, Director, Isle Utiities
Neil Pennell, Head of Sustainability and Engineering, Landsecurities
Barrie Holden, Water Innovation Manager, Anglian Water

Companies lined up to enter the Crucible are micro-scale waste to energy firm, Pyropure; water efficiency solution, Curapipe; solar energy glazing venture, Oxford PV; energy efficiency technology specialists, KiWi Power; and fuel efficiency innovator, Lontra.

WINNER

OXFORD PV 
Kevin Arthur, CEO
Oxford Photovoltaics is commercialising new solar glazing technology resulting from research programmes at the University of Oxford. According to Kevin, this new technology has the potential to become the dominant solution in the building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) market and is widely expected to be the fastest route to grid parity. Oxford Photovoltaic’s technology is printed directly on glass and is available in a wide range of colours.

Entrants

KiWi POWER
Nick Butlin & Yoav Zingher, operations and strategy manager & founder
KiWi Power operates primarily as a commercial aggregator of short-term operating reserve (STOR) to the National Grid, releasing power to the grid from its client portfolio through standby generation and process re-scheduling and load management. In the last 12 months, it has scaled up operations to a team of 12 with backgrounds in demand response market mechanisms, finance, renewables, standing reserve, energy efficiency, smart metering technology, and process engineering.

CURAPIPE SYSTEMS
Peter Paz, CEO
The Israeli business offers a breakthrough leak-curing solution for leaks and cracks in urban water mains. Using conventional pigging systems currently applied for internal swabbing, the Curapipe solution uniquely repairs leaks and cracks that normally go unnoticed by existing leak detection technologies used in active leak control programs.

PYROPURE
Julian Entwistle, sales and marketing manager
PyroPure has developed a micro-scale waste-to-energy technology that can treat any organic waste on a customer’s own site without the cost and environmental impact of collection, transfer and disposal to large centralised facilities. It is a unique proposition that has already secured a UK patent. The waste is treated in a unit the size of a chest freezer which can be installed on a ‘plug and play’ basis.

LONTRA
Simon Hombersley, business development director
Lontra is commercialising an energy efficient blade compressor, which is 20% more efficient than current compressors. The Blade Supercharger is a solution unique to the needs of the auto industry. Boosting engines, to reduce fuel consumption while still offering the performance that their customers require, is a big opportunity. To make this happen, the Blade Supercharger has the unique ability to efficiently vary flow through a novel compressor design.