Hosts of the Cleantech University Prize (Cleantech Up) FLoW competition with the winners, Xstream Trucking of Stanford University. The team took home the $50,000 first-place prize for their drag-reducing trucking technology. | Photo courtesy of Caltech
Cleantech UP heads west
Caltech’s First Look West (FLoW) competition took place at the end of May at the school’s Pasadena campus. Xstream Trucking of Stanford University took home the Cleantech UP $50,000 first-place prize for its technology that eliminates the gap between a semi-trailer and its cab, thereby reducing drag and fuel consumption of trucks at high speeds. According to the team, trucking fleets’ biggest non-labor cost is fuel and two-thirds of a truck’s fuel is used to overcome aerodynamic drag. Xstream Trucking’s patented technology aims to improve fuel efficiency in the U.S. trucking industry, where 28 billion gallons of fuel were consumed by trucks in 2012, which made up 4% of the entire U.S. energy consumption.
Two teams, Akabotics of University of Hawaii and SkyCool of Stanford University tied as runners-up at Caltech’s FLoW competition. Akabotics is an autonomous robotic platform used to conduct continuous maintenance dredging on shallow waterways. SkyCool pitched the commercialization of a hyper-efficient air conditioning module that water-cools residential and commercial buildings. The modules generate water below air temperature and only require electricity to pump water through them.
All three teams are invited to the Cleantech UP National Competition later this month.
UCF's WIN Sensor demonstrated in an open environment. | Photo courtesy of UCF
Wrapping up in the Sunshine State
Cleantech UP headed to UCF’s Orlando campus the first week in June for the Megawatt Ventures competition. Sensatek Propulsion Technology, Inc., from UCF, took home first place and won the Cleantech UP $50,000 prize. Sensatek developed a Wireless In-Situ Nexus (WIN) Sensor that measures extreme temperature, pressure, and the strains of highly corrosive environments. The WIN Sensor helps optimize fuel cell operating conditions by dramatically reducing pressures, membrane degradation, and temperature distributions in real-time.
Grow Bioplastics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Capacitech, from the University of Central Florida, were named as runners-up at the Megawatt Ventures competition. All three winners are invited to the National Competition.
Grow Bioplastics’s project improves food sustainability by offering renewable, biodegradable plant containers and mulch films to gardeners and farmers. The containers remove oil based plastics from agricultural systems.
Capacitech has combined nanoscience with coaxial cables and supercapacitors to produce technology capable of being used in consumer electronics, energy production and storage, as well as for military or transportation use.
Next stop: Denver
Now that Cleantech UP’s eight regional competitions are finished, next up is the National Competition, which will take place June 21-23 in Denver, Colorado. Three teams from each of the eight regional competitions will pitch their clean energy commercialization plans to the judges with $100,000 in prizes up for grabs.
- California Institute of Technology
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Clean Energy Trust
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Rice University
- Rutgers
- The State University of New Jersey
- University of California-Berkeley
- University of Central Florida
Cleantech UP was built on the success of its precursor, the Energy Department's National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition (NCEBPC), which leveraged growing interest in energy entrepreneurship to expand student engagement in clean energy technologies. Launched in 2011, the NCEBPC has attracted more than 1000 teams, resulting in more than 120 ventures and generating $130 million in follow-on funding.
