Accelerating innovation for a clean energy future

Climate change, decarbonisation, and the energy transition are the greatest challenges currently facing our generation. These challenges are further compounded given that global energy consumption is expected to increase by more than 50 percent over the course of the next 30 years, per the United States Energy Information Association. This places the energy industry at a critical juncture—development of clean energy technology solutions must accelerate if we are to continuously meet increasing demand for energy while simultaneously reducing the carbon footprint associated with energy production and usage.

Analysts predict that over US$23 trillion will be invested in clean energy technology development and energy transition over the next decade, and over 50 percent of the carbon emissions reductions will come from technology that is in proof of concept or yet to be invented. For example, in Europe, venture capital funding flowing to clean energy startups in the first half of 2021 exceeded the sum totals of 2019 and 2020 combined.

At Amazon Web Services (AWS), we are working to accelerate the energy transition and help to create the future of energy. In line with this effort, we launched the AWS Clean Energy Accelerator in 2021, a program that supports clean energy technology innovation through a hybrid, high-pace, and unique mentorship and co-innovation engagement that is well-suited for mature startups. As part of the Accelerator program, selected startups receive guidance in accelerating experimentation, expanding automation, and delivering deeper insights—using the cloud. Over a five-week-period, the innovative startups get hands-on technical training in capabilities like machine learning, analytics, and high-performance computing.

The AWS Clean Energy Accelerator Innovation Showcase brought together innovators from across the globe for a day dedicated to accelerating innovation for a clean energy future.

This year’s cohort is comprised of 12 startups selected out of 424 applicants from 58 different countries. The startups specialise in a wide range of clean energy technology innovation, from AI-driven virtual power plants to renewable energy performance analytics. The AWS Clean Energy Accelerator 2.0 culminated with the Innovation Showcase, held June 2 in Lisbon, Portugal, where innovators from across the globe gathered for a day dedicated to accelerating innovation for a clean energy future.

The Innovation Showcase provided startups selected for the AWS Clean Energy Accelerator 2.0 cohort with an opportunity to show how they are helping transform the future of energy. Shown here is Dr. Andrew Mears, CEO and Founder of SwitchDin, discussing how his organization is enabling device-to-control-room management of diverse mixes of distributed energy resources through an exclusive technology-agnostic platform.

For the inaugural AWS Clean Energy Accelerator launched in 2021, we selected 10 startups representing eight countries, and by the end of that year many of those companies, like Peresfoni, Ionomr, and e-Zinc, were listed on the top Global Clean Tech 100 list. Leveraging the breadth of depth of the AWS cloud, each of these organizations are tackling different challenges associated with energy transition and decarbonization. Persefoni, for example, is a SaaS company that enables enterprises and financial services institutions to measure, analyse, plan, forecast, and report on their carbon footprint. Based out of Canada, Ionomr is a startup focused on accelerating the path to cheaper hydrogen with exchange membranes and polymer solutions for fuel cell systems and electrochemical CCUS applications. e-Zinc is a startup that is advancing long-duration battery storage by storing electrical energy within zinc metal, with hundreds of hours of energy capacity. e-Zinc has since gone on to secure $25 million in Series A financing to advance long duration energy storage with Eni, our customer and partner in the first cohort, as one of the investors. This is an outcome highlighting the success of incentivising co-innovation between our customers and partners.

Benoit White, VP Business Development at Urban Electric Power, discusses how his company has developed a battery that provides a low-cost, safe energy storage alternative that uses zinc; at scale.

While the five-week program and Innovation Showcase have completed, startups of this year’s cohort will continue to receive pilot support through October 2022, and can continue their relationship with supporting partners potentially beyond that date based on interest. Please learn more about the startups selected for the AWS Clean Energy Accelerator 2.0 and how they are working to reinvent the future of energy.

Faster transformation towards sustainability was the key theme in a session moderated by Jonathan Littman, Founder, RedBridge, and a panel that included Sarah Dimson-Tararuj, Head of Programs & Partnerships, The Climate Pledge, AWS; Aaron Beeson, Director of Innovation, Airports of Portugal; and Ivan Pineda, Director of Innovationa and Public Affairs, WindEurope.

AWS Clean Energy Accelerator 2.0 Cohort:

• Barbara ioT  delivers industrial equipment connected to the cloud while enabling cybersecure intelligence at the Edge through IoT technologies and blockchain.
• Cemvita Factory  develops nature-inspired microbial solutions across carbon-negative biomanufacturing, biomining, and subsurface biomanufacturing.
• Hybrid Greentech  creates solutions for AI-driven virtual power plants to increase performance of energy storage by trading its capacity, accelerating 100 percent renewable energy.
• Power to Hydrogen  has a patent portfolio that enables low-cost AEM electrolyzers to be built with industry leading durability and efficiency, solving the performance and cost challenges associated with producing clean, hydrogen through electrolysis.
• Rated Power  is automating and optimising the analysis, design, and engineering of utility-scale photovoltaic plants in all its stages through cloud-based solutions.
• Shifted Energy  provides a distributed energy aggregation software platform combined with edge devices that solves problems resulting from increased renewable integration through a distributed energy aggregation software platform.
• Sunai  is working to optimise energy production of solar plants more than 10 percent yearly using its Neural and AI-based SaaS, for real-time operational guidelines.
• SwitchDin  is enabling device-to-control-room management of diverse mixes of distributed energy resources through an exclusive technology-agnostic platform.
• UPowr  provides a suite of platforms for system design CX automation and operations and aerial imagery, digital surface models, AI and algorithms generating hourly and yearly energy models
• Uprise: developed the world’s first commercially sized portable wind turbine which is a 10kW wind turbine that fits in a 20’ shipping container and sets up in one hour to produce clean, affordable electricity.
• Urban Electric Power  has developed a battery that provides a low-cost, safe energy storage alternative that uses Zinc; at scale, UEP can produce batteries one third of the lowest cost estimates for lithium batteries by 2030.
• WindESCO  provides renewable energy performance analytics, and has developed a cutting edge IIoT system that leverages intelligent sensor technology and deep ML to address industrial scale wind farm needs.