Cleantech Investor

First published in Cleantech magazine, July/August 2010. Copyright Cleantech Investor Ltd

OSRAM chose London’s Design Museum as the venue for a presentation on the future of solid state lighting technology. Meanwhile, OSRAM LEDs were lighting up the World Cup games in South Africa.

By Anne McIvor

Solar light emitting diode (LED) producer, D Light Design, was a winner at the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy for 2010. While D Light Design is providing light for villagers in remote parts of Africa, LED technology was also behind much of the lighting for the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

OSRAM developed ‘LED Beams’, in conjunction with local manufacturer BEKA, to light the ‘Durban Arc’  spanning the Durban stadium. The company’s ‘Golden Dragon Plus’ LEDs – 12,000 in total – combine to form the 350 metre Durban Arc, an icon for the potential for LED lighting technology.

First published in Cleantech magazine, July/August 2010. Copyright Cleantech Investor Ltd 2010

By Dr Denis Gross

The point beyond zero energy consumption (when solar and other forms of home-based microgeneration balance the external energy imported), the point at which a house generates more energy than it consumes over a period of time, defines the EnergyPlus House.

The energy consumed by different types of housing differs significantly. In the UK, for example, an average semi-detatched house consumes around 22,000kWh/yr. Over 80% of this typically goes on heating; the remainder on electricity. A low energy house, on the other hand, consumes just over one-third of the total energy of the average house, with only 60% of this lower figure going on heat. The heating requirements of higher efficiency buildings, such as the ‘passive house’, are significantly lower again.

First published in Cleantech magazine, May 2010. Copyright Cleantech Investor 2010.

Reviews of some of the UK Quoted companies with innovative solutions for the built environment, by Andrew Hore

VB Research has tracked a host of venture capital fund raising deals for companies with technology in the energy management, smart metering and other ‘green building’ spaces over the past year or more. These deals are summarised in the following tables.

In the VB Research deal list, we noticed a trend for deals in the overlapping spaces of energy efficiency and home security – typical of the growing trend for cleantech solutions to be incorporated into broader industrial solutions. Sunnyvale, California, based 4Home is a case in point. 4Home raised US$1.3 million in early stage funding in 2009, according to VB Research. The company provides ‘home control’ services, which incorporate various functions including energy management as well as home security and monitoring. 4Home’s software platform includes the ControlPoint,™ Portal Server, and SDK software products.