New energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass and hydropower are capturing significant global attention, thanks to their abilities to reduce the traditional energy sector’s contribution to climate change.
It is high time that companies develop innovative solutions to transition seamlessly and be ready for the wide adoption of these sustainable energy sources.
Many startups already offer new energy solutions through various business models, such as direct B2B sales, indirect sales through partners and affiliates, SaaS, and subscription. Among them, energy-as-a-service (EaaS) and microgrids-as-a-service (MaaS) are gaining momentum, serving as effective financing schemes for companies to apply new energy without upfront investments.
We have selected five types of innovative solutions that support your businesses’ transition to new energy. These categories are recommended by The Startup Energy Transition Award, an international competition for startups and young companies worldwide working on impactful ideas affecting the global energy transition and climate change.
Also read: How debt financing, crypto, SPACs keep the climate-tech funding momentum in SEA
Smart Mobility & Transportation
Startups in this area enable the adoption of electric vehicles, innovative sharing platforms and the progress of alternative means of transportation — all intending to make mobility more accessible and inexpensive while decreasing environmental impact.
For example, Vietnamese smart mobility startup Selex Motors manufactures smart electric motorcycles, battery packs, and swapping systems catering for the B2B market (particularly the last-mile delivery for the logistics sector).
Meanwhile, Singapore-based RushOwl provides on-demand shuttle rides by collaborating with fleet owners, smart cities, and governments worldwide.
By combining ride requests through routing algorithms and employing AI to automate transportation plans, RushOwl bridges first-mile and last-mile journeys of passengers based on their specific schedules via the RushTrail app. The RushTrail app will also be integrated with electric vehicle networks and new mobility products to support a smart commute ecosystem.
Optimal energy distribution and storage
This category comprises tech-savvy startups focusing on micro, tiny, local, or system-wide energy distribution and climate-neutral storage solutions.
Implementing energy storage systems (ESSs) is an important avenue for increasing a distribution network’s energy efficiency, and their appropriate location, size, and operation can improve overall network performance. An ESS that is properly scaled and situated may help meet peak energy demand, improve the advantages of integrating renewables and distributed energy sources, improve power quality control, and lower the cost of expanding the distribution network.
For example, Singaporean startup Canopy Power provides microgrids products that help make renewable energy sources more accessible to businesses and far-flung communities. Its controller orchestrates various renewable energy sources (such as wind and solar power) and energy storage so that the cost of electricity is minimal and customer loaded is fulfilled reliably. Excess power is stored in a storage system to be used at night or during peak loads periods.
Canopy Power is currently developing a solar and battery storage microgrid on the remote island of Koh Rong Sanloem in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. The firm says it designs the microgrid to reduce island-wide diesel consumption by over 600,000 litres per year.
Synectify is another company providing a distributed hardware infrastructure deployed at sources of waste energy via modular, scalable, containerised data centres and a software platform giving access to this hardware network. It aims to move energy-hungry high-performance computing infrastructure out of traditional data centres — traditionally supplied by non-renewable energy — onto renewable energy. It provides a robust, distributed, carbon-neutral computing infrastructure to solve the toughest computing challenges. It can also match variable renewable energy with intermittent electrical loads to enhance grid stability while performing value-added computing services.
Green Li-ion develops a patented multi-cathode processor that recycles all types of Li-ion batteries into 99.9 per cent pure cathodes for energy storage solutions. It helps combat the present-day battery recycling issue of limited processing capacity to only certain types of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. This, according to the company, speeds up current recycling processes by up to 10 times and improves profits by more than four times.
Demand-side Innovation
Decarbonisation, digitalisation, and decentralisation are the three forces that have long shaped global energy system advances. As a result, the methods of utilising energy is rapidly and fundamentally changing with various innovative solutions.
One new global driver that has evolved in response to the quicker speed of technological innovation and the greater acceptance of climate policies is demand-side innovation. In this approach, energy users demand ideas that help them “do more with less”.
Startups in this area create smart devices, apps, materials, alternatives, and behaviour-changing technologies to promote and increase energy efficiency. These startups assist industries, cities and households in monitoring, managing, reducing or adapting their energy consumption.
Canopy Power, for example, offers remote microgrids monitoring and management service called Hornbill. This technology-agnostic platform allows companies to acquire data from renewable energy systems and visualise the performance on a cloud-based portal. The microgrid system performance can be checked on one’s smartphone or other devices, enabling proactive measures to be taken to optimise performance and manage the system.
Clean Earth Technologies, another Singaporean cleantech company, has developed an innovative processing system that eliminates the use of cyanide and mercury in the treatment of precious metal ores, notably gold. By removing metals from waste electronics without utilising toxic and energy-intensive processes involving cyanide, acids, or smelting, the startup also establishes a circular economy for e-waste.
Hydroleap, which is also based in Singapore, replaces expensive chemical treatments of wastewater with a smart electrical treatment, making the process more cost-effective, ecologically friendly, and automated. The technology works based on electrochemical principles where low-powered electricity is applied to activate the aqueous solution and form coagulant reagents to attract contaminants.
Clean energy generator
In this category, businesses can use startups’ clean energy generation solutions to decarbonise the most energy-intensive sectors and those accelerating the adoption of new solutions through capacity building.
For instance, Hongkok-based Ampd Energy produces Ampd Enertainer, an advanced, compact and connected battery system that uses any power source to replace diesel generators that power construction projects. Its battery releases zero emissions and can be installed for diesel generator replacement in construction sites in under two hours.
In Indonesia, Xurya provides solar power as a service to make it easier for companies to migrate to solar energy through a “no investment” method with a rental system. Its “all-in-one solution” includes feasibility studies, installation, operation, and maintenance for Rooftop Solar Power Plant (PLTS) (including component replacement).
Xurya claims to have completed more than 50 PLTS projects with a portfolio of multi-megawatt power generating. It serves various businesses in Indonesia, including manufacturing (food and beverage, fast-moving consumer goods, construction materials, metals, textiles, and garments), cold storage, logistics centres, hotels, and shopping malls.
Waste to Energy
In line with governments’ effort to encourage firms to recycle their waste or to effectively remove and treat waste in a responsible, environmentally friendly way, waste-to-energy (WtE) solutions arise as a method to produce energy or heat from treating and converting sources of waste. They lead to higher profits for businesses and provide a highly valued renewable energy source.
In a traditional approach, waste-to-energy plants often burn garbage or trash made of energy-rich materials such as paper, plastics, yard waste, and products made from wood to produce steam in a boiler used to generate electricity.
Other startups like Singapore-based Green COP utilise its patented biowaste pretreatment technology to offer an end-to-end solution for residual biomass by transforming biowaste like garden waste, agricultural biomass, waste sludge, food waste, etc., into useful bioresources, such as biofuels, biogas, without any secondary waste. Based on their initial calculations, their technology can have up to 89 per cent energy savings.
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