CleanTech Meetup Returns to in Person

Mar 30, 2022

After 757 days with 100 virtual events CleanStart returned to in person networking with the CleanTech Meetup at the Hacker Lab on March 24th. It was exciting to see new faces and old ones. We were joined by Kriztina Palone, Workforce Development Manager at City of Sacramento’s Office of Innovation and Economic Development, who helped in bringing together an exciting new tool in our efforts to connect the community to the Clean Tech Transition, the Cleantech Connect trailer.

CleanStarts out reach trailer, Cleantech Connect

We started this trailer back in 2020 before, well, everything. Now, with help from the CMC, BlueTech Valley, and the City of Sacramento, we have a trailer to help connect the larger community to the energy transition and inspire new entrepreneurs building the region as a clean tech hub. The trailer is a mobile event station, with Solar, Batteries, PAs, and TVs to help educate people on clean tech and entrepreneurship. Attendees loved the trailer we describe as our own little Nano Grid.

After networking, Kriztina Palone joined CleanStart’s Executive Director Thomas Hall for a bar stool discussion about how the city is leveraging funds and community groups to prepare Sacramentens for future careers. Palone is leading a second round of “Clean + Green Workforce Pathways Discussions” with industry leaders, local companies, and stakeholders to get input on what priorities the city should support. Palone shared how they are bringing together businesses and communities in a shared goal in taking advantage of the energy transition to create jobs and support equitable economic development. It is not just a policy goal for Palone but a personal one, wanting to see the region she grew up in thrive and grow.

A big opportunity discussed was bringing groups together to create a community energy project. Palone highlighted being from Del Paso she would love to see local communities benefit and grow. A community Energy Project could coordinate resources to get larger community and economic returns. We encourage companies to engage with Palone and the City so we can build these projects.

If you want to hear more check out the video below, and make sure you subscribe to attend future meetups.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas is the Executive Director of CleanStart. Thomas has a strong background in supporting small businesses, leadership, financial management and is proficient in working with nonprofits. He has a BS in Finance and a BA in Economics from California State University, Chico. Thomas has a passion for sustainability and a commitment to supporting non-profits in the region.

Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, Revrnt, Moss Adams, PowerSoft.biz, Greenberg Traurig

CleanTech Meetup: Grid Tech taking us to Carbon Neutral

Sep 17, 2021

At this month’s meetup, we will explore Grid Tech and how is it helping us move to Carbon Neutrality. Renewables are intermittent and electrification is changing ratepayer energy demand. To move to Zero Carbon the Grid must adapt. SMUDs 2030 goal is counting on Virtual Power Plants, Distributed Energy Resources, and Demand Response. Across the country there is a push for transmission backbones to connect Wind and Solar in the Mid-West with coastal regions.

Presenters

James Frasher, Sr. Strategic Business Planner, Energy Storage and DER Operation at SMUD
Timothy Barat , Co-Founder & CEO at Gridware

July 2020 Newsletter

Jul 29, 2020

Keep your Electronics Running

Feb 20, 2020

Ever wondered what would happen to all your communication devices, smart home devices or refrigerator when power is lost from the grid. You no longer need to worry about losing access to those devices when using Off The Wall Energy’s Personal Energy Platform.

Bob Guimarin of Off The Wall Energy is creating the Personal Energy Platform, a portable micro-energy storage system with real-time awareness of grid and off-grid availability. It works much like a mini-Tesla power wall, but located inside your home at each wall outlet, maintaining power to your most critical devices.

The Personal Energy Platform is a power management system that can be charged at night and discharged during the day, negating the use of grid power when rates are high. It can be plugged into a 120V/240V AC wall outlet and directly connects to your AC and DC devices. It has a unique approach to lower energy waste by connecting native DC devices directly to the Personal Energy Platform without the use of individual device AC/DC inverter power cords. Current plans are for two models, a 440W CommHub unit that can be used to power your home communication devices and a 2000W (2kWh) PowerPlus unit that can power refrigerators and more.

The Personal Energy Platform is an attractive consumer-oriented product designed for maximum flexibility and ease of use. All the while operating autonomously to support your critical communications, security systems, food preservation, and home medical devices without the need to swap power cords or impacting your lifestyle choices.

If you want to learn more about Off The Wall Energy, make sure you come to our meetup on February 27, 2020

Storage Meetup Recap

Apr 5, 2018

One of the hottest topics in clean tech is storage. To date there has been no economically compelling storage solution, but the hope remains that one is on the horizon, and one that will make distributed or customer-site storage installations and electric vehicles even a better choice. One source put the global market for distributed storage solutions at $2 billion per year now, and able to grow over 33% per year if certain breakthroughs are achieved. That would mean a $10 billion market in 5 years, not even coutning electric vehicles. We had an awesome discussion of the potentials and perils of this market at our Clean Tech MeetUp on March 29. The MeetUp was held at Coffee and Coworking, a cool new space on Broadway near the UCD Med Center, hosted by owner Gagan Johal. Three speakers got the crowd going–Gregg Fishman, SMUD Board Vice President, Deepak Aswani, Senior Engineer from SMUD, and Bob Gregory from Electra Vehicles. While the CPUC has mandated the investor-owned utilities to contract for over 1300 MW of storage, that mandate did not apply to SMUD. The crowd was glad to hear that SMUD shortly will be opening a process to acquire 9 MW of customer-side storage in the near term, and increasing that to 75 MW if all goes well. There’s business opportunity locally! Deepak also laid out some trends on how battery costs have been declining, and documented some estimates of how those trends might continue. Steady progress has seen these costs decline every year, but not as rapidly as solar panel costs plunged, nor is such a plunge about to happen. Bob Gregory made a good case for combining supercapacitors and batteries in a single package to bridge the problem that a good storage solution needs to be able to deliver high power quickly but then have lots of energy stored to provide duration and range. His point was that, while some startups are trying to get batteries that inherently can do both, their problems of heat dissipation and limited life, it is better to use supercapacitors to do what they do best–discharge quickly–and lithium ion batteries to what they do best–provide lots of storage that can be withdrawn slowly. There were lots of other topics covered–how utility rates may need to change to reflect full value for installed storage, how the peak and off-peak prices are likely to change over time as storage is installed, whether storage could also lead to avoided system expansion costs, among others. This MeetUp probably had the liveliest Q&A of all such events we have put on so far. We were glad to hear from some of the attendees that our MeetUps are the best thing going in elevating the visibility and understanding of clean tech and clean tech companies in our region. If you haven’t taken advantage of one of these sessions, you really should try to join us at one in the future. They really are quite fun–and educational.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.