The AZoCleantech.com Editorial and Video team were proud to be selected to interview the finalists for the Australian Clean Technologies Ideas Competition in Sydney last week.
The competition was launched by the Australian Government Innovation Minister Kim Carr to identify some of the best approaches to addressing the issues of climate change and sustainability.
Within Australia the Clean Technologies business is stated to be worth AUD$22 Billion and to employ over 25,000.
The winner of the Australian competition will represent Australia at the international Cleantech Open Global Ideas Competition in the U.S. The winner will share ideas with entrants from 90 countries and compete for over $100,000 in services to launch their idea. They will also have a week of mentoring, meetings with investors, business services and other entrepreneurs at the International Awards Gala in November 2011.
The Australian competition is an initiative of the Gillard Government’s $8.2 million Supplier Advocate Program, and is supported by Enterprise Connect, Commercialisation Australia, CSIRO and Austrade.
The shortlisted companies are detailed below, their Cleantech Ideas can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/user/AusCleantechIdeas or by viewing the videos below.
AquaGen SurgeDrive - Wave Energy
AquaHydrex - Manufacturing of Hydrogen
Metal Oxide Energy Storage (MOES) - Calcination Energy Storage
Cogen Microsystems - Hybrid Solar Energy System
DrainWave - Low Flow Water
Eco Whisper - Wind Turbine
LubeMaster - Clean Oil Services
SMAC Technologies - Air Conditioning
SolMax - Solar Concentrator
Sundermann Water Power - Water Turbine
YellowDot Energy - Solar High-Flow Groundwater Extraction
AquaGen SurgeDrive [www.aquagen.com.au]
AquaGen’s SurgeDrive wave energy system overcomes the historical problems of wave energy by converting the energy above water and provides a solution that is scalable and cost competitive with other renewable energy sources.
AquaGen
AquaHydrex
AquaHydrex is an inexpensive, integrated solar-powered water-splitting technology that enables onsite manufacturing of hydrogen for use in industrial processes.
Metal Oxide Energy Storage (MOES)
The Calcination Energy Storage system provides an energy storage solution that combines conventional molten salt technology with the chemical dissociation reaction of lime calcination to deliver an order of magnitude increase in energy storage capacity per unit volume.
Metal Oxide Energy Storage (MOES)
Cogen Microsystems [www.cogenmicro.com]
Cogen Microsystems is developing a hybrid solar energy system for household and commercial application using a heat engine and low cost solar thermal collector to generate electricity, space heating and hot water at lower installed cost than competing technologies. This system is commonly referred to as a micro combined heating and power (mCHP) product.
Cogen Microsystems
DrainWave [www.drainwave.com.au]
The Drainwave is a simple device that can be installed in any house that enables the use of low flow water appliances such as ultra-low flush toilets. It enables this through capturing water through a ‘tipping bucket’ design and then using pulse flushes to ensure the low flows can pass through conventional plumbing.
DrainWave
Eco Whisper [www.resau.com.au/]
RESA’s Eco Whisper Wind Turbine is a unique virtually silent 20kW horizontal axis wind turbine for on and off grid connections that utilises a unique blade design and an outer cowling/ring to ensure optimum energy capture and conversion.
EcoWhisper
LubeMaster [www.lubemaster.com.au]
Clean Oil Services’ LubeMaster utilises a centrifuge technology to provide ongoing cleaning of oil in a more efficient way than standard pore membrane filters.
LubeMaster
SMAC Technologies [www.smactec.com]
SMAC Technologies’ Shaw Method of Air Conditioning (SMAC) is a patented and proven highly energy efficient, low costing air conditioning (AC) technology with results from over 40 installations showing reduced AC energy consumption of between 30% and 85%.
SMAC
SolMax
The SolMax combines existing roofing and solar products to produce a cheap, efficient solar concentrator that can be retrofitted and delivers heat, cooling and electricity to commercial premises at the lowest cost.
SolMax
Sundermann Water Power [www.sundermannwaterpower.com]
The patented bi-directionally Sundermann low-head water turbine has been specifically designed to maximise operational efficiency in slow water flows to open up new viable locations for tidal and run-of-the river flows.
Sundermann
YellowDot Energy [ydot.com.au]
YellowDot Energy has developed Australia’s largest solar high-flow groundwater extraction system based on a proprietary control algorithm to operate the bore motor in such a way that we can achieve maximum possible shaft speed (and pumping volumes) given the available solar energy incident on the PV array at any moment in time.
YellowDot