A little over a year ago, Elemental Excelerator’s CEO and my colleague, Dawn Lippert, joined then-President Barack Obama and others pushing the limits of what’s possible for the White House’s first ever Frontiers Conference. She delivered a simple message: that innovation and new ideas need a town square. In ancient Europe, town squares were open spaces where the community gathered. Everything from competitions to celebrations were held there. It was like the office watercooler; you go there to stay up to date and involved in the happenings of your community.
Exactly 368 days after delivering that message, Elemental Excelerator held its first EEx Town Square in Honolulu. It brought together a community of over 100 stakeholders to meet the newest solutions for the energy, water, agriculture and mobility challenges we face in Hawaii. Everyone from the mayor of Kauai to the 12 newest startups selected by the Elemental Excelerator team to enter this market was there.
Seven of the 12 companies will work with local businesses to deploy projects in 2018 and 2019. Elemental Excelerator helps fund these projects with up to $1 million per company. Projects the Hawaii-based nonprofit has helped to fund include digitization of water utility bills for customers on Oahu and Hawaii island, energy monitoring for Hawaii’s public schools, and acres of trees that produce biofuel and cattle feed on Oahu’s North Shore. The seven companies are:
>> Buoy (water): Buoy’s smart device attaches to a home’s water line and sends water usage data to a mobile app. The app analyzes the information and identifies water use by appliance, giving homeowners an easy-to-understand picture of their water use.
>> Blyncsy (mobility): Blyncsy installs sensors on street poles and other infrastructure that anonymously collect movement patterns. Their software analyzes that data to help optimize the flow of traffic.
>> Swiftly (mobility): Swiftly is the creator of Transitime. Transitime monitors the movements of buses and other public transportation vehicles to predict arrival and departure times more accurately than existing systems.
>> eMotorWerks (grid): EMotorWerks pairs its electric vehicle (EV) chargers with a software platform for managing EV charging.
>> Opus One (grid): Opus One Solutions has developed a calculation engine for transactive energy. Transactive energy calculates the value of a kilowatt-hour at different locations across the grid to provide accurate market signals for the value of energy storage, generation or grid services at any given point in time.
>> Via Science (grid): Via Science has developed a software engine that provides explanations about why a prediction or recommendation is made to help utilities improve maintenance plans and provide transparency to regulators regarding their grid modernization recommendations.
>> Solar Analytics (solar): Solar Analytics’ cloud-based data and analytics platform uses real-time energy and weather data to analyze how well a solar installation is performing and provide actionable insights to maximize returns for homeowners.
Five of the 12 companies have more customized needs to help their business grow, such as raising additional funding and vetting their pricing strategy with a customer:
>> PastureMap (agriculture): Connects data through the beef supply chain to achieve traceable, healthy beef that’s better for consumers.
>> Signol (mobility): Software that analyzes pilots’ fuel consumption and delivers information that incentivizes pilots to reach fuel-efficiency targets.
>> Nnergix (grid): Technology that predicts the future behavior of infrastructure (including solar and wind generation) using advanced weather data, machine learning and analytics.
>> Shifted Energy (grid): Uses a combined software and hardware solution to aggregate and control electric water heaters.
>> Allume (solar): Facilitates the sharing of electricity generated from rooftop solar panels to supply multiple, separately metered dwellings, such as apartment buildings.
Lauren Tonokawa is head of the communications team at the Energy Excelerator. She’s a graduate of the University of Hawaii. Reach her at laurentonokawa@gmail.com.
