The World Bank estimates that 3.5 million tons of solid waste is produced by humans every day, with America accounting for more than 250 million tons a year or over 4 pounds of trash per citizen. This figure does not include the 34 billion gallons of human organic materials that are processed in water treatment centers across the country each year.
Energy
BlocPower Raises $8M to Empower Building Owners to Make Their Properties More Sustainable
Buildings generate 80% of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions. Improving energy efficiency isn’t only important to the environment but it also reduces costs, making housing more affordable in the long run. BlocPower is an energy technology startup that combines technology with structured finance solutions to encourage business owners to abandon their existing, obsolete heating and cooling solutions and replace them with sustainable alternatives. The company leverages machine learning to identify the buildings that will benefit the most from energy savings. For building owners, there is no upfront cost and repayment comes directly from energy savings. The company has already retrofitted 1000+ buildings in NYC and is expanding its efforts nationwide with projects in progress in 24 cities.
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and cofounder Donnel Baird to learn more about the company, how his work with the Obama administration sparked the idea for the business, the company’s future plans, recent round of funding from investors that include American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact (AmFam), AccelR8 and The Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group, with participation from Kapor Capital, Elemental Excelerator, CityRock Venture Partners, The Schmidt Family Foundation and Salesforce Ventures.
Dandelion Energy Raises $30M to Bring Geothermal Energy into Homes
70+% of energy usage in the typical home comes from heating, cooling, and water heating. 2.9% of household income is spent in New York on electricity each year. Add in heating oil and home ownership becomes very costly, very quickly. Dandelion Energy has built a geothermal system that replaces a home’s existing air conditioning and heating systems by placing underground pipes below your property. At a basic level, in the winter, the pipes push heat stored in the ground into your home and in the summer, the pipes take away heat from your home. As society shifts away from a dependency on fossil fuels, customers are able to take advantage of federal, state, and utility subsidy programs that are available to reduce the cost of installation and upgrade for less than what they are paying now monthly.
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO Michael Sachse to learn more about the promise of widespread geothermal adoption, the company’s future plans, latest round of funding from investors that include Breakthrough Energy Ventures, GV, NEA, Lennar Corporation, Collaborative Fund, Building Ventures, Catchlight Ventures, and GroundUp.
Pipeline Bots Are Ensuring Nothing Blows Up
Recently, I was on the phone with a large multinational corporate investor discussing the applications for robotics in the energy market. He expressed his frustration about the lack of products to inspect and repair active oil and gas pipelines, citing too many catastrophic accidents. His point was further endorsed by a Huffington Post article that reported in […]
Blueprint Power Raises $3.5M to Make Buildings And Their Owners Powerhouses
Having your building become a virtual power plant sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but Blueprint Power is making this a reality. This NYC startup is pushing boundaries using machine learning to manage clean energy resources in buildings. Buildings become autonomous power plants and any surplus energy produced can be sold to existing […]