Our Innovation Analysts recently looked into emerging technologies and up-and-coming startups working on solutions for the energy industry. As there is a large number of startups working on a wide variety of solutions, we decided to share our insights with you. This time, we are taking a look at 5 promising solutions for improving residential & commercial energy efficiency.
Heat Map: 5 Top Residential & Commercial Energy Efficiency Solutions
For our 5 top picks, we used a data-driven startup scouting approach to identify the most relevant solutions globally. The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights 5 interesting examples out of 236 relevant solutions. Depending on your specific needs, your top picks might look entirely different.
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Freschfield – Smart Building Envelopes
With growing concerns regarding increased solar gain and thermal capacity of residential & commercial infrastructure in cities, intelligent facades work to reinforce heat regulation within buildings, based on smart built-in monitoring and materials with enhanced properties. Compared to conventional facades, intelligent building envelopes ensure higher environmental adaptiveness thanks to the system’s ability to sense, analyze and react.
The US-based startup Freschfield creates iSkin, a transparent cladding system for new and retrofit building facades. It employs carbon-free Quantum Dot technology that converts ultraviolet and infrared light into electricity while letting visible light pass freely into the building.
Cool Roof – Cooling Solutions For Roofing
Cooling systems for roofing employ special pigments, membranes, coatings or tiles aimed at reflecting the sunlight into the atmosphere while protecting buildings from ultraviolet light and chemical damage. Innovations like high solar reflectance and thermal emittance allow for cooling systems in roofs, which in turn saves costs on air conditioning and electricity bills, improves indoor air circulation, lowers roof temperatures, mitigates urban heat island effects, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions – all the while ensuring greater durability.
French startup Cool Roof produces a thermal reflective resin for roofs. Their solution aims to return roughly 90% of the solar heat. It protects the roof from physical damage while maintaining a comfortable temperature inside the building.
Edge Electrons – Active Power Factor Correction
Since residential and commercial buildings tend to lose energy during the day due to circuit inefficiencies, active power factor correction measures are employed intended to diminish the power wasted and improve the power factor ratio by utilizing power network devices like Static Var Generators (SVG) or Active Power Filters (APF).
Australian startup Edge Electrons manufactures a patented power factor correction device, PowerSave, that corrects imbalances on individual electrical phases using 4-wire technology. Their solution uses software-driven capacitors to mitigate peak demand charges and reduce electricity bills.
EcoPilot – HVAC Optimization
Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system optimization aims to improve thermoregulation of industrial and residential facilities, in a holistic manner. This includes components or infrastructure optimization, general design optimization, and automation, with continuous data transfers during real-time monitoring. Swedish startup EcoPilot develops an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software platform that over-modulates ventilation, heating and cooling systems, utilizes real-time indoor data and forecasts local weather to automatically regulate a facility’s thermal storage capacity to continuously optimize energy efficiency.
Glow – Energy Monitors
Commercial consumers and households often end up spending a lot of money on electricity bills without clarity on their exact usage. Installing an energy monitor solves this issue by tracking the overall home or building electricity supply, metering all devices and appliances, recognizing consumption patterns, and alerting consumers when there are significant deviations. These monitors are usually accompanied by convenient web or mobile interfaces that provide users with recommendations on energy-efficiency.
The US-based startup Potential Labs develops Glow, an energy monitor which can be kept inside a home, paired with a proprietary sensor. Their solution uses magneto-resistive technology to wirelessly measure energy consumption, which sends the data to a mobile application. It allows for custom notifications regarding electricity usage patterns to track budget goals.
What About The Other 231 Solutions?
While we believe data is key to creating insights it can be easy to be overwhelmed by it. Our ambition is to create a comprehensive overview and provide actionable innovation intelligence for your Proof of Concept (PoC), partnership, or investment targets. The 5 startups showcased above are promising examples out of 236 we analyzed for this article. To identify the most relevant solutions based on your specific criteria and collaboration strategy, get in touch.
