Shortlisted Ideas
Following are the short listed ideas from Phase 1. If interested in any idea, please contact the person (team). Successfully formed teams will enter Phase 3, boot camp, and compete for the prize.
Install solar panels in residential areas in southern Greece to produce and sell electricity from solar energy, and get EU carbon credits to sell into the market. |
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We would install small scale photovoltaic electricity-generation systems in residential areas of Southern Greece, paying a rent or compensating the property owners for the use of space, and produce electricity, which we would sell to the Hellenic Transmission System Operator using existing feed-in tariff subsidies provided by the Greek Government. Investments in renewable resources are subsidised by 40% to 50% if the funds for the 20% of the investment are guaranteed by the investors. The remaining capital can be provided as a loan from banks. Produced electricity is bought by the Hellenic Transmission System Operator, which owes to buy electricity produced by renewable resources unless production exceeds needs – however, this happens only in some islands and definitely not in urban areas - and the subsidised price is guaranteed for 20 years after agreement is signed. The guaranteed demand for the produced electricity and subsidised price for a 20-year horizon consist two strong arguments in support of the sustainability of the business. In addition to that, as a producer of energy from renewable sources we would apply to get an allocation of carbon credits from the European Union and trade them in the market, thus enhancing the profitability of the company. |
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Aris Christodoulou
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Javier Garcia Riesco
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Project Dharma |
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Project Dharma is about understanding of the energy needs of households living at the bottom of the pyramid and delivering an affordable solution with the potential to significantly improve their quality of life. The challenges these households currently face are fundamentally linked to the irregular and substandard energy supply through the grid. What we set out to deliver is a source of power that is affordable, has low running costs, and is available, when they need it. It enables them to have a source of light that allows them to extend their day and live a full life (after dark). Our Solution is a product we call ŒJyoti¹ which does the following:
Looking for engineers who specialise in battery efficiency |
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Gaurav Mehta |
Vivek Makhij |
Crookes Radiometers |
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Panels of thousands of small Crookes Radiometers in which the vanes drive miniature generators. The vacuum cells would be constructed so as to be installable at varying angles on south facing roofs. Panels would be covered in an easy-clean high quality glass to optimise incidence of light on vanes and minimise need for cleaning. Applications - electricity source for commercial, industrial and domestic purposes. |
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Robert Chris |
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"Clean Tech Caribe” (CTC) wants to re-build the electrical grid in countries throughout the Caribbean Basin using renewable microgenerated power and smart grids. |
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The region has a significant opportunity to generate its own power, particularly wind, solar and wave. It also has high consumer energy costs from traditional methods. Those methods must also contend with two geographically induced restrictions. Energy source material – gas, oil and coal, must be imported. Second, the area is susceptible to hurricanes. Microgeneration is an alternative to both of those problems. Renewable energy does not need to be imported. While the risk of hurricanes continues, CTC offers a self-healing grid that can enable parts of an island to continue to function, allows homes and communities to come online as soon as they are ready. This removes the single point of failure current “Large power plant pushing electricity” represents. Renewable projects in general must address the high capital costs of installing alternative energies. Traditional power plants have already amortized their capital costs. CTC aims to take advantage of today’s political climate favouring clean technologies to underwrite capital funding, allowing us to compete on production and delivery costs alone." |
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Jack Bolles |
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Wind Logistics Group (WLG) Ltd. |
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The U.S. wind market in 2008 was a $16b industry and is set for unprecedented growth over the next 20 years. The traditional logistics operations in wind cannot cope with the increasing complexity and scale of the supply chain, and as result, wind project developers frequently overspend their budgets. We can save project developers money and enable better control of their schedule by offering storage at key hubs in the US wind market while providing just in time transportation to the exact wind turbine location. Our vision is to become the FedEx for the US Wind business – and change the way logistics for wind projects happen. Our goal is to build 4-6 storage hubs across the U.S. and create a $50m revenue business within 2-3 years with significant long-term growth potential. |
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Shirona Partem |
Gavin McCallum – gavinm@mit.edu |
Renewable BBQ Charcoal |
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Charcoal that we can buy for BBQ is made by wood through heating and drying. When burning, it contains fumes and little toxic gas depending on materials. Thus, we may seek better material to replace wood to reduce pollution. Lifecycle of a tree is much longer than an herb. Instead of woods, if we can use the leaves and stems of herbs, charcoal would be more environmental friendly, and it contains no toxicity. Therefore, when harvesting of corns or beans, we can also have their leaves and stems to make charcoal. The cost is supposed to be cheap and the charcoal can be seen as a by-product of bio-fuel. Like briquette, leaves and stems need to be compressed to form bio-charcoal. The technique of compressing and heating will play a role in the business. On marketing side, packaging, advertisements, and distribution should apply sustainable marketing. The potential of bio-charcoal is huge. It is a kind of solid bio-fuel, and further applications will be developed in the future. In certain circumstances that liquid and gas fuel cannot be used, it is the opportunity of solid fuel. Moreover, if the cost of it is low enough, it could be an alternative clean coal. |
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Chih-Fan Tsai (VAN) and Alan K L Ying |
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"The Cleantech Centre London" - a service to promote and support efficient allocation of resources and minds towards cleantech R&D and commercialisation. |
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"The Cleantech Centre London" would be a facility that will provide a variety of short cleantech industry courses to analysts and decision makers in venture capital, private equity, investment and management consulting firms. Since cleantech is a fast growing and relatively new sector, it is still relatively unknown among many of these firms. A service that will brief people on this complex sector, and help them get oriented and navigate through the endless information, would be highly valuable. The service would significantly help individuals and companies to get acquainted with this sector and deal with vast amounts of information and resources. To learn the industry by ones' self would take weeks, and quality of learning may vary. The courses offered would shorten that period significantly, and improve the quality of information eventually gained. This knowledge would provide a tool to evaluate cleantech ventures, and support them, as the industry expands. At the second phase of development, the centre will begin to offer engineers and academics courses for enrichment and retraining that will facilitate specialization in this sector. Also, displayed real clean technology product will serve as a tool to attract talent to this sector. |
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Oded Neifeld |
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Proposal to Establish Online Software for Optimised Code for Sustainable Homes Assessments |
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The British Government requires all new housing to undergo a Code for Sustainable Homes (CfSH) assessment. The assessment is a tick-box exercise with 34 ‘credits’ covering topics from water management to energy utilisation, each requiring precise documentary evidence to prove compliance. Credits are summed to give an overall CfSH rating. The majority of the CfSH credits can be achieved through providing low-cost technologies such as low-flush toilets and energy efficient light bulbs, however there is no clear algorithm that developers can use to achieve the most cost effective CfSH rating. I propose establishing online computer software using a database of compliant technologies and suppliers to provide an optimised method for CfSH assessment of any given development. Developers would benefit from the lowest-cost CfSH compliant assessment. Sustainability consultants would be relieved from producing repetitive assessments. Assessor fees are currently between 0.1% and 0.5% of the overall development costs: on a 100-dwelling project, the fee may be in the region of £15,000. Once established the online software would require minimum running costs, so could significantly reduce this fee. The proposal seeks support for expertise in software development and business planning. This will be a good opportunity for collaboration between LBS and UCL. |
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David Unwin |
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‘Green’ Consoles |
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Today, over 40% of American households own a video game console. According to the National Resource Defence Council1, we could save 11 billion kWh of electricity and avoid emissions of 7 million tons of CO2 if more energy efficient power management systems are developed for the consoles. Power consumption testing performed on the consoles showed that the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 consumed a significantly higher amount of power and they consume roughly the same amount of power during idle time as during game play2. (At the end of last year, 21.3 million Playstation 3's and 28 million Xbox 360's have been sold worldwide.) According to Nielson3, the owners of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 also tend to be the most active gamers. The idea is to develop a product compatible with the consoles that will automatically turn the console into "standby" mode if it is inactive and limit power consumption during idle time when graphics are not important (i.e. downloading). Based on initial calculations, energy consumption could be reduced by 100+ million kWh. The target customer segment for this product will be the owners of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. Source: |
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Jun Frank Ma |
Rui Madeira |
GreenLease: A turnkey green energy solution provider |
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The concept is a company that would take all the hassle out of getting solar panels and wind turbines installed on a home, office, or government building. No large capital investment would be needed, and the company would arrange for all the permitting, government paperwork, installation, and on-going maintenance. Customers would be able to save money on their total electricity bill from the first month. And they would have the added benefit of knowing that their electricity is being provided in a clean and renewable fashion that reduces dependence on foreign oil and gas. The value-creating math in this equation is that by having a commercial enterprise own the solar/wind systems on a government or residential building, the company would be able to depreciate the equipment and benefit from the tax savings. This would allow the firm to offer renewable energy systems to the end customer for a monthly payment that is lower than they could arrange on their own. |
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Brett Prior, CFA |
Dan Rogers |
Green Vision |
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Idan Rubin |
Paolo Turchetti |
Developing a cost-effective way for providing fresh water to people in developing countries |
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We are a team of two graduates from London Business School who have devised a simple water purification system to address the ubiquitous need to create access to potable water in water-scarce communities around the world. The concept centres on a solar-heated water desalination and disinfection device comprising of simple materials. Harnessing solar heat conduction, the result is a water purification device with a combined competitive edge of the following characteristics:
While we have a working prototype of the device, we need to optimize the purification process and build a compelling business plan to address the Clean Tech challenge. To do so, we are looking for a UCL engineer who can help us improve the technical robustness of the device and its efficiency. |
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Talbot, Kevin |
Chou Mei Yin |
Feeding the architectural constructions with energy out off the city pulse |
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Svetlana Khidirova |
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Concept Smart Cubes |
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Getting people aware of their energy consumption and how much of that is wasted is perhaps one of the main challenges for the future. The Smart Cubes are easy to understand, straightforward in use, yet with a powerful and clear message: it is up to the people to use energy in a responsible way. Technology doesn’t necessarily have to be complex nor hard to comprehend to be effective. The idea of our concept is simple. It is designing a device that detects movement during the day in a certain room and shows whether the energy consumption of temperature and light in that room is optimal. By simply being nearby the Smart Cubes, a clear colour distinction will show whether you have been able to use energy wisely or not. With this indication we can help the people to reduce their energy cost, simply by letting them know that they aren’t using their energy correctly. Our USP is intuitive, unique and simple. We envision a modular design so that different versions can be produced in a relatively easy manner. They will be user-friendly and understandable for everyone, even the elderly and the children. At a later stage more applications can be made possible. |
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Pui Si Lee Alexander Vuylsteke |
Peter De Clerck Thomas Ghys |
Hydrogen Production from Renewable Biomass |
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The decreasing reserves of fossil carbon and environmental problems related to its use, lead to a growing interest of the chemical industry in the use of renewable feedstocks. Glycerol is a waste product of the biodiesel industry, and offers a promising alternative as an inexpensive, sustainable resource in the production of chemicals. For every 9 pounds of biodiesel produced, 1 pound of crude glycerol by-product is obtained. Nowadays, biodiesel production plants are in need of methods to realize increased income of this glycerol feedstock. In our project, a novel catalytic process has already been developed at lab-scale for the conversion of glycerol (220 €/tonne) into propylene glycol (1180 €/tonne). The innovative aspect of our patented technology is the use of biogenic, in situ produced hydrogen from renewable biomass. The valuable chemical bulk intermediate propylene glycol is currently petroleum-derived and is used in a broad array of applications including unsaturated polyester resins, antifreeze products, deicing fluids, liquid detergents, solvents, paints, cosmetics and other personal care products. Industrial estimates put global demand for propylene glycol around 1,6 million tonnes/year. Our business plan consists of commercialising this sustainable process on an industrial scale. Publication: http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/CC/article.asp?doi=b812886c |
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Stijn Van de Vyver Nicolas Kint |
Meggie Vervelghe Pieter Heyns |
Recovery of PU in fork truck tyres |
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Polyurethane is very widespread product. It is also often used as a byproduct. Only a few examples are PU foam, isolation and safety material, sports equipment, farming products, etc. PU could have a damaging impact to the environment when it is burn. Tars and monoxide is released due to the chemical reaction of the PU. Although fork truck companies tend to recycle their tyres for the recovery of metal, they do not for the recovery of PU. They “forget” to do this because the recovery of PU is not profitable enough relative to their firm size. In addition, most of the staff of those organizations are not competent in this area (Jungheinrich, 2009). Our plan is to create an entity that buys the tyres of the fork truck companies in mass scale and to recycle the tyres ourselves. We would recover both the metal and the PU. The metal can then be sold back to those entities. This will be beneficial for both sides as we can sell the metal back to the fork truck companies at a cheaper price due to our economies of scale while making a profit for ourselves as well. In addition to that we will create the supplementary product PU. We will enrich the PU with enriched fibres composites. According CML (2009) the market in composites is likely to increase in the foreseeable future, particularly in the motor racing and automotive industry. |
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Bart Vlaeyen Pieter Bols |
Dimitri Bauwens |
