Top 15 cleantech start-ups addressing climate change and energy access receive awards

Technologies for energy storage, smart metering, clean cooking, innovative EV solutions, battery technologies, energy monitoring systems and hydro turbine technologies are among the 15 winning start-ups announced and felicitated by Government of India, BIRAC, Tata Trusts, TATA Power and Social Alpha at a felicitation ceremony and innovation showcase of the Social Alpha Energy Challenge 2.0 (SAEC 2.0), today. The winners were selected from more than 150 applicants across the country, which were screened for their unique technology and business model, strong focus on affordability and accessibility and social, economic and environmental impact.

The selection for the winners of Social Alpha Energy Challenge 2.0 was made for two categories respectively - ‘pre-pilot’ and ‘post-pilot’, to address the needs of technologies and start-ups in different stages of product development. The pre-pilot category winners will be supported in their very early stage through handholding and mentorship for product development, including support in physical prototype development and testing. The post-pilot category start-ups are the ones that have crossed the proof of concept stage and have demonstrated a working prototype, and will be supported in the go-to-market execution.

The winners will be incubated by the Clean Energy International Incubation Centre (CEIIC). CEIIC, Social Alpha’s deep-tech Energy Innovation Lab, which is the joint initiative of the Government of India and Tata Trusts, supported by Department of Biotechnology, BIRAC, Tata Power and Tata Power-Delhi Distribution Limited. CEIIC will support entrepreneurs by providing industry and field connect critical for product development .

The winners will receive customised lab-to-market incubation support at CEIIC, which includes access to world-class lab infrastructure and test beds, technical advisory, R&D support for product design and manufacturing, piloting opportunities with industry leaders, access to grant funding, hands-on operational support, business planning, go-to-market strategic advisory, international exposure and collaboration opportunities, opportunity to access seed support from Social Alpha, and a connect with a larger investor and donor network, access to shared office space with amenities and shared support services.

List of top 15 start-ups under pre-pilot and post-pilot categories:

Elicius Energy : A fuel cell energy storage technology that not only offers clean power but also provides an increase in power density as compared to the current market standard and lower initial purchase costs.

Grassroots Energy: Developed a low-cost energy efficient technology that can purify and compress biogas in a cost effective manner. This will address diverse market segments currently using fossil fuels to switch to low-cost bio-CNG without any lowering of performance

Temperate Technologies: Developed a new proprietary energy-efficient air conditioning and cold storage technology which leads to up to 50% reduction in the overall energy consumption

Offgrid Energy Labs: Developed a  ZincGel® battery that can outperform current lead acid batteries in terms of power density, battery-life and cost thereby significantly reducing the number of batteries

Gtarang Energy Solutions: Developed efficient biomass based furnace solutions that can save huge amounts of fuel for small sector enterprise clusters such as jaggery making, rice mills, dairy, etc.

Stallion Vortex – is a small scale hydropower solution, which is a run-of-the-river type hydro power plant, which requires low head and very less civil structure, reducing the installation and operation cost by a great extent

Feyman Innovations: A light-weight and energy efficient robotic cleaning solution that can clean solar panels with zero water usage and negligible/minimal stress on the panels.

Himalayan Rocket Stove: Highly energy efficient, affordable and clean heating and cooking system suited to Himalayan conditions that can reduce emissions/air pollution by a massive 90% or more caused from firewood thereby positively impacting health and environmental outcomes of the region

Krishna Arya Tech Corp: Developed ‘Annapoorna cookstove’, a zero-emission, low-cost, and energy efficient cooking solution that can reduce the emissions cause due to biomass based cooking

Tan90: Portable, solar-powered cold storage system powered by thermal battery that can reduce wastage of farm produce and increase farmer incomes

Maclec: Developed best of its kind hydro-kinetic turbine technology that enables to harness hydro power from water streams like rivers, hilly streams, even running urban waste water from canals and sewages without the need to create bigger civil structures.

Doorastha Analytics: Developed solar powered grid monitoring system that can do a full performance monitoring of the power network within the micro-grid and generate live data that can help improve its performance

Meladath Auto: An innovative retrofit table conversion kit that can replace the front wheel of the scooter and can be converted into an electric scooter without any modifications.

NRG Village: An IoT-based grid-connected microgrid operating platform, which allows consumers to control their energy use, thereby enabling incentivising of consumers, utilities, prosumers, and finance companies of decentralised renewable solutions.

SwitchDin: A virtual power plant and micro-grid platform which integrates with most solar and battery systems in the market to enable site energy management as well as coordination across micro-grids or virtual power plants.