ACEP researchers help energy startups

CalWave's wave energy converter deployed offshore near Scripps Institute of Oceanography in Sand Diego. Photo courtesy of CalWave. — CalWave.
CalWave's wave energy converter deployed offshore near Scripps Institute of Oceanography in Sand Diego.

Dec. 1, 2021

Michelle Wilber, Chris Pike and Eloise Brown, with , recently served as panelists for the second session of Launch �ֻ�ֱ��'s 2021 .

Launch �ֻ�ֱ��, a nonprofit accelerator with funding from the and the U.S. Department of Energy , works with companies from �ֻ�ֱ�� and across the world to support deployment of innovative climate tech in �ֻ�ֱ��.

Tech Deployment Track is an eight-month program that assists companies focused on food, water, transportation and energy, as they explore customer relationships in �ֻ�ֱ��. As part of their role as panelists in the program, ACEP researchers agreed to mentor several companies with promising technologies in renewable energy that are interested in finding markets in �ֻ�ֱ��.

Wilber and Pike, from ACEP’s , mentored , a Finnish biowaste-to-energy company. Pike also mentored , a startup developing modular nuclear microreactors. Wilber helped to mentor , a Nigerian company that uses solar and phase change materials to run its coolers and freezers completely off grid, and , a software-as-a-service company that helps utilities see and make the most of the distributed resources on their grid.

Brown, from ACEP’s , helped mentor several manufacturers of wave energy converters and river energy converters, collectively known as marine energy. is a company from California with a WEC that is being tested offshore at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and at PACWave, Oregon State University's offshore wave energy test site. is a Swedish company with a commercial-scale WEC in Portugal that will be incorporated into an array of WECs at this site. is a Spanish company with a marine energy converter that produces energy from both waves and rivers that could potentially power a small cabin off the grid or a community microgrid.

For more information on the mentorship, please contact Michelle Wilber at mmwilber@alaska.edu, and learn more about the .