While the event served to award the winner of Cleantech Open's annual competition to find the best clean technology business ideas, it was also the culmination of a month-long competition in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week called the Cleantech Open Ideas Competition. 

The winner of the competition was Replenish Energy from Puerto Rico, a company that has the capacity to provide a renewable, carbon-negative fuel in the form of microalgae, to either substitute or blend with fuel oil or diesel, at well below current petroleum prices.  Micro-algae are the world’s most efficient renewable energy source currently available: it can deliver 48,000 kilowatts of electricity per million dollars capital invested; this compares to 470kW for solar panels and 1,300kW for wind turbines.

All seven National Finalists presented their five-minute pitch Tuesday in front of a crowd of 3,000 investors, entrepreneurs, sponsoring companies, corporations, members of academia and press. The winner received more than $100,000 in marketing support, legal advising and conferencing services to help launch their business.

Replenish Energy bested ideas from countries around the world. View the pitch videos of the other National Finalists:

• China
• Denmark
• Israel
• Italy
• New Zealand
• USA

“We wish this year’s winners every success — their collective innovation and spirit of entrepreneurship will spur crucial advances to address the energy, environmental and economic challenges that we face,” said Rex Northen, executive director of the Cleantech Open.  “While this marks the completion of our annual competition, it is only the beginning for this year’s semifinalists.  As Cleantech Open alumni, we will continue to help them successfully commercialize their cleantech ideas and create jobs.”

The winner of this year’s annual Cleantech Open business plan competition was EcoFactor. A finalist in the Cleantech Open California regional competition, EcoFactor entered in the smart power category, with a personalized residential energy management solution for heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Twelve finalists competed for this award, with EcoFactor receiving $250,000, including $100,000 in seed capital.

tags: china, Cleantech Open, denmark, ecofactor, israel, italy, new zealand, puerto rico, replenish energy, rex northen, usa