Amazon picks nine innovations for green cities accelerator

From wind turbines on buildings to software that shows the impact of sustainability decisions, ideas from nine startups have been chosen for the Amazon Web Services Sustainable Cities Accelerator for Infrastructure.

Launched this March, the accelerator programme aims to address the need for “innovative and collaborative solutions that focus on global climate and clean tech challenges”.

Over five weeks, the nine selected startups will receive training in areas like machine learning and high-performance computing. They will also receive business and go-to-market mentoring from AWS and have the opportunity to pitch to major AWS customers like CBRE, Prologis, AmFAM Institute and Evergreen Climate Innovations.

The startups

Credit: Accelerate Wind

Accelerate Wind

LOCATION | St. Louis, Missouri

PURPOSE | To develop affordable wind turbines for commercial buildings designed to be installed at the edge of roofs to take advantage of wind that naturally speeds up as it travels over roof edges

REASON | Solar panels only meet 25-40% of a building’s energy demand, the startup said, and its wind turbines can potentially add a further 25%

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BlocPower

LOCATION | Brooklyn, New York

PURPOSE | To provide smart all-electric heating, cooling and hot water systems to building owners

REASON | Besides cleaning up energy in cities, the startup said it can cut bills by 20-40% each year

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Conservation Labs

LOCATION | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

PURPOSE | To deliver technology that monitors water use and equipment to reduce costs, carbon and risk. The company monitors sound signatures from plumbing to measure accurate water flow estimates, leak alerts and water insights

REASON | In the US alone there is more than three trillion gallons of unwanted water used every year, costing $70bn

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Ecolibrium CEO Chintan Soni. Credit: Ecolibrium

Ecolibrium

LOCATION | London, UK

PURPOSE | To provide an instant snapshot of energy performance across commercial and residential properties

REASON | Having a clearer, real-time understanding of consumption in a building will allow landlords and tenants effective changes more easily

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ElectricFish

LOCATION | Freemont, California

PURPOSE | To build and deploy distributed, resilient electric vehicle infrastructure

REASON | Grid capacity, availability of chargers and speed of charging are three major hurdles to EV adoption. ElectricFish seeks to tackle each of these problems

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Credit: Hello Energy

Hello Energy

LOCATION | Rotterdam, Netherlands

PURPOSE | To help building owners connect with tenants and other stakeholders, share their sustainability goals, track building data and receive tips on making positive changes

REASON | With so many people using a building, cutting energy use and becoming more sustainable is a collective effort that depends on being able to get everyone on board with net zero targets

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Runwithit Synthetics

LOCATION | Edmonton, Canada

PURPOSE | To show customers the real impact of potential sustainability decisions with a “digital city sandbox” that overlays data around factors like weather, policy, technology and infrastructure

REASON | Clearer data will help users measure predicted outcomes around climate, emissions and economics

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VIA

LOCATION | Sommerville, Massachusetts

PURPOSE | To give consumers ownership of their private energy data and allow them to be paid for making changes that contribute to decarbonisation, such as turning down a thermostat or selling solar power

REASON | The platform aims to both motivate people to act on climate change and verify that they have done the things they said they would

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Credit: Vutility

Vutility

LOCATION | Sandy, Utah

PURPOSE | To offer energy use monitoring at a circuit- or individual asset-level

REASON | By taking a highly detailed approach to energy monitoring, the startup aims to offer better insight into performance, fault detection and progress on sustainability goals

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The nine companies were selected from hundreds of applications, representing 27 countries, by a panel of experts from AWS, Freshwater Advisors, and Public Spend Forum.  The accelerator will be delivered in collaboration with Freshwater Advisors and Public Spend Forum.

Jeff Kratz, general manager of Worldwide Public Sector Partners at AWS, sad: “One of the greatest challenges in the public sector is our collective need for more sustainable infrastructure.

“By working with AWS, we believe that startups in our AWS Sustainable Cities Accelerator will harness the power of the cloud to make global infrastructure more sustainable and efficient.”

Harit Soni, co-founder of Ecolibrium, said: “Having the opportunity to participate in this programme has enabled us as an organization to truly tap into a changing digital infrastructure landscape.

“Sustainability is very much a hot topic right now but to really implement change, we need initiatives like the AWS Sustainable Cities Accelerator for Infrastructure so that we can collectively innovate and bring sustainability into being.”

The culmination of this programme will be the AWS Sustainable Cities Demo Day in 2023, during which the selected startups will showcase their technology in person. Details about the event not yet been confirmed.