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Unleashing the power of renewable energy and clean energy technologies

Two years ago, Google, Facebook, General Motors and Walmart, along with over 300 other companies, announced the launch of the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA). As the largest group of corporate renewable energy buyers in the U.S., REBA hopes to bring more than 60 gigawatts of new renewables online in the country by 2025. Such efforts could hasten the adoption of renewable energy and smart energy technologies. Renewable energy is the type of energy that is collected from natural resources such as wind, sunlight, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat.

These sources are considered the alternative sources of today’s energy that are endangered around the world. Renewable energy is often referred to as clean energy technology. In late 2020, the EU’s European Innovation Council awarded funding for research on four future clean energy technologies. These projects include HERMES, MetaVEH, TPX-Power, and LICROX.

Renewable energy technologies are crucial to achieving climate goals. Thus, investing in technologies such as hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) is inevitable.

There are a large number of companies betting big on the future of renewable energy technology. 

David Energy

David Energy is a retail electricity supplier that was founded on the belief that we are at the dawn of a transformational period on the electricity grid. The company believes that over the next 40 years, we will shift from large, centralized, fossil fuel consuming, and analog power plants to small, distributed, cleaner, software-enabled energy generating resources. It empowers buildings with the tools needed to maximize onsite energy and bring transparency to a traditionally opaque, commoditized industry.

In February 2021, David Energy raised US$19 million in funding to store and deploy energy at specific times. The funding includes a US$4.1 million seed round and an additional US$15 million in debt financing. The company’s software, AI, and machine learning tools help slash power costs while simplifying the energy management process. Its proprietary energy efficiency software Mycor utilizes a building's demand data and shifts user energy consumption to times when renewable power is most abundant. 

C-Zero

C-Zero is a Santa Barbara, CA-based hard-tech startup that develops technology for decarbonizing natural gas. The company’s technology utilizes high temperatures to break down methane, (the primary molecule in natural gas) into hydrogen and solid carbon. Last month, C-Zero announced the funding of US$11.5 million raised in a Series A round to accelerate the first commercial-scale deployment of its drop-in decarbonization technology. This will allow industrial natural gas consumers to circumvent CO2 emissions in applications like electrical generation, process heating and the production of commodity chemicals like hydrogen and ammonia.

Qairos Energies

Bioeconomy company Qairos Energies produces biomass and in the circular economy, green methane and hydrogen. In January this year, the company reportedly said to invest €18.8 million (US$23 million) in its planned facility that will turn locally grown hemp into hydrogen and methane. According to Qairos Energies, its hydrogen output will be altered into electricity for fuel cells to power buses and trains.

Solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectric power, biomass energy and geothermal energy, among others are the primary renewable energy types. To accelerate the transition towards clean energy and a sustainable future, every individual, organization and government must advocate for renewables.