Cleantech startups, professionals, academics, and investors flocked to Ernst & Young’s GreenEconomy Conference, held in Tel Aviv on November 20, 2008.

Event organizer CleanIsrael put together a solid line-up of panelists and company showcases, with a decidedly positive spin on where the cleantech industry is headed amidst the global economic crunch.
Several of the brightest cleantech companies coming out of Israel presented themselves during the showcase sessions, capably moderated by TN Ventures founder Tamar Naor.  You can find a short recap of the presentations below:

BPT: Nanofiltration for industrial wastewater

Operating since 2000 and established by Moti Perry (Nitron-Chemtec, Ltd.), the company is an innovator in the nanofiltration market, the fastest growing segment of the membrane industry.  Its two products, NanoPro and HMT (Hybrid Membrane Technology), could offer industry major savings in treating organic, acid, and mineral wastewater.  HMT’s operating costs were cited at $10/m³ compared with existing incinerator or oxidation costs of between $150-300/m³.

So far, BPT has managed to raise $5.6M after its second round of A Round funding.

CellEra: Platinum-free fuel cells

CellEra is a product company pursuing opportunities in the $15.5B incumbent market for fuel cells.  Its platinum-free, membrane based fuel cell technology is disruptive, and CEO Ziv Gottesfeld does not shy away from stating their mission of displacing industrial batteries and IC engine generators in the 1-100kW range.
With its recent milestone of an order from India’s Telco, valued at $60-$70M, the company hopes it can convince others to turn away from expensive platinum membranes  and adopt its non-acidic and reusable membrane components for fuel cells.

CheckLight: Detecting water contaminants using luminescent bacteria

Bringing a dazzling new tool to the sophisticated early warning system game, the company’s AquaVerity product of bioluminescence-based monitoring could easily become a global industry standard.  Relying on rapid visual comparison of collected water samples, it requires minimal training to monitor for natural contaminants and possible terror attacks on the water supply.

CEO Eyal Mor noted  the company is currently targeting 18 countries, with a market potential of $1.5B, primarily of global water utilities and related water safety organizations.  CheckLight was recruited by the Chinese Ministry for Environmental Protection to provide kits for its mobile emergency response vehicles, following the devastating Sichuan earthquake.  The company received an undisclosed investment from Whitewater Group, and has 3 patents pending for its unique contaminant detection method, reagent long-term storage, and continuous monitoring process.

IQWind: Variable mode add-on for turbine efficiency

The revitalized and rapidly growing wind energy sector will benefit from an answer to its technology limitation. IQWind’s innovation recovers lost wind energy for rotors that must turn in a constant RPM by creating a variable mode according to the changing speed of the wind.  The product is a mechanical, efficiency add-on which has promising applications also in the transportation world.

IQWind hopes to show significantly increased performance to exisiting turbine owners and manufacturers, along with extending wind energy frontiers to marginal locations.  Its market possibilities begin with the estimated $100B existing turbine market and to $23B in new turbine deals. Terra Venture Partners has been a major investor in the company so far.

AquaPure: Water treatment through plasma purification

Highlighting again the wealth of Israeli water technology capabilities, CEO Dvir Solnik presented his company’s own water treatment innovation.  Condensing available grid electricity to high voltage, the company’s Hydro Non Thermal Plasma Purification (HNTP) technique can treat water contaminants in a one-stage process, without chemicals or waste.  Having piloted and benchmarked its product in Las Vegas and in California with partner Carollo Engineers, AquaPure is slated to start direct sales in 2009.

Coriolis: Multi-rotor system for distributed wind energy

Joining on as an active player in the paradigm shift of the wind industry, Coriolis has rethought design of the traditional harvesting turbines.  Its multi-rotor system features an array of parallel turbines, leaving the scalability in two dimensions rather than three, and thereby leading to lower cost.  Backed by an initial $1.1M investment from Pitango, Coriolis is now exploring its products applications for lower wind classes.

Emefcy: Energy neutral/positive bio-processing of wastewater

Brilliantly capturing of the energy produced as bacteria break down organic materials, the company’s Megawatter system closes the waste-energy circle.  Industrial clients would be able to become producers of electricity, rather than only consumers.  The company estimates a 30% ROI coupled with 60% energy saving and 10% carbon credit.

Having received its seed funding in Nov 2007 from Israel Cleantech Ventures, Emefcy currently has a beta site with Teva.  Eytan Levy, CEO of Emefcy and Venture Partner in Israel Cleantech Ventures, quoted a potential market size of $10B, seeing their role primarily as a process package provider

Lextran: Combined removal of SOx, NOx, Hg for coal fired plants

Oriented towards the often overlooked air quality industry, this company presented a clean air technology  technique of 3 in 1 combined removal of greenhouse gases for coal based power plants.  This simultaneous removal would present a cost effective alternative to one by one removal, relying on wet scrubbers and liquid reagents.  VP Arie Manor noted its simple installation, small footprint, and the fact that it exceeds all regulation requirements for coal-fired plants are major selling points for heavy industry.  Lextran currently has a demonstration plant active in Romania.

Di.S.P.: Concentrated solar power for heat and energy

Using advanced PV cells and reporting a transformation rate of 75% to combined heat and power, Di.S.P. is putting solar power to dual use.  Compared to flat panel systems, its sun tracking PV cells would translate to high efficiency heat and power for the target customers in commercial building and industry.  The company currently has 1 patent pending and two others under submission.

CRE: Converting biogas into biomethane for clean fuel

In another wonderful example of channeling waste into energy, CRE has developed an extraction technique which captures 97% of methane from biogas, compared with 85% in competing capture methods.  Using less energy input, with no hazardous waste and no pre-treatment required, the company hopes to start commercialization in 2009.  A long-term supply guarantee and price stability are hard to beat in this market, or any for that matter.  CRE’s timeframe for projects in Israel is in February 2009.

PML: Particle monitoring of water contaminants

Offering an in-process, online monitoring of water contaminants that can discriminate between particle groups down to sub-micron size, PML puts its Technion association to good use.  A Structured non-Gaussian Dark Beam approximately the size of a microwave scans the water sample flow to manage and monitor water contamination in real time.  Bacteria, viruses, parasites, and micro-particles can be detected and discriminated, which no other system can do at present.

Financed with funds from Mekorot and the State of Israel, the company expects its first market launch by 2009.  It is seeking an additional $4M for commercialization.

With the global VC available for cleantech hovering at $8B, expected to double by 2011, can we expect Israeli cleantech companies to bloom like mushrooms after the rain, as they did during the IT bubble?

Glen Schwaber of Israel Cleantech Ventures noted that, although we can expect many crossover opportunities from Israel’s IT excellence, the apparent critical mass reached in the cleantech industry has so far not translated to investors migration to Israel in a big way.  In 2005, Israel had no VC funds dedicated to cleantech; currently, Israel has only 3 major VC funds dedicated exclusively to cleantech, with about 600 companies in the ICV database.

Nevertheless, Schwaber reminds us that the fundamental drivers of innovation in cleantech have not changed in the past few months, and are not likely to change anytime soon.  These will continue to push policy, innovation, and investment in Israeli cleantech over the coming years.

The date of the 2009 GreenEconomy Conference has not yet been revealed.  We shall see whether Schwaber’s analysis brings tangible results by then.

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