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Friday, January 30, 2009
Cache & Packets
Clean tech report predicts growth, more regulations
By Efrain Viscarolasaga
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Though its momentum may have slowed, given the current state of the economy, the “clean tech revolution” has attracted new players from almost every tangential industry in the region, with everyone from public relations firms to restaurant equipment vendors and pet-sitting services hoping to jump on the green bandwagon.
But the fact is, many of the niches are becoming saturated, particularly in the services areas, and for a company to harvest the opportunities at hand, the seeds need to have been planted some time ago. Groom Energy Solutions planted those seeds in 2005, and today is using its early success to branch into new territory.
Founded in 2005, Groom Energy Solutions was conceived through a partnership between a local construction company owner, David Groom of Groom Construction Inc. in Swampscott, and a former venture capitalist, Jonathan Guerster, once a general partner at Charles River Ventures. The group was founded with the modest goal of providing new and existing facilities managers and construction clients with clean energy systems consulting services — kind of a clean energy systems arm of Groom’s construction business.
But as customers became more concerned with clean energy systems — from solar and wind projects to simply increasing the power efficiency of manufacturing facilities — Groom Energy Solutions gradually added more services, branching into project management and system installation.
Last month, the company took another step in its evolution through the release and publication of an industry research report looking at what Guerster and his team call “Enterprise Carbon Accounting,” or the internal examination of a given company’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The report, which was co-written by local consulting firm Pure Strategies Consulting of Gloucester, projects that the public disclosure of companywide greenhouse gas emissions will triple over the next two years, and that the interest in software and other mechanisms aimed at tracking such information — particularly in large, multifacility corporations — will grow with it.
The report also cites a growing interest in regulation, with many companies expecting to be regulated in some manner when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. But while that expectation is nothing new — indeed regional groups, as well as members of the incoming presidential administration have indicated that such regulations are on the horizon — many companies will be looking to establish methods for compliance before any such regulations are put in place.
“The broader dilemma is that, if you imagine this is a big problem and you want to solve it, you’d invest in a big system to make it better,” said Guerster. “But what if I am a small company doing it on a spreadsheet. Will that be enough?”
The conclusion is that there is, and will be, a tremendous opportunity in corporate carbon accounting systems in the very near future, and it is an area that has yet to become saturated. While Groom Energy Solutions has been aggressive in developing new services as opportunities present themselves, it doesn’t develop large software packages. The report is like a giant X pointing to a new pot of gold for those with the resources and talent to build such systems and looking to find a position in the clean tech industry.
What it doesn’t answer is whether or not there will be any takers.
Analyze that
An interesting application of spectral analysis — a method of analyzing the chemical properties of matter from bands in their optical spectrum — came from Fitchburg-based Headwall Photonics Inc. earlier this month.
The 35-person company, which sells much of its gear into the life sciences and telecommunications industries, has teamed with the Israel Antiquities Authority to analyze text found on a shard of pottery dating back 3,000 years.
The shard, called an ostracon, was unearthed near the Elah Valley, where biblical history says David slew Goliath, and contains five lines of text. According to Israeli newspaper reports, the writing seems to be a personal letter sent from one person to another, though archaeologists have not deciphered it completely.
Using Headwall’s spectral analysis equipment, researchers were able to not only lift the characters without destroying the artifact, but also analyze the characteristics of the writing, including inks, pigments and the material composition.
Archaeologists have called the find the most significant in Israel since the Dead Sea Scrolls.
While the project is not the type of business for which Headwall, which spun out of Agilent Technologies Inc. through a management buyout in 2003, is known, it is certainly an interesting branch on the company’s market tree.
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