Wednesday, April 13, 2011

MIT Energy Conference showcases select few energy-related companies

By Kyle Alspach

Getting into MIT is hard enough, but for energy startups, getting into the MIT Energy Conference showcase is no easy task either.

Always well attended — and by the right types of people — the showcase is a prime chance for New England energy startups to make a number of key connections in a short time.

“There wasn’t a single interaction that wasn’t helpful in some way,” said Jamie Beard, director of operations at FastCap Systems Corp. in Boston. “I was there for two hours, and I left with 38 business cards. It attracts the right people for what we’re trying to do business-wise.”

FastCap, which has developed rugged energy storage devices known as ultracapacitors, was able to connect with investors, potential suppliers and strategic partners who could eventually become customers, she said. The strategic partners are all large corporations that are looking for technologies they might be interested in using at some point, Beard said.

The company also connected with a number of students who might serve as interns or co-ops, and the company has already hired one of the students as a summer intern, she said.

Like the rest of the March conference, the showcase was entirely organized by MIT students. It included about 40 industry presenters this year, said Thomas Luypaert, director of the showcase and a mechanical engineering master’s degree student at MIT.

Event organizers do their own research and invite companies that are considered leaders in the energy field; along with earlier-stage startups, more well-known firms such as Lexington solar wafer firm 1366 Technologies Inc. and public companies such as Tyngsborough’s Beacon Power Corp. and Boston’s EnerNOC Inc. were represented at the showcase.

But then there is a smaller group — five companies in this year’s showcase — that got in through applying, Luypaert said. For instance, Boston cleantech prototyping firm Arista Solutions LLC would not appear on anyone’s radar screen because “they’re not really a startup,” Luypaert said. “They provide equipment for the PV industry to do rapid prototyping. There’s really no way we could have found them.”

Organizers asked the company what it could bring to the showcase. The company said it could bring a PV laminator and solar cell encapsulants — i.e., the stuff needed to make solar panels.
That got the interest of the showcase organizers, and Arista got the nod.

“It was a good opportunity for attendees to see how you turn a solar cell into an actual module,” Luypaert said. “One of the main missions of the conference is to raise awareness and educate people. So you get points for having something to educate people with.”

Organizers are also looking to represent a broad number of sectors within energy at the showcase, and also to highlight New England’s energy sector in particular, he said. “We did have to turn away some people who applied,” Luypaert said.

One who wasn’t turned away was Tucker Lyman, project manager at StranWind of Boston, which is the New England distributor for New York-based Urban Green Energy Inc.’s vertical axis wind turbines.

Lyman displayed one of the 10-foot-tall, 1-kilowatt turbines at the showcase. Those turbines can use wind coming from all directions. The company has several turbines in the middle of permitting in Massachusetts, and the showcase was productive in finding potential new customers, he said. “We got dozens and dozens of sales leads from that,” Lyman said.

Meanwhile, XL Hybrids Inc. of Somerville displayed a Lincoln Town Car that the company had retrofitted with its hybrid technology. The conversions aim to save 15 to 30 percent on fuel consumption in the company’s initial market of commercial vans and livery vehicles, said Tod Hynes, co-founder and president of the company.

One of the company’s livery service customers also provided transportation for some attendees from the showcase to a dinner that night, Hynes said.

“That was a really great way for us to show some people the vehicles that are already on the road, and a nice way of getting our customers some exposure,” he said.