Ireland's Top Clean-Tech Firms Are In Silicon Valley This Week

The CEOs of 12 Irish clean-tech companies are visiting Silicon Valley this week to showcase their technologies and to make new connections.

The trip is sponsored by Enterprise Ireland, a government agency that helps Irish startups.

The clean-tech companies are working on a wide variety of technologies that include new types of bio-fuels, solar solutions, and tapping into ocean energy.

Here is a brief description of each company:

AER: Uses advanced enzyme technology to convert algae and other natural resources into next-generation biofuels for the worldwide market. AER's proprietary approach is faster, more efficient and more cost-effective than prior-generation conversion technologies. AER is also a leading supplier of biofuels to the Irish market.

Automsoft: Provides data-management solutions for the utilities, life sciences, oil and gas, mining, and pulp and paper industries.

BioSpark: A joint venture between Sustainable BioPolymers and Imperative Energy Ltd. The organization utilizes next-generation technology to convert organic materials, such as straw and wood biomass into bio-based products like ethanol, lactic acid, lignin, methane and hydrogen.

Episensor: Develops sensors, routers and monitoring software for energy saving in street light control systems. Using open-standard ZigBee wireless networking protocols, together with Episensor's electricity metering technology, savings of 30-70 percent in operating costs have been achieved.

Kedco: Instals, operates and maintains power generators on partner sites using the partner's waste product as feedstock. The waste is converted into energy, via anaerobic digestion or gasification technologies using combined heat and power or CHP units, and transferred into the national energy grid.

Phive: Designs and manufactures plasma sources for incorporation into PECVD equipment for the manufacture of thin-film silicon photovoltaic products.

ResourceKraft: A software company that delivers energy cost control and management software solutions as a service to enterprises and institutions throughout Ireland, UK and the USA.

ServusNet: Provides Operations and Maintenance (O&M), and Operational Intelligence (OI) software solutions for wind farms and other distributed energy-generation technologies.

SolarPrint: Develops dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) technology for cheap solar power aimed at consumer electronics. It's a third-generation printable flexible solar cell technology that uses abundant, cheap raw materials and employs a low-cost, fast and easy manufacturing process.

Surface Power: Designs, manufactures and distributes renewable energy equipment.

The City Bin Co: Provides software for waste & recycling services that promotes behavior-changing characteristics with respect to how people, companies and local government authorities manage waste.

Wavebob: Wavebob is a technology company specializing in ocean wave energy conversion. The company is one of the first in the industry to succeed in producing electricity from the power of ocean swells.

Source : Silicon Valley Watcher, 28/09/09