Thousands rallied for the Cleantech Open’s daylong festival of cleantech innovation, entrepreneurship and policy, which culminated in the award of the grand prize of $250K for the national winner. For the first time, international cleantech ideas were featured, with attendees selecting a winner from countries worldwide.

SAN FRANCISCO, November 18, 2009 — The Cleantech Open, the world’s largest business competition created to find, fund and foster startup clean technology companies, announced the winners of this year’s competition at the annual Cleantech Open Expo and Awards Gala at the Masonic Center in San Francisco. Dubbed the “Academy Awards of Clean Technology,” the event marks the grand finale of the Cleantech Open’s yearlong business competition. This year, at its biggest ever, thousands of people representing the nascent cleantech industry —contestants, alumni teams from previous years, mentors, venture capitalists and budding cleantech entrepreneurs — convened to showcase the best in cleantech innovation from national and international teams.

2009 National Prize winner

Selected from the 12 finalists of the Cleantech Open business plan competition, the National Prize was awarded to EcoFactor (www.ecofactor.com). A finalist in the Cleantech Open California regional competition, EcoFactor entered in the smart grid category, with a personalized residential energy management solution for heating, ventilation and air conditioning. The grand prize is valued at $250K, including $100K of seed money, and was presented by vice president and managing executive of venture capital at Chevron Technology Ventures. Separately, today Chevron signed up as the inaugural Global Partner for the 2010 Cleantech Open business competition.

The judges also nominated two runners-up: Alphabet Energy (waste-heat recapture; www.alphabetenergy.com); and MicroMidas (transforms raw sewage into biodegradable plastic; www.micromidas.com). Earlier in the day, audience members voted Alphabet Energy as the People’s Choice business plan winner.

2009 Alumni Award winner

Each year, the Cleantech Open leadership team identifies an alumni company that has made significant progress during the year. This year, the Alumni award went to Adura Technologies, which manufactures and sells lighting and energy management controls that are easy to install and use. In a recent two-week test with PG&E, Adura managed to reduce light load by 72 percent. www.aduratech.com

2009 National Sustainability Award winner

Sustainability of technologies and ideas of the teams that enter the Cleantech Open are given additional scrutiny by the mentors and judges, and each team receives specific sustainability mentoring. This year’s National Sustainability award of $20,000 goes to HydroVolts, whose innovative in-stream hydrokinetic turbine enables distributed clean-energy generation from canals, waterways, spillways, rivers, streams, and tidal currents around the world. www.hydrovolts.com

2009 Global Cleantech Open Ideas winner

For the first time, cleantech innovations from around the world were featured at the Cleantech Open. The Global Cleantech Open Ideas Competition looks to find ‘big ideas’ by working at a grassroots level and to support and foster those ideas. Orchestrated in conjunction with the Kauffman Foundation, startups from around the world competed for a prize worth $100,000. Entries were received from Brazil, China, Denmark, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, and the USA. Audience members voted Replenish Energy of Puerto Rico the winner of the Global Cleantech Open Ideas competition. Micro-algae are the world’s most efficient renewable energy source currently available: it can deliver 48,000 kilowatts of electricity per million dollars capital invested; this compares to 470 for solar panels and 1,300 for wind turbines. www.replenishenergy.org

“We wish this years’ winners every success — their collective innovation and spirit of entrepreneurship will spur crucial advances to address the energy, environmental and economic challenges that we face,” said Rex Northen, executive director of the Cleantech Open. “While this year’s awards gala and expo marks the completion of our annual competition, it is only the beginning for this year’s semifinalists. As Cleantech Open alumni, we will continue to help them successfully commercialize their cleantech ideas and create jobs.”

The Cleantech Open Expo and Awards Gala is a carbon-neutral event.

The organization has partnered with Planet Up to offset emissions created by air travel and on-site activity through contributions to local forestry projects and other community environmental initiatives. In fact, the overall impact of this year’s event will be a positive one – the equivalent of taking 5,000 cars off the road for one day.

The Cleantech Open is made possible by the generous support provided by National Expansion Sponsor: U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Platinum Sponsor: PG&E; Gold Sponsors: Autodesk, The Cleantech Circle, Google, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati; Silver Sponsors: Accretive Solutions and RoseRyan; and Program Sponsors: California Clean Energy Fund, Ernst and Young, and Korn/Ferry International. Media and outreach partners include the Matter Network, San Francisco Business Times, Greener World Media, TriplePundit.com, Sustainable Industries and Sustainable Life Media.

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Relevant Web resources:

Cleantech Open blog: www.cleantechopen.com/app.cgi/blog/

Cleantech Open on Facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21709779424

Cleantech Open on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/companies/cleantech-open

Cleantech Open on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cleantechopen — @cleantechopen

The Cleantech Open is the world’s largest cleantech business competition. Its mission is to find, fund and foster entrepreneurs with big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental and economic challenges. The program provides the infrastructure, expertise and strategic relationships to turn ideas into successful global cleantech companies. Since 2006, through its one-of-a-kind annual business competition and mentorship program, the Cleantech Open has helped hundreds of clean technology startups bring their breakthrough ideas to fruition, helping alumni contestants raise over $125m and making thousands of green collar jobs possible. Fueled by a network of more than 400 volunteers and sponsors, the Cleantech Open unites the public and private sectors in a shared vision for making America’s clean tech sector a thriving economic engine. For more information, visit www.cleantechopen.com, and follow @cleantechopen on Twitter.

In addition to the original competition held in California, the Cleantech Open was expanded in 2009 to include two new regions: the Rocky Mountain region (including Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming; and the Pacific Northwest, including Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Cleantech entrepreneurs will compete for a total of more than $1 million in prizes. Past alumni successes include Adura Technologies, Cool Earth Solar, Enverity, Federspiel Controls, GreenVolts, GroundSource GeoThermal, Lucid Design Group, Mission Motors, and Syncromatics.

Media contact: Tim Cox, ZingPR, tim@zingpr.com, +1-650-369-7784