Two Australian companies tapped for global clean energy showcase

An international event showcasing breakthrough clean technologies and startups that will help drive the decarbonisation of the global economy will feature two Australian energy management companies and their technologies.

Sydney-based digital energy monitoring specialist WattWatchers, and its solar power monitoring partner Solar Analytics, will represent Australia at the prestigious 7th Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM7) in San Francisco in June, alongside Canberra-based Nexus eWater.

The special Showcase – featuring 100 handpicked start-ups or technologies – is considered a highlight of the CEM7 meeting, which this year is being hosted by the US government’s represented secretary of energy, Dr Ernest Moniz.

The curators of the Showcase – the California Clean Energy Fund – select 100 stand-out clean tech examples from 24 countries around the world which, combined, account for 90 per cent of global energy.

CalCEF is led by ex-pat Australian Danny Kennedy, a former Greenpeace campaigner who co-founded major US solar company Sungevity and wrote the book Rooftop Revolution.

Member economies, like Australia, are usually represented at the event by their federal energy ministers, but Australia will not be sending a minister this year, due to the timing of the federal election.

Of the Australian companies, Wattwatchers is a digital energy technology developer, whose utility-grade energy management system supports integrated hardware, software and data streaming solutions to manage energy productivity, ‘behind the meter’ services, distributed generation and storage, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

Solar Analytics, meanwhile, is billed as “the world’s most intelligent solar performance monitoring solution”, designed for use with residential rooftop PV systems.

It uses the Wattwatchers system for its energy flow data acquisition, which is aggregated with weather information and Solar Analytics’ own complex algorithms to track system performance, conduct health checks, troubleshoot and send alerts, present data, and support planning for further investments.

“The Showcase will be a celebration of technology innovation and entrepreneurship – a bold display of the breakthrough technologies and startups that will transform the worldwide economy in the years and decades to come,” the CEM7 organisers said in a statement.

‘The San Francisco Bay Area is known as a hotbed of innovation and venture capital financing: a place where startups and new technologies find interest and support for their products and new business models. Th

“The Showcase will be located in the heart of San Francisco in Union Square, directly across the street from the historic Westin St. Francis Hotel, and will be open to government delegations, entrepreneurs, investors, media, and the general public.’