Clean Tech - comments from the conference

I'm attending TieCon conference here in Santa Clara and jazzed about the interest that Clean Technology is generating. There was a session in the morning of May 15 from an esteemed panel of technologists, corporate, venture capatalists, academics, and policy makers. I came out quite impressed with the level of enthusiasm shown by the panelists.
Here are my very rough notes from the field (I'm going to try live blogging/twittering next time onwards)
Panelists

• James Sweeney - Distinguished professor of management science at Stanford Univ.
• Jim Davis - Chevron Energy Solutions
• Dr Richard Swanson - CEO Sunpower
• Steve Wiley - Wiley investments
• Chuck Reed - Mayor of San Jose

There was a general agreement about the fact that we are at a start of a new business sector - clean technology. Steve Wiley commented that clean tech is not a bubble but a sustained business phenomenon. He even went on to state that companies like Tesla and Silver Spring Networks will be the ones that will see 10X year over year growth and will take us out of this recession. Oh well! VCs have a way of throwing out projections!

However, few data points are worth noting.

• It is interesting to note that cost to setup solar panels is divided equally into R&D/manufacturing costs and installation.
• The stimulus money is going to the areas
• Smart grid systems
• Green vehicles
• Green building materials

However, a number of unexplored areas include utilities like water - its a scarce resource and getting scarcer by the year and garbage /recycling. So opportunities around water and recycling management and conservation should be explored.

Other trends -

• Use of LED lighting and mechanisms to control it. Note, that LED lights can be dimmed vs. fluorescent, so you can enable scenarios such as controlling light usage based on time of day.
• Changing user behavior by informing them of their utility and garbage use. An informed customer is a conservation customer. Sunpower CEO noted that how many of us are aware of the unit of measurement for electricity vs. that of gas (gallon). Goes a long way to show that display of relevant information is an important part of energy conservation efforts.
• Conversion of existing buildings into "green buildings". The energy saving potential is huge in all buildings but especially true for larger buildings such as conference halls, hotels,etc. These structure's energy usage is better controlled by limiting interior utility usage vs. controlling the external building envelope (e.g. doors, walls, etc). The latter is of greater relevance for smaller facilities (homes). LEED certification is key in this area.

The mayor was there to rally companies to setup shop in San Jose, but he also touted San Jose green vision - generate all electricity from clean energy (renewable) sources.