As a first in the financial services industry, the IN2 program sources candidates from universities and regional incubators providing a pipeline of early-stage technology companies to apply. Selected companies will be provided funding to meet key technical development milestones utilizing NREL’s unique capabilities and facilities. Successful graduates of the program will then have an opportunity to pilot and field test their technology in a Wells Fargo building. Qualifying technologies include energy efficiency, lighting solutions, net-zero energy, water efficiency, indoor environmental quality enhancement, waste reduction, materials efficiency, operations and maintenance optimization, and data-center facilities management.
Earlier this year, Wells Fargo announced four companies were selected from more than 80 clean-technology companies to participate in the IN2 program and to receive funding. Two of the companies demonstrate promise for retrofitting applications, according to Henderson:
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SMARTERSHADE, Chicago, delivers on the promise of smart glass—significant energy savings, glare reduction and enhanced privacy impact—all in a seamless user-controlled shading interface that lasts four- to five-times longer than blinds and shades. SmarterShade’s technology costs a fraction of the price of traditional smart glass and requires no electrical power, according to the developer.
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WHISKER LABS (formerly Watt-Stick Systems), Oakland, Calif., is developing peel-and-stick electricity metering technology that can be safely and easily installed by nontechnical staff in existing buildings. By eliminating the need for sophisticated electrical installation, the new technology promises to drastically reduce total submetering costs for commercial buildings and open the door for significant long-term energy-use reduction.
“From the incubator perspective, [applicants] put forth what their barriers were to entering the market, and, basically, most of these companies need a demonstration space,” Henderson says. “They need feedback on how to integrate their product into other existing building systems, and that’s what NREL’s doing right now.”
Private-sector Research
On the private-sector side, emerging technology fields in the building industry are fertile grounds for new business opportunities—a fact that Boston-based technology scouting company Lux Research Inc. doesn’t take for granted. In fact, Jerrold Wang, research associate at Lux Research, says trends in sustainable design are spurring manufacturers to develop ever-more advanced products to help design and construct intelligent buildings.
“Nowadays, green-building centers are becoming popular, and so the building-material industry is reaching to produce products with higher energy efficiency, higher resource efficiency, as well as provide the occupant with better well-being,” he explains. “This is the mega-trend front of the building-material industry. The technologies we observe are all aligned to at least one of the above three mega-trends.”
According to Wang, the scope of Lux Research’s intelligent buildings division focuses on three major categories: architectural coatings, building-envelope materials and structural materials. Start-up companies pitch their ideas to Lux Research, which evaluates the concepts on a number of criteria, including technology value—whether the product provides performance improvement or cost reduction; market need and competition; and policies—whether the company’s product will be supported by government subsidies or the value proposition of the product is aligned with the government policies in terms of reducing energy consumption or improving building efficiency.
Once a product has been evaluated, Lux Research produces data and analytics that it sells to its clients, which typically consist of Fortune 1000 companies and venture capitalists in the building-materials or chemicals industries, according to Wang.
He adds that 3-D printing is showing tremendous potential in the cement and concrete industry. “It’s still in a very early phase but it’s very interesting to see because if 3-D printing in concrete or cement comes to life or they can realize actual application, that means we can save a great deal of human labor, especially if people want to build a building in an extreme environment or in a very remote place,” he adds.
While technologies like 3-D printing are only beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible, what is certain is that today’s trends in materials are creating better building blocks for tomorrow.
Resources
For more information about the product innovation programs mentioned in this article, visit the following websites:
GSA’S GREEN PROVING GROUND
WELLS FARGO/NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY’S INNOVATION INCUBATOR
LUX RESEARCH’S INTELLIGENT BUILDINGS