What are clean energy technologies?

Carbon Trust Investments backs technology in the larger ‘ecosystem’ of clean energy products and services, not only renewable energy generation. Clean energy companies are those operating within the energy supply chain which have the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases.

The universe of technologies and services with clean energy can be described through the five main sequential phases in the energy supply chain:

• Upstream - including hydrogen production, biofuels, and waste to energy.

• Generation - converting the energy source into usable electricity or heat, including fuel cells, solar photovoltaics, wind turbines and marine

• Infrastructure - transporting electricity or heat to the point of use, including the electricity transmission, heat pipes, hydrogen storage, batteries, power conditioning, and energy meters.

• Consumption – this covers a broad range of technologies that focus on improving the efficiency of energy being converted for useful work, including lighting and heating appliances, building materials, industrial machinery, power electronics and process improvements.

• Services - a range of services that directly improve energy efficiencies and/or mitigate emissions using offsets in the energy supply chain.

For more detail see the Low Carbon Technology Assessment report. If you believe your technology meets our criteria please see the venture capital investment process for more details on how to obtain funding.