A Charlotte startup focused on creating a marketplace for green hydrogen energy credits is among the six members of the latest cohort of cleantech entrepreneurs at the Joules Accelerator.
Antlia Energy started last fall and won a $10,000 NC IDEA Micro grant in November from the Durham-based foundation for encouraging entrepreneurs.
The startup was founded by Ryan Rutledge, who is the business development director at Joules, and Sam Pollan, a recent graduate of the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment and an intern at Joules last year.
That was, in fact, where they met, says Rutledge. After Pollan’s internship ended in July, Rutledge says, they started casting about a startup in the green-hydrogen space.
“We knew that hydrogen is going to be important in energy going forward,” Rutledge says. “And we were looking to develop a business model that could involve us in it.”
They settled on a market exchange to provide certified, audited green-hydrogen credits to buyers interested in purchasing the environmental attributes of the fuel. Antlia does not produce or ship green hydrogen. But provides a service to allow customers to purchase those credits in much the same way that businesses can purchase renewable energy credits to offset their carbon footprint.
Grey to green
Most commercial hydrogen is produced from water by electrolysis — the same basic process as the high school experiment that separates hydrogen and oxygen molecules using electrically charged copper strips.
Green hydrogen is produced using electricity from no-carbon renewable energy sources. Most hydrogen produced in the United States is “grey hydrogen,” which means it is produced using electricity from fossil fuels.
Rutledge gave an example of a company that Antlia is working with that produces grey hydrogen. Antlia provides green-hydrogen credits that the company then passes onto its customers, allowing them credit for using green hydrogen.
Bob Irvin, executive director at Joules, said Antlia did not secure a place because of Rutledge and Pollan’s history with the accelerator. The company was among 500 submitted to the roughly 50 advisers at Joules. Each voted on the four companies they were most interested in to choose the six new cohort members.
All of the advisers were aware of Antlia’s connections to the accelerator, Irvin says. Rutledge, who would normally have a vote on cohort members, abstained on Antlia.
“It was all transparent,” he says. “That was very important to our board and they insisted that we be upfront about the connection.”
Latest cohort
The six new Joules startups will make presentations at the Tech Lemonade online event at 10 a.m. on June 16. In addition to Antlia, they are:
- Sync Energy AI, of Birmingham, Alabama, which provides rapid predictive information on potential power outages during natural disasters
- Blue Frontier of Parkland, Florida, which makes an air-conditioning unit that can reduce cooling power usage by 60% or more and can store energy
- Rated Power of Madrid, Spain, which makes software to streamline the design of solar projects to optimize the plant performance
- Packetized Energy of Burlington, Vermont, which has a platform to turn smart energy devices —such as water heaters, HVAC systems, electric vehicle chargers, solar inverters and distributed batteries — into valuable grid resources
- Extensible Energy, of Lafayette, California, which developed software to help commercial solar buildings use electricity intelligently and save money
Since converting from a business incubator to an accelerator in 2016, the Joules program has worked with more than 55 startups from around the world to raise millions of dollars, support the hiring of hundreds of people and participate in the cleantech 2.0 revolution, Irvin says.
“The startups will work virtually over the next 90 days to connect with our communities, showcase their products and services and land pilot projects with network partners,” he says.
Tech Lemonade
He cites the recent success of Amply Power, which was a cohort company in 2019.
Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions is now collaborating with Amply on the first commercially available, combination solar canopy and overhead vehicle charging as a service agreement.
“When we engage with cleantech startups, we’re getting a view into the technologies of the future and building partnerships, so we can all serve our customers and communities in new — and cleaner — ways,” said Brian Savoy, Duke’s chief strategy and commercial officer.
Savoy and Amply CEO Vic Shao will be featured speakers at the Tech Lemonade event.
James Newcomb, director of the Strategic Analysis and Engagement Group for the Rocky Mountain Institute, will be the keynote speaker.
You can click here for more information of Tech Lemonade.