Title: 2010 Q1 Innovation Update

Industry sector: Other

2010 Q1 – Innovation Update

Clean Energy Innovation Consortia

The New England Clean Energy Council has been busy in the first few months of 2010 working on the Clean Energy Innovation Consortia project. The driving idea behind the project is to bring together research universities, major labs, industry, venture capital and entrepreneurs, and regional economic development and energy agencies to accelerate the pace of research, commercialization and cluster development. The effort has been moving forward on a few different fronts.

In late January 2010, the Council brought together a group of ten consortia from around the country for a series of meetings with government officials in Washington, D.C. This included a Congressional Briefing put on by the Council with Senator Ron Wyden (OR) and Representative Ed Markey (MA) making remarks to the assembled group. Since that time Senator Wyden has sponsored a Senate bill to provide funding through the Department of Energy to a number of energy innovation consortia throughout the country. This presents an exciting opportunity to enlist federal support for the idea of consortia and economic growth through cluster development.

In February, seven federal agencies combined to announce an unprecedented joint funding opportunity to support a Regional Innovation Cluster. Centered on a DOE Building Energy Efficiency research hub, the purpose of the RIC is to integrate the research into a broader regional economic development initiative. The New England Clean Energy Council has been working with other partners in New England to put forward a winning proposal with the possibility of significantly impacting the clean energy economy in the region.

The Council has also been continuing the effort to form a New England Energy Innovation Consortium. To that end, on January 19th a broad group of stakeholders from across New England states was invited to a meeting explaining the effort, and engaging broad New England involvement in this ongoing effort.

Clean Energy Fellowship and Executive Education

The Council has been exploring a number of options with regards to its successful Clean Energy Fellowship Program. We’ve decided that, in order to involve a larger number of executives in the program, and to lessen the time commitment required, we will convert the Fellowship experience into a much shorter Executive Education program, which will be managed in partnership Boston University’s School of Management. Furthermore, to give existing Fellows and other entrepreneurs greater hands-on experience in the sector, we will be considering an Executive Internship program that would place senior entrepreneurial executives into 3-6 month paid projects at regional clean energy companies. Pleased stay tuned for more information as these plans are shaped.