ON THE FRONT LINES OF TECHNOLOGY
Startup companies are advancing battle against climate change
Jon Dogterom leads the clean technology practice at Toronto’s Mars Discovery District, where he gets to work closely with dozens of start-up companies advancing on the front lines of the low-carbon economy.
What technology trends have the most disruptive potential when it comes to tackling greenhouse gas emissions?
One of the most disruptive trends we’re seeing is really this convergence of different technology fields. For example, clean technology converging with information technology is opening up whole new areas of operational improvement for companies and new business models at the same time.
Can you give an example of this convergence in action?
An example would be the Ecobee or Nest smart thermostats, both of which are opening up a whole new business model for utilities and at the same time providing new capabilities to the homeowner. The ability to control your home energy use remotely, or in the future to pass that control to your utility or the grid operator under certain conditions, is one instance where combining IT with physical hardware opens up new possibilities. If you can control thousands of home thermostats at the same time then you could potentially avoid needing a natural gas peaking plant.
Does this fundamentally change the role of the utility?
For sure. If they don’t evolve over time, then large portions of their business are going to be displaced by other people. That’s why you’ve got utilities like PowerStream running a project that puts stationary batteries in a number of homes. The company can actually control the charge or the usage of those home battery systems remotely. That creates a new relationship between the utility and the homeowner.
What challenges lie ahead?
Where industry struggles the most is keeping up with the pace of change and making sure they are part of that change. The biggest challenge here is breaking down past silos to allow innovation to happen across industries in a smoother way. That requires groups to work together that don’t normally work together. It’s not very often, for example, that the transportation sector would be talking to electric utilities, and that’s happening now with the introduction of electric vehicles.