PRESERVING THE PLANET

CHARLOTTE WANG

EQUOTA ENERGY, CHINA

“Just like an individual can monitor daily exercise with a fitness tracker, we want to create a tool for large factories to track and optimise their energy consumption,” says Charlotte Wang, who grew up in a Chinese village near coal-fired power plants.

While efforts have been made to reduce airborne particulates, fossil fuel-related pollution remains a problem in China. In 2019, 1.42 million deaths in the country were attributed to fine particulate matter pollution, according to the State of Global Air Report in 2020.

Wang founded EQuota in 2014 with the goal of managing energy data, improving efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. Specifically for large energy consumers, such as factories, EQuota’s technology gathers data from existing systems such as smart meters, and uses artificial intelligence to analyse usage patterns and identify inefficiencies. To date, the company has helped to reduce carbon emissions by more than 74,389 tonnes.