Germany’s Energiewende start-ups – Cutting emissions as a business model

In sectors such as storage and hydrogen, start-ups from "Green Energy Valley" Germany are among the world’s leaders, and could be key to cleaning up polluting industries. Incumbents also bet on start-up innovation to cut emissions, and the government now nurtures the sector with a plethora of support programmes. But many start-ups continue to lament overburdening red tape, hesitant investors, and a relatively small domestic market that slows expansion. Read the analysis here.

Germany’s engineering prowess and excellent support programmes have spawned a world-leading scene of start-ups dedicated to pushing the energy transition with innovative ideas, according to start-up expert Klaus Fichter. There are massive differences to the famous Silicon Valley start-up scene, but the founder and director of the independent Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability says deeply committed entrepreneurs specialising in hardware solutions have turned Germany into a “Green Energy Valley” that attracts huge international attention. Read the interview here.

Renewable electricity can be used directly to replace fossil fuels in cars and heating on the way to decarbonisation. German start-up Sunfire offers a solution for many applications where this is not possible, such as aviation, steelmaking and in the chemicals industry: The company develops and manufactures systems that use renewable power to make climate-neutral gases and fuels that can substitute fossil fuels.
Clean Energy Wire spoke to co-founder and CEO Carl Berninghausen about the prospects for a hydrogen economy, making synthetic fuels out of thin air (literally!), and why Europe will not have to rely on renewable energy imports in the future. Read the company profile and interview here.

Startup e.Go is linked to Aachen technical university, and headed by German e-car pioneer Günther Schuh, who has been compared to Tesla CEO Elon Musk in the German media. The company has started sales of its subcompact car, developed an electric minibus, and has partnered with VW for the production of a beach buggy.
Clean Energy Wire spoke to the company’s co-founder Schuh about the necessary priorities for emission-free transport, the prospects for fuel cells, and for Germany’s other large carmakers. Read the company profile and interview here.

Start-up Bettervest enables small-scale private investors to co-fund profitable emissions reduction projects in developing countries with relatively small sums of money, bringing together groups of lenders and borrowers often overlooked by conventional banks. The crowdfunding platform, which was born from a start-up competition in the banking capital Frankfurt, intially focused on efficiency projects in Germany. But it has since has progressed towards providing capital for energy projects in Africa, India and elsewhere.
Clean Energy Wire spoke with Bettervest founder Patrick Mijnals about unexpected rates of return, German citizens who take a stable power supply for granted and why he does not see conventional banks as competitors. Read the company profile and interview here.

Lowering households' huge heating emissions is not only about modernising boilers and insulating buildings, but also about using heating systems more efficiently. Munich start-up tado offers digital solutions to make that complex task as simple as possible: Smart thermostats and a mobile app ensure that heaters and air conditioners consume as little energy as possible, without compromising users' comfort. Tado's approach has caught on quickly, turning the young company into one of Germany's most prominent energy start-ups, and attracting funding from Amazon, incumbent utility E.ON, and oil major Total.
Clean Energy Wire spoke with co-founder Christian Deilmann about being a start-up in Germany, their new partnership with Amazon, and the challenges involved in bringing the energy transition to living rooms across Europe. Read the company profile and interview here.

Improving heating efficiency might not be your first choice for a topic if you want to attract large crowds. But Berlin start-up Thermondo saw an enormous business opportunity, because it realised early on that modernising heating systems is key for reaching Germany’s climate targets. Their idea of launching an online portal to help homeowners replacing their boilers was rewarded with strong growth rates, and Thermondo now aims to become Germany’s largest decentralized energy supplier. It is venturing into gas sales, and has already set its sights on PV installations as well. Clean Energy Wire spoke with Thermondo’s head of marketing Stephan Herwig about the future of heating and the transformation of large incumbents. Read the company profile and interview here.