Officials: Nevada can become leader in clean-energy technology

The Nevada Institute for Renewable Energy Commercialization met Thursday at the Desert Research Institute to showcase businesspeople and companies developing clean and renewable energy technology in the valley and state. The NV Energy Foundation on Thursday issued a $25,000 grant to help the institute’s push to accelerate clean-energy technology developed at universities, labs and small businesses.

The utility is also involved in the 5-year-old institute’s innovation partner program.

NIREC Chairman Ian Rogoff said Nevada’s chance is big and close at hand. Research from venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, he said, found last year that just four of the top 30 companies in wind, solar and energy storage come from the United States. A buyout since the study, he said, has reduced that number to three.

“The issue we’ve got is not just a Nevada issue, the innovation languishing in our research institutions, the innovations not making it to market for so many reasons, is a United States issue as well,” Rogoff said. “As we look at this opportunity, please remember that we’ve got this innovation sitting in UNLV … at DRI, we’ve got it at (the University of Nevada, Reno). We’ve got work-force development opportunities at all the community colleges and we’re letting it languish.”

Rogoff said as NIREC works “upstream” — speeding clean-energy technology development — it also works “downstream” — getting those energy transmission assets into the ground. Both efforts produce jobs, he said: science and engineering jobs upstream; legal, engineering and project finance jobs downstream.

NIREC Vice President of Operations Li Han Chan said her organization is working to enable long-coveted diversification that will strengthen Nevada’s economy in the long term. Nevada, she said, can follow the example of other states that have broadened their economies with innovation.

Presenters on Thursday included K2 Energy, a Henderson-based lithium-ion battery maker; Microalgae Biofuel, a UNLV initiative optimizing the growth of microalgae for wastewater treatment and other applications; May-Ruben Technologies, a company with operations in Las Vegas and Calgary, Alberta, that develops ejector refrigeration systems that use environmentally benign refrigerants; and the Desert Research Institute, which discussed a solar-installation tracking device that can improve the efficiency of existing concentrated solar systems.

Encouragingly for NIREC, Thursday’s 100-person crowd had people with the clout and means to spur progress, such as officials from NV Energy, SCORE, the Vegas Valley Angels and State Sen. Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, a noted renewable-energy advocate.

Rogoff asked attendees to spread his group’s message and mission. This information sharing is critical, he said, because energy efforts require, well, energy.

“This is not social networking, energy doesn’t work in your dorm room,” Rogoff said. “You cannot go upload a website and have a million users overnight.”

Contact reporter Matthew Crowley at
mcrowley@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0304.