Business Start-ups
Abound Solar (formerly AVA Solar)
In September 2007, the university announced that Professor W.S. Sampath, a mechanical engineering professor, had created the patented technology for manufacturing low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels, potentially providing light and power for billions in the underdeveloped world. Abound Solar opened its first production facility in April 2009. The new 200-megawatt factory is expected to employ up to 500 people. Based on the average household usage, 200 megawatts will power 40,000 U.S. homes. Produced at less than $1 per watt, the panels will dramatically reduce the cost of generating solar electricity and could power homes and businesses around the globe with clean energy for roughly the same cost as traditionally generated electricity.
Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory (EECL)
The Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory and it’s spinoff companies are global leaders in reducing CO2 emissions in ways that also improve human health and pay for the solutions through energy savings:
Envirofit International: In 2003, Colorado State engineering Professor Bryan Willson led a collaboration with the Partnership for Clean Air, an umbrella organization of more than 100 government, development and environmental agencies in Manila, to drastically reduce the city's air pollution caused by more than 250,000 motorized tricycles powered by smoky two-stroke cycle engines. Effort leads to the creation of Envirofit, which develops and disseminates technologies that reduce pollution and promote energy efficiency in the developing world. In January 2006, Envirofit signed its first major agreement to retrofit 3,000 two-stroke taxi engines in the Philippines with cleaner, more efficient engine technology originated at Colorado State University. In 2007, Independent UK charity Shell Foundation committed $25 million to Engines Lab spinoff Envirofit International to develop 10 million clean-burning cookstoves around the developing world. The Shell Foundation aims to significantly reduce the number of global deaths caused by indoor air pollution from smoke generated by traditional fires and stoves used by more than three billion people.
Solix Biofuels Inc.: A startup company based at Colorado State, Solix is working with the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory to commercialize technology that can cheaply mass produce oil derived from algae and turn it into biodiesel — an environmentally friendly solution to high gas prices, greenhouse gas emissions and volatile global energy markets. Solix officials plan to commercialize the technology. After ramping up to widespread production, the company expects to eventually compete commercially with the wholesale price of crude petroleum. Solix officials estimate that widespread construction of its photo-bioreactor system could meet the demand for the U.S. consumption of diesel fuel - about 4 million barrels a day - by growing algae on less than 0.5 percent of the U.S. land area, which is otherwise unused land adjacent to power plants and ethanol plants. The plants produce excess carbon dioxide, which is necessary to turn algae into oil. In addition to producing biodiesel, the process would prevent a large portion of the greenhouse gases produced by coal-burning power plants from being expelled directly into the atmosphere.
Spirae Inc.: A privately held company based in Fort Collins is working with Colorado State on the Grid Simulation Laboratory to test "smart grids," which are new ways to connect electrical generators and users to increase the efficiency and reliability of the electrical grid in large, complex distributed power systems. Distributed power refers to generating electricity from many small sources close to where it's needed - such as next to a factory or neighborhood or other major power user. The closer it is, the smaller the transmission losses and the more energy - and money - saved. These sources can be engines or turbines or they can renewable sources such as wind and solar photovoltaics.