Accelerating NY’s Clean Energy Future: A Q&A with The Clean Fight’s Latest Grant Awardees
Now exceeding $1.2 million in grants, The Clean Fight is continuing to scale and support companies that are helping to build and revamp New York Energy’s clean energy infrastructure.
We couldn’t think of a more exciting first update for 2022 than announcing the winners of our latest round of grants: The Clean Fight Cohort 1 companies 75F, PhaseChange Solutions, and Radiator Labs.
The Clean Fight’s portfolio of clean buildings companies applied for grants and were selected based on the projects’ ability to help meet New York State’s climate goals for a just and equitable energy transition, with each requiring at least a 2:1 private match in funds.
We recently caught up with the winners to learn more about how the grants will help them advance their initiatives and what they're excited about for the year ahead.
First up, we have 75F, a company that uses sensors and machine learning to pre-emptively manage heating and cooling in commercial buildings. This ensures that office managers have more control of the temperature while significantly cutting energy use.
Designed to work out of the box, 75F’s technology makes green building automation accessible to communities that have historically faced capital and access barriers.
Q - How have you used the funding from this grant?
We used one of two grants to help fund our first installation in New York, a successful pilot with Bright Power, a nationwide leader in strategic energy solutions for building owners and operators. The project served as a case study, highlighting the cost-effectiveness and short payback period of 75F’s Energy Management System in a common NYC office setting. We are using the second grant to hire more personnel in New York and strengthen our presence in the city as we grow 75F outside of our Minnesota and India HQs.
Q - What was the biggest milestone that your company achieved in 2021?
2021 was a big year for 75F! We announced a collaboration with Daikin Applied North America, the largest HVAC manufacturer in the world, to design and deploy a new generation of wireless controls and sensing technology. We also secured an investment from Next47, the global venture arm of Siemens AG, bringing our Series A to $28M. In addition, 75F also worked hard to deliver system upgrades that enhance usability for our customers.
Q - What's something you hope to see in 2022?
In 2022, we hope that attention continues to be placed on the role that medium and small commercial buildings can play in making urban areas cleaner. This segment of largely non-luxury buildings has historically struggled to access building controls due to cost and complexity, but that’s no longer the case with technology like ours. And with the launch of our Daikin Applied collaboration this year, we’re excited to see how access can be increased even further.
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Next up is Phase Change Solutions, a North Carolina-based company that uses transformative heat storage materials to keep building temperatures more consistent. The company has focused significant efforts on supporting low-income homes with its cost-effective ENRG Blanket, which reduces the burden of HVAC systems in retrofits.
Q - How have you used the funding from this grant?
After using our first grant from The Clean Fight to expand our business to NYC and hire a field team, we’re thrilled to be awarded a second grant to help our expansion. The $20,000 will be used to fund the pilot installation of our energy efficient materials at Brooklyn’s Newlab incubator, a group introduced to us by The Clean Fight. We hope to use this installation as a demo site/case study to educate building owners on the benefits of adding our phase change materials to their building envelopes, and also to attract collaborators in manufacturing, distribution and installation of our solutions.
Q - What was the biggest milestone that your company achieved in 2021?
We’ve got two to be incredibly proud of: 1) We divested our non-core businesses to focus on the core of decarbonization and human health where we believe we can have the most significant impact and 2) We raised an additional $3M last December.
Q - What's something you hope to see in 2022?
In NYC specifically, we hope to see more government incentives for the deployment of products like Phase Change Solutions that have an immediate impact on decarbonization. We’re also focused on attracting more serious interest from Utilities to drive energy efficient and circular economy solutions!
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Finally, we have the Brooklyn-grown Radiator Labs, an energy management and hybrid electrification platform for radiator-heated buildings. This team is bringing steam heat into the 21st century with smart radiator covers that disperse and regulate heat, preventing excess energy usage, costs and discomfort from overheating buildings. This is Radiator Lab’s third grant to provide high efficiency electric heating, low-cost electrification, and improved customer and resident experience.
Q - How have you used the funding from this grant so far?
We’re using the grant to help fund an energy efficiency project in the Bronx at the oldest limited-equity housing cooperative in the United States. This grant along with utility rebates and third-party financing enabled us to develop this as a zero-upfront product to make our system accessible to low-income and disadvantaged communities.
Q - What was the biggest milestone that your company achieved in 2021?
2021 was one of our biggest growth years to date, having completed 15 projects that totaled 3,500 unit installations. This helped prevent 1,800 tons of carbon emissions.
Q - What's something you hope to see in 2022?
In 2022, we are looking forward to accelerating the work that we’re doing in affordable communities, including the New York City Housing Authority and NYC Department of Education. We are also deploying our first demonstration of hybrid-electrification which combines Radiator Labs Cozys with window or sleeve form factor heat pumps for up to 80% building decarbonization at 20% of the cost of traditional electrification.
75F, Phase Change, and Radiator Labs have worked tirelessly to make the clean energy transition easier and more affordable, and we look forward to continuing to be there with them every step of the way.
As the last round of grants for this cohort, we’re excited to look at the impact of all eight awards. $17.7M in matching dollars were brought in, leveraging the grant money over 14X, 16 new jobs were or are being created in New York and two of our non-New York companies were able to open bases in the State as a result of the funding. Most importantly, 75% of the grants had a focus on LMI or underserved populations.
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