Cities have taken an active role in promoting entrepreneurship through incubators and other programs, with New York City even more active than most. New York Energy Week itself is to some degree a child of the NYU-Poly incubator called NYC ACRE in downtown New York where the event series’ creators – EnerKnol – are located. Breaking Energy worked with EnerKnol to put together this list of some of the city’s leading energy entrepreneurs.
From energy efficiency to demand management, solar power and electric vehicle charging, to energy data analytics, these companies and the leadership behind them give us a glimpse into our collective energy future. As energy bills increase and environmental impacts associated with large-scale power generation are better understood, people appear to be recognizing the true cost and value of electricity. Wasting electricity is like smoking, some continue to do it, but it’s an expensive, unproductive behavior increasingly shunned by society. Using power more efficiently during off-peak time periods when it’s cheaper is now cool and so are technologies and services helping to make that happen.
There are lots of innovative concepts captured in the list below. Get to know them now because any of these companies could be the next Apple, Google, Twitter, (insert your favorite here) of the energy space. Breaking Energy worked with the New York Energy Week leadership to identify enterprising individuals leading the way toward tomorrow’s energy innovations.
Of note, a wide variety of innovative businesses are included on the list and this category received the most nominations of all the Top Ten lists that will run throughout week. Whittling down the list to just ten was an arduous process and it felt as if many deserving names could not be represented. So for this reason, we’ve decided to publish the “runners up,” in a follow-up post that will run in the next few weeks – stay tuned!
Various Disclaimers: Jared Anderson is Managing Editor of Breaking Energy and a board member of New York Energy Week. The lists compiled as part of Breaking Energy’s partnership with New York Energy Week were compiled based on an open nomination process and final selections were made by the senior Breaking Energy editorial team. Breaking Energy applied our editorial judgement and decades of experience to highlight leaders we thought deserving as part of New York Energy Week. Please tell us how right or wrong we were in the comments.
