Top Six Transformative New Green Energy Companies

Full disclosure: the author does not own stock in any of the companies discussed.

The financialization of green energy represents an unqualified success. Both China and U.S. are world leaders in attracting capital to finance energy transformation. Chinese investments totaled $546 billion in 2022 alone, while US investments trailed at $141 billion. This inequality has become a major national security challenge for the U.S.

In only a decade, renewables went from an unthinkably costly and risky industry requiring significant government backing to power sources cheaper than some traditional fossil fuels. Given advances in intermittency mitigation and storage, renewables may become the principal source of electricity in 20-30 years.

Private sector investments spur technological innovation and lower energy costs while attracting the best and brightest. This green energy bonanza is a win for the consumer, wider economy, and environment.

While newcomers abound, only a few are capable of being truly transformative. These small companies are already producing technologies that could revolutionize renewable energy and induce fundamental transformations in international geopolitics and geoeconomics.

Purpose Energy

The image of overflowing landfills is the primary area of concern for Purpose Energy. Using a Tribrid-Bioreactor, claimed to be “the highest efficiency digester on the planet,” Purpose Energy converts organic waste material from industrial food production plants into valuable renewable energy through methane release, clean water, and healthy soil supplements and fertilizers. With an increasing population and factory farming not ending anytime soon, Purpose Energy seems to have carved out a meaningful niche. Since its founding, over 28 million kWh of electricity have been generated while 33 million metric tons of carbon dioxide were mitigated, and 432 million gallons of water treated. Impressive, but requires much more scaling to change systems-level calculations.

Common Energy

Common Energy’s business model allows households to connect their electricity system to local renewable energy projects without individual onsite installation, instead opting to connect to wider power grids which buy power from local green energy. Once connected, the customer receives a statement showing the savings accumulated through clean energy credits and tax breaks customers can redeem during tax season.

Hydrogen One

Hydrogen One has an ambitious goal: to become the leader in low-cost renewable hydrogen. Currently, majority of hydrogen is sourced from fossil fuels known as blue and grey H2. Using two inputs: sunlight and water, the company’s reactor splits the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms by heating the water to a high temperature, producing up to 75,000 kg of pure hydrogen and 600,000 kg of medical-grade oxygen daily. If this technology is disseminated and installed on-site at other power generation facilities, it could revolutionize green hydrogen through its decentralized on-site installation model, which negates traditional transportation difficulties associated with hydrogen. It could also help solve timed energy baseload problems by pairing with other renewables that have water or sunlight as inputs or outputs.

Next Energy Technologies

Next Energy Technologies thinks they have windows into the future. They create energy-generating windows that convert unwanted infrared and ultraviolet light into electricity via ink-coated photovoltaic windows created through a mix of electrified materials applied during glass fabrication. These windows could help buildings achieve net-zero goals at a lower cost than other solar power technologies. While some large companies, such as Patagonia, have already embraced this technology for their physical locations, unresolved questions of maintenance and retrofitting linger.

3R cycle

Finland-based 3R cycle plans to upend the Rare Earth Elements (REE) industry by promoting a new patented chemical solution that leeches most REEs from ore and discarded electronic products effortlessly and safely. This would help promote the many green technologies that rely on REEs and protect the workers’ health. This would facilitate the total localized vertical integration of all parts of the REE supply chain from mining to manufacturing. If this manifests, producers of raw materials will have unprecedented leverage relative to refiners and consumers, possibly making the difference irrelevant and assuredly destroying China’s monopoly on the industry.

KLAW Industries

KLAW Industries endeavors to solve three problems simultaneously. 1) Cities are too hot due to heat-retaining pavements, which hurts human health and worsens pollution. 2) Roads and the cement used in them are incredibly carbon-intense and bad for the environment. 3) Every year, millions of metric tons of glass are wasted. The solution? Cool cities with heat-reflective, white-paved roads made with a mixture of rocks and recycled crushed glass. If, in the future, the company adds to the pavement a photovoltaic power generation capability, like Platio Solar, which paved Barcelona, Catalonia, or remote battery charge capacity provided by Electreon Wireless, an Israeli company that paved Detroit, it may further revolutionize the roads. While this appears as an elegant solution to environmental challenges, unresolved problems in scaling, maintenance, and cost have prevented this technology’s wholesale adoption.

These newcomers represent more than just an opportunity to buy stocks. Statistically speaking, most may not become the next Tesla
TSLA
. Instead, they represent a broad institutional acceptance from investors, a thriving business, and widespread enthusiasm for emerging technologies unique in modern investing. Most importantly, every entity here works on technologies that can transform our lives, making the planet cleaner, safer, and healthier.