The 2011 Clean Energy Prize, precursor to this year’s Clean Energy Venture Challenge, was a great success.  Congratulations to the winning teams:

First Place – $50,000:  Csquared Innovation

Team Lead: Nick Moroz, University of Michigan

Csquared Innovations is a Concept to Component research and development company focusing on disruptive clean-manufacturing technologies for energy, aerospace and biomedical industries.  The company is commercializing a laser-assisted atmospheric plasma deposition technology development at the University of Michigan which offers a high speed, cost effective and highly scalable platform approach to the synthesis of nanostructured materials and films for a large area on Li-ion battery electrodes, photovoltaics, industrial coatings, and biomedical materials.

Second Place – $25,000:  Smart Energy Loan Fund

Team Lead: Graham Brown, University of Michigan

Providing an innovative financing model to retrofit municipal buildings for energy efficient savings.

Third Place – $10,000:  Impact Card

Team Lead: Adam Carver, University of Michigan

Impact will launch a first-of-its-kind funding mechanism that aggregates consumer credit card reward points as project financing for renewable energy development.

Fourth Place – $7,000:  Perennial BioEnergy

Team Lead: Steven Kumar Srivastava, Western Michigan University

Perrenial BioEnergy LLC is developing a pennycress-based biodiesel industry.  USDA research has proven pennycress to be a non-food winter oilseed which can be integrated with summer cash crops such as corn and soybeans.