Hosted by Confederation of Danish Industry, DI, the event "Opportunities in the US cleantech market" featured speakers from the US, DI and Vestas. After the meeting, CCC sat down with the American speaker, Professor Giles Jackson.

The American cleantech sector is young, but fast growing and learning quickly. This leaves an open door of opportunities to Danish companies, but preparation, quality products and a united front are key words, says US Professor Giles Jackson.

The Danish reputation of green technology has come to the US, but being successful is a very different challenge, says Professor Giles Jackson from the Byrd School of Business. Together with the Copenhagen Goodwill Ambassador Corps and Copenhagen Cleantech Cluster, he has been in charge of the report: "The US Cleantech Opportunity - Emergent Trends and Innovations".
The report identifies and portraits 45 trailblazers of the US cleantech industry, representing four niche areas: electric vehicles, biofuels, the smart grid, and smart buildings. Each was chosen for their high growth and matchmaking potential with Danish partners, and last week, Prof. Jackson was in Copenhagen to talk about his findings and the opportunities for Danish companies in the US.

- Denmark has an international reputation for outstanding quality. However the US market, large as it is, is also very competitive, complex and dynamic. To succeed you have to realize your limitations and don't go at it alone; go in as a united front and work with key strategic and government partners, Professor Giles Jackson says and adds that in the US - just as in Denmark - relationships are everything, and these organizations have done much of the groundwork. Start early, invest sufficient time and resources in market exploration and this will pay dividends.

Strong, green infrastructure
The strength of Copenhagen and the rest of Denmark is the highly developed infrastructure, both on the supply and demand side.

- While the foundations of a smart grid are only now being laid in the US, there is no platform ready on which to test new ideas, new technologies, and new products. On the demand side, the US market is still relatively unsophisticated, whereas Copenhagen has three decades under its belt, says Giles Jackson.

The infrastructure means that Denmark serves as an ideal beachhead from which to enter Scandinavian and greater European markets. Events like the upcoming World Climate Solutions conference will further establish Copenhagen as an exemplary cleantech hub.

Change is slow, but on its way
Even though the US is doing a lot to develop and further boost the green industry, the capital remains scarce and costly. Large scale debt financing is limited to proven technologies, leaving start-ups dependent on more costly equity financing. At the same time, government agencies and the bureaucratic bottlenecks need to change its ways of doing business in order to create a healthy cleantech sector. But in the long run, Professor Jackson has no doubt that cleantech, especially smart grid will grow tremendously in the US. As a result there will be an innovative platform for and market potential for thousands of devices, vehicles and services. 

- The challenge will be to build an open, secure, resilient, collaborative and scalable network. If all goes according to plan, we may achieve the "step change" needed to create millions of new jobs, while making a real dent in climate change. This is more likely to happen if the cleantech sector moves in a more "modular" direction e.g. combining wind, wave and solar power on site, or using otherwise unused wind power to charge batteries at night, says Professor Jackson. 

Facts on public funding and investments:
Professor Giles Jackson gives this brief overview of what's happening right now in the US.

- The US Dept of Energy has made significant investments in the smart grid ($3.4 billion for 100 grid projects, rising to $8.1 billion), renewables ($2.6 billion in cash grants for 4250MW of new capacity), high-risk "moonshot" innovations ($106 million in new grants announced April 30) as well as energy efficiency (Home Star Energy Retrofit Act of 2010 will invest $6 billion over two years) and many other areas.

- Individual states like California, Colorado, Utah, New Jersey and New York are forging ahead with their own ambitious programs.

- The US cleantech sector has been a highlight in an otherwise sluggish economy.  In 2009, 1125 cleantech patents were filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office, the biggest annual gains being in biomass and biofuels (up 260%), solar (up 60%), fuel cells and hybrid/EVs (up 20%). In the first quarter of 2010, total clean energy investment reached $27.3 billion, down from $31.6 billion in Q4 2009, but significantly more than the $20.8 billion invested in Q1 2009.

- Q1 2010 venture investment showed its strongest quarter of all time with $1.9 billion invested, up 83 % from a year earlier. Corporate direct investment was up 140 % from Q4, and utilities continued to invest in renewable power and the smart grid because of renewable portfolio standards (now in 30 states).