Next month, 96 startups will pitch at an annual event focused on the future of energy. Here's who will be there. Photo via rice.edu

Dozens of companies will be a part of an upcoming energy-focused conference at Rice University — from climate tech startups to must-see keynote speakers.

The 20th Annual Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum will take place on September 21 at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. Anyone who's interested in learning more about the major players in the low-carbon future in Houston and beyond should join the industry leaders, investors, and promising energy and cleantech startups in attendance.

This year's keynote speakers include Christina Karapataki, partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the venture capital fund backed by Bill Gates; Scott Nyquist, vice chairman at Houston Energy Transition Initiative, founded by the Greater Houston Partnership; and Jeff Tillery, COO at Veriten.

Nearly 100 startups will also be pitching throughout the day, and at the end of the program, the most-promising companies — according to investors — will be revealed. See below for the 2023 selection of companies.

Presenting companies:

  • Element Resources
  • Eugenie AI
  • Flash H2 Synthesis from Waste Plastic at Zero Net Cost
  • Fluid Efficiency
  • Galatea Technologies
  • Heimdal
  • Impact Technology SystemsAS
  • INGU
  • Lithos
  • Luminescent
  • Mantel
  • Mars Materials
  • Microgrid Labs
  • Mirico
  • Mobilus Labs
  • Muon Vision
  • Nano Nuclear
  • NobleAI
  • Numat
  • Ourobio
  • Planckton Data Technologies
  • Polystyvert
  • Princeton NuEnergy
  • Protein Evolution
  • Qult Technologies
  • Sage Geosystems
  • Salient Predictions
  • Sawback Technologies
  • SHORELINE AI
  • Solidec
  • Spectral Sensor Solutions
  • Teren
  • Terradote
  • TexPower
  • Thiozen
  • Technology from the Lab of Dr. James Tour
  • Volexion
  • Xecta

CEA Demo Day:

  • Ayrton Energy
  • Carbix
  • CryoDesalination
  • Digital Carbon Bank
  • EarthEn
  • H Quest Vanguard
  • Highwood Emissions Management
  • Icarus RT
  • Khepra
  • Natrion
  • Oceanways
  • Relyion Energy
  • Triton Anchor
  • TROES

Office hours only:

  • 1s1 Energy
  • AKOS Energy
  • Aperta Systems
  • Atargis Energy
  • Ayas
  • C-Power
  • C-Quester
  • Carbon Loop
  • Deep Anchor Solutions
  • DG Matrix
  • Drishya AI Labs
  • Earthbound.ai
  • EarthBridge Energy
  • Enoverra
  • equipcast
  • ezNG Solutions
  • Feelit Technologies
  • FluxWorks
  • Forge
  • Horne Technologies
  • Imperium Technologies
  • LiCAP Technologies
  • Make My Day
  • Moblyze
  • MyPass Global
  • NovaSpark Energy
  • Octet Scientific
  • Perceptive Sensor Technologies
  • PetroBricks
  • Piersica
  • Poseidon Minerals
  • Predyct
  • RIvotto
  • Roboze
  • Talisea
  • ThermoLift Solutions
  • Trout Software
  • Tuebor Energy
  • Undesert Corporation
  • Viridos
  • Vroom Solar
  • Well Information Technologies
  • WellWorth
  • Zsense Systems
Fifteen startups — with clean energy solutions involving everything from solar energy to hydrogen — are joining Rice Alliance's Clean Energy Accelerator later this summer. Photo via Getty Images

Houston cleantech accelerator reveals 15 startups to 2023 cohort

energy 2.0

A clean energy program has announced its third cohort and named the 15 startups that were accepted into to the accelerator.

The Rice Alliance's Clean Energy Accelerator revealed its 2023 cohort that will be in the 10-week program that kicks of July 25. CEA, a hybrid program based out of the Ion, will wrap up with a Demo Day alongside the 20th Annual Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum on September 21.

The accelerator, led by Kerri Smith and Matt Peña, provides the cohort with programming, networking, and mentorship from six executives in residence — Nathan Ball, Fatimah Bello, Michael Egan, Michael Evans, Stephen Sims, and Deanna Zhang.

Since the Clean Energy Accelerator launched in 2021, the program has supported 29 ventures that have gone on to raise over $75 million in funding, identified and launched pilots, and created jobs, According to Rice, many of these companies relocated to Houston.

Class 3, which has already raised $23.3 million in funding, hails from four countries and seven states and are addressing a range of energy solutions — from advanced materials, carbon management/capture, energy storage, hydrogen, solar energy, wind energy, and more. They were selected by a screening committee consisting of more than 50 industry experts, investors, energy leaders, and entrepreneurs.

The third class, as announced by Rice Alliance, is as follows:

  • Ayrton Energy, based in Alberta, Canada, provides hydrogen storage technology that improves hydrogen transport logistics for distributed energy applications.
  • Headquartered in Massachusetts, Carbix transforms atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions into building materials using proprietary reactor technology.
  • Houston-based CryoDesalination lowers the carbon footprint and cost of removing salts and heavy metals from water and industrial effluents.
  • Digital Carbon Bank, based in Alberta, Canada, provides a carbon solution tailored for the energy industry.
  • Chandler, Arizona-based EarthEn provides compressed carbon dioxide-based energy storage and artificial intelligence solutions allowing grid owners/operators to be completely renewable.
  • H Quest Vanguard, from Pittsburgh, provides green hydrogen at a five to 10 times lower cost to users of natural gas to decarbonize industrial heat.
  • Calgary, Alberta-based Highwood Emissions Management's SaaS platform allows oil and gas companies to understand their emissions and develop robust plans to reduce them.
  • Icarus RT, from San Diego, California, improves photovoltaic efficiency while enabling useful heat energy storage.
  • Los Altos, California-based Khepra has developed a chemical manufacturing platform for the low-cost, sustainable production of agrochemicals.
  • Binghamton, New York-based Natrion’s electrolyte is a drop-in solid-state battery component that can be rapidly implemented into existing batteries.
  • Oceanways, based in London, provides low-cost, flexible and scalable zero-emission underwater "virtual pipelines" to energy producers.
  • Relyion Energy, from Santa Clara, California, is developing battery usage and intelligence solutions with deeper data and insights for retired electric vehicle batteries.
  • Massachusetts-based Triton Anchor provides a more cost-effective anchoring solution for offshore clean energy with minimal environmental impact.
  • TROES, from Markham, Ontario, provides a 4-in-1 microgrid solution with integrated hardware and software for a streamlined energy storage experience.
  • Mexico City-based Tycho Solutions supports clean energy project developers by saving time and money during the critical project-siting process.
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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Texas could topple Virginia as biggest data-center market by 2030, JLL report says

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Everything’s bigger in Texas, they say—and that phrase now applies to the state’s growing data-center presence.

A new report from commercial real estate services provider JLL says Texas could overtake Northern Virginia as the world’s largest data-center market by 2030. Northern Virginia is a longtime holder of that title.

What’s driving Texas’ increasingly larger role in the data-center market? The key factor is artificial intelligence.

Companies like Google and Microsoft need more energy-hungry data centers to power AI innovations. In a 2023 article, Forbes explained that AI models consume a lot of energy because of the massive amount of data used to train them, as well as the complexity of those models and the rising volume of tasks assigned to AI.

“The data-center sector has officially entered hyperdrive,” Andy Cvengros, executive managing director at JLL and co-leader of its U.S. data-center business, said in the report. “Record-low vacancy sustained over two consecutive years provides compelling evidence against bubble concerns, especially when nearly all our massive construction pipeline is already pre-committed by investment-grade tenants.”

Dallas-Fort Worth has long dominated the Texas data-center market. But in recent years, West Texas has emerged as a popular territory for building data-center campuses, thanks in large part to an abundance of land and energy. Nearly two-thirds of data-center construction underway now is happening in “frontier markets” like West Texas, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin, the JLL report says.

Northern Virginia, the current data-center champ in the U.S., boasted a data-center market with 6,315 megawatts of capacity at the end of 2025, the report says. That compares with 2,423 megawatts in Dallas-Fort Worth, 1,700 megawatts in the Austin-San Antonio corridor, 200 megawatts in West Texas, and 164 megawatts in Houston.

Fervo taps into its hottest-ever geothermal reservoir

heat record

Things are heating up at Houston-based geothermal power company Fervo Energy.

Fervo recently drilled its hottest well so far at a new geothermal site in western Utah. Fewer than 11 days of drilling more than 11,000 feet deep at Project Blanford showed temperatures above 555 degrees Fahrenheit, which exceeds requirements for commercial viability. Fervo used proprietary AI-driven analytics for the test.

Hotter geothermal reservoirs produce more energy and improve what’s known as energy conversion efficiency, which is the ratio of useful energy output to total energy input.

“Fervo’s exploration strategy has always been underpinned by the seamless integration of cutting-edge data acquisition and advanced analytics,” Jack Norbeck, Fervo’s co-founder and chief technology officer, said in a news release. “This latest ultra-high temperature discovery highlights our team’s ability to detect and develop EGS sweet spots using AI-enhanced geophysical techniques.”

Fervo says an independent review confirms the site’s multigigawatt potential.

The company has increasingly tapped into hotter and hotter geothermal reservoirs, going from 365 degrees at Project Red to 400 degrees at Cape Station and now more than 555 degrees at Blanford.

The new site expands Fervo’s geologic footprint. The Blanford reservoir consists of sedimentary formations such as sandstones, claystones and carbonates, which can be drilled more easily and cost-effectively than more commonly targeted granite formations.

Fervo ranks among the top-funded startups in the Houston area. Since its founding in 2017, the company has raised about $1.5 billion. In January, Fervo filed for an IPO that would value the company at $2 billion to $3 billion, according to Axios Pro.