MassCEC announces $588,720 in funding to support five cleantech startups

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center is excited to announce $588,720 in funding to our latest round of InnovateMass awardees. The InnovateMass Program aims to accelerate commercialization of innovative clean energy technologies by filling the funding gap between early stage development and commercialization, a period often referred to as the “commercialization valley of death.”

The grant funding supports demonstration projects to test these new innovations in an operational environment.

MassCEC made five awards to the following cleantech companies:

Autonomous Marine Systems - $203,593 (Somerville): The company will construct, deploy, and test an unmanned, solar-powered data collection vessel named the “Datamaran”. These vessels will be deployed off the coast of Massachusetts to reduced costs and emissions associated with siting and development of offshore wind projects.

MultiSensor Scientific - $163,211 (Somerville): The company is developing a natural gas leak detection tool that is cheaper and more effective than existing gas detection devices. MultiSensor will field test the device in partnership with Eversource and the Home Energy Efficiency Team (“HEET”). The technology will substantially reduce the time and cost of locating leaks in natural gas distribution systems which will in turn reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with those leaks.

Power Development International - $100,000 (Framingham): The company has designed a hydrokinetic turbine blade that is able to generate energy at lower water speeds than conventional hydroelectric turbines. PDI will work with Holyoke Gas and Electric, a municipal utility, to construct, deploy, and test a hydrokinetic generation device in a service canal.

Raptor Maps - $83,401 (Somerville): The company uses machine learning and Unmanned Aerial Systems (“UAS” or “drones”) equipped with thermal imaging to identify and classify faults on solar panel arrays. Raptor Maps will partner with Enel to optimize the software for real-time identification and classification of faults onboard the drone, helping make maintenance of solar farms cheaper and more effective.

Tagup - $38,515 (Somerville): The company uses predictive analytics to monitor health of systems-critical capital assets to better plan preventative maintenance replacements of assets for electrical utilities. National Grid will provide Tagup with sample transformer asset data for integration and analysis in the Tagup platform. Successful deployment of the technology will increase resiliency of the distribution network.

The next round of InnovateMass launches on April 17. Sign up for our News for Startups newsletter to stay in touch on MassCEC programs and resources for clean energy startups!