Cleantech on the decline? Predictions for 2013

Next year is shaping up to be something of a year of backtracking for the cleantech industry, according to an analysis by Kachan & Co., a cleantech research and consulting firm.

Our firm, Kachan & Co., has just published its latest annual set of predictions for the cleantech sector for the year ahead.

To our analysis, 2013 is shaping up to be something of a year of backtracking for the cleantech industry, a year that calls into question some of its traditional leading indicators of health, and one that surfaces long term risk to such cleantech stalwarts as solar, wind and electric vehicles.

Do we think cleantech is finished? Not at all. But much like young Skywalker learned in Episode V, cleantech is about to find out that the Empire sometimes gets its revenge.

In brief, (click here for long version) our predictions include:

Cleantech venture investment to decline –  Expect worldwide cleantech venture capital investment in 2013 to decline even further than it did in 2012, never to return to the previous highs it achieved before the financial crisis of 2007-2008, we believe. Among the factors: the departure of many venture investors from the sector because of disappointing returns, poor policy support worldwide and a lag time in the pullback of equity and debt investment. 

But this doesn’t mean the sky is falling in cleantech. Family offices, sovereign wealth and corporate capital are now having more significant roles, filling gaps where traditional VC has played in recent years. It’s a sign the sector has matured, we believe. Fewer VC cooks in the kitchen may indeed impede innovation, but deep pocketed corporate capital should help clean technologies that are already de-risked reach more meaningful levels of scale.

Long term risk emerges for solar and wind – The solar and wind markets suffer today from margin erosion, allegations of corruption, international trade impropriety and other challenges. In 2013, we think poor progress in grid-scale power storage technology will also start to put downward pressure on solar and wind growth figures. Prices per kilowatt hour are falling, yes, but the cost of flow batteries, molten salt, compressed air, pumped hydro, moving mass or other storage technology needs to be factored in to make intermittent clean energies reliable and available 24/7. When also considering continued progress in cleaner baseload power from new, emerging nuclear technologies, natural gas and cleaner coal power, the growth rates for solar and wind appear increasingly at risk.

Clean coal technologies gain respect – We predict 2013 will be the year a new set of technologies will emerge aimed at capturing particulate and CO2 emissions from coal fired power plants and help clean coal technologies begin to overcome their negative positioning. The barrier to capturing coal emissions has been cost and power plant output penalties. Our research has identified encouraging new technologies without such drawbacks, and we think the world will begin to see them in 2013. China is expected to target domination of the clean coal equipment market, like it does already in many other cleantech equipment categories.

The internal combustion engine strikes back, putting EVs at risk – Important innovations quietly taking place in internal combustion engines (ICE) could further delay the timing of an all-electric vehicle future, we think. In 2013, unheard-of fuel economy innovations in ICEs will enter the market, including novel new natural gas conversion and heat exchange retrofits of existing engines aimed at dramatically lessening fuel needs. Some of these technologies, when combined, claim to be able to reduce fuel costs by 90%. That could push out the timing of EV adoption.

Cleantech adoption in mining – Notoriously conservative mining companies and their shareholders are starting to realize that the capital expenses of new clean technologies can be offset by reduced operating costs and the potential for new revenues. In 2013, we predict more adoption of cleantech innovation in mining, in areas such as tailings remediation, membrane-based water purification, sensors and telematics, route optimization software intended to lower fuel and equipment maintenance costs, and low water and power hydrometallurgical and other novel processes for mineral separation.

Big ag steps up and cleans up – We estimate that 2013 will be the year the world’s leading agricultural companies embrace new innovation in significant ways. Expect accelerated corporate investment, strategic partnership and agricultural M&A in 2013, as agricultural leaders race to meet consumer demand for cleaner, greener ways of producing food, having weathered intense consumer GMO-related and other backlash.

Want more rationale & data? Read our predictions for cleantech/greentech in 2013 in their entirety.

Agree? Disagree? Weigh in on our original article here.