Our annual APAC Cleantech 25 was launched on April 18th, 2024 – that is at all times a terrific alternative to zoom in on the area and replicate on its significance within the world cleantech ecosystem. This yr’s record demonstrates a deepening of traits noticed a yr in the past – the place the area was shifting closely towards an emphasis on new power and related supplies, electrical mobility, and applied sciences for circularity. Reflecting on 2023, APAC distinguished itself by truly increasing enterprise and development investments in cleantech. This contrasts to different areas, the place a minimal drop was deemed successful.
The obvious drop-off outdoors of the Asia-Pacific is partially attributable to sure coverage adjustments, particularly the U.S. inflation Discount Act (IRA) and the European Union Internet Zero Business Act which have made it simpler for innovators to entry financing with out relying solely on fairness, for financing new and modern cleantech, particularly within the U.S. the place the IRA has allowed many innovators to begin to transition into elevating debt for his or her development. There’s a further level to make, nevertheless, that there are particular areas of cleantech innovation in APAC which have benefitted from a extra mature demand pull (see the examples of photo voltaic and batteries in China beneath) and had been nonetheless capable of proceed growth whereas their abroad friends accelerated.
Apparently, the primary quarter of 2024 has proven a slowdown in APAC, although it’s untimely to find out if this shall be a persistent development or merely a short lived dip. We shall be trying intently to see if this shall be a protracted development or only a blip on the radar.
Digging Deeper into the Deep Tech Stack
All through 2023, APAC noticed a marked shift in direction of deeper expertise sectors essential for a brand new power economic system, particularly innovation in photo voltaic, batteries, hydrogen manufacturing, and the supplies required to extend effectivity.
Notable developments mirrored on this yr’s record of 25 embody developments in hydrogen manufacturing and separations applied sciences. Singapore was particularly lively right here – see Sungreen H2’s electrolyzer electrodes which have designed out platinum group metals, DiviGas’s polymeric membranes to separate hydrogen from blended gases, and SepPure’s chemical-resistant nanofiltration gear.
Divigas’s Hydrogen Separation Membranes
Watch this house intently — innovation to sort out the manufacturing price of hydrogen manufacturing gear is popping up all around the area. Working example: India’s Newtrace landed on the record this yr with a product that seeks to maximise use of plentiful supplies in electrolyzers, probably dropping prices by as much as 30%.
Newtrace’s Electrolyzers with Ample Electrocatalysts
Photo voltaic and Power Storage – China Retains its Place
China continued to dominate the funding panorama, capturing 63% of the area’s enterprise and development funding in 2023, barely up from 59% the earlier yr. As soon as once more, engagement with Chinese language cleantech innovation was most observable within the Power & Energy house. This isn’t stunning, provided that China’s nationwide authorities has put a public emphasis on creating the “New 3” industries of solar energy, electrical automobiles, and batteries.
In 2023, the “New 3” accounted for all of China’s 2023 nationwide funding development and practically half of GDP development. And you’ll see this reverberating all through the economic system in producing extra demand pull for modern applied sciences.
Nowhere is the “New 3” emphasis extra evident than in photo voltaic – in 2023, China added round 160 gigawatts of photo voltaic capability versus 60 gigawatts that had been added in 2022. Distinction this quantity to the U.S., the place 32 gigawatts of photo voltaic producing capability deployed in 2023 was a file. See the “China on the Heart’ graphic beneath, the place, by way of enterprise and development investments, 4 of the highest 5 most lively APAC-based Power & Energy corporations had been all Chinese language photo voltaic panel or wafer producers, three of whom are producing N-type photo voltaic merchandise. N-types are anticipated to comprise over half of all world output by the top of the last decade.
The speedy deployment of photo voltaic in China coupled with localized provide chains have motivated extra innovators to enter the storage market as effectively. PCG Energy, a 2024 APAC Cleantech 25 firm, is an instance of a beneficiary of the mature photo voltaic + storage provide chain – after incorporating lower than two years in the past, the corporate is now delivering complete heavy trade DER power schemes to main producers, together with a brand new 21MW grid-connected photo voltaic set up at a Geely Automotive facility.
The APAC Supplies-for-Mobility Worth Chain Strengthens
Final yr we famous that electrical mobility in APAC was taking up geographic breadth and expertise depth – with extra localized automobiles, but additionally infrastructure innovation to easy rollout of automobiles. This yr that development continues with extra examples of localized mobility options within the APAC Cleantech 25 – there’s now a transparent development in direction of fleet electrification, as car manufacturing, fleet administration, and infrastructure-as-a-service fashions start to converge:
- Selex (Vietnam) produces electrical two-wheelers for supply and chilly chain, whereas additionally offering battery swapping subscriptions and pay-per-kilometer battery rental providers.
- Newrizon (China) produces light-duty electrical industrial vans and operates a community of charging and battery swapping stations. Newrizon’s automobiles are extremely digitalized with connectivity and monitoring gadgets to carry out predictive upkeep and power administration.
- Alt Mobility (India) affords a collection of instruments to help fleet managers in transitioning to electrical fleets, together with car choice, charging planning and optimization, and predictive upkeep.
Selex Electrical Bikes + Battery Swapping Stations for Supply and Chilly Chain
The APAC area has for years proven energy in manufacturing of completed electrical automobiles and in a number of type elements (passenger automobiles, vans, two- and three-wheelers). And whereas many are conscious of China’s long-standing domination of battery supplies provide chains, fewer are conscious of the deeper innovation occurring within the area round higher-performing battery supplies and resource-efficient entry to uncooked supplies. By way of enterprise and development investments in essential supplies innovation, APAC has led Europe since 2022 – what’s completely different now could be that innovation is creating throughout the worth chain however with notable progress on the furthest upstream of supplies extraction and furthest downstream of battery recycling.
This yr’s APAC Cleantech 25 record exhibits a pan-APAC effort to achieve essential supplies onshoring, but additionally to develop the exportable applied sciences that any nation with an onshoring precedence will need to have interaction:
- Novalith (Australia) makes use of CO2 from industrial processes to interchange sulphuric acid within the lithium extraction course of to supply smaller footprint lithium and flatten the carbon emissions profile of extraction.
- Electralith (Australia) has additional compressed the direct lithium extraction course of by leveraging a proprietary membrane separation expertise to extract lithium from brines and convert to lithium hydroxide in a single step (versus incumbent processes which have an additional conversion step from lithium carbonate to lithium hydroxide).
- Geo40 (New Zealand) recovers silica and lithium from geothermal reservoirs, permitting for co-location with geothermal energy operations.
- Sicona (Australia) has developed a silicon carbide materials for batteries that has the potential to be a drop-in alternative for graphite anodes however with as much as 4.5x capability.
- Ruilong Tech (China) is recycling lithium-ion batteries at scale by way of 4 amenities that perform crushing, dismantling, and hydrometallurgical processing of batteries to get well lithium, cobalt, and nickel.
Electralith’s Novel Direct Lithium Extraction and Refining Strategy
APAC Innovation Nudging Business Cleaner and Smarter
In step with themes we’ve seen globally, APAC innovators are capitalizing on a world have to manufacture in a cleaner however cost-effective method. Industrial decarbonization and circularity had been on full show on this yr’s APAC Cleantech 25.
Enhanced weathering for carbon capture-to-value is an rising theme, and two corporations on the record reveal distinct approaches:
- Aspiring Supplies (New Zealand) is processing olivine-rich rocks, sometimes dug out of the Earth as a mining byproduct, right into a magnesium hydroxide that can be utilized in carbon seize. The ensuing compound (magnesium carbonate) locks the carbon away, and will be utilized in manufacturing of constructing supplies, fertilizers, and different world industries.
- GreenOre (China) is equally utilizing plentiful rocks as an ingredient to the carbon mineralization course of, which is already getting used to course of metal slag. The underlying expertise will be utilized throughout industries to take industrial slag, ash, or common mineral-dense waste to helpful merchandise.
Others are attacking the challenges of emissions depth in particular mineral processing. Take Zincovery (New Zealand), who has developed a hydrogen-based course of for producing high-purity zinc with out fossil fuels.
GreenOre’s Carbon Mineralization Course of
Elsewhere, there are a number of corporations taking up the problem of plastic waste – an issue that has particular relevance to Asia, the place an estimated 80% of oceanic plastic waste resides.
- Samsara (Australia) is taking an formidable strategy to enzymatic recycling that enables for processing of complicated polymers again right down to easy monomers, functionally permitting for the creation of recent virgin plastics from plastic waste.
- BluePlanet (Singapore) operates recycling companies from cement waste to biomass and e-waste, however can be producing gas oil from plastic waste by way of a Thermo-Catalytic Depolymerisation (TCD) course of.
Now we have lined at size over the previous few months a marked shift because the pandemic to a extra deep tech-focused cleantech economic system that’s rising. That is undeniably taking form in APAC, and with a continued intersection of producing and local weather, extra trade veterans than ever are transitioning into cleantech innovation. If we take the chart beneath, the place Seed and Collection A offers comprise a better share of cleantech offers in APAC than the remainder of the world and are rising every year, we should always anticipate to see much more distinctive innovation launched out of the area in coming years.
