RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Two Triangle firms are among seven emerging companies picked to participate in the Joules Accelerator Catalyst Program next week as part of the North Carolina Cleantech Corridor initiative.

The Joules Accelerator and the Research Triangle Cleatech Cluster are partners in the $1.5 million program, a three-year initiative designed to help boost cleantech development between Raleigh and Charlotte. The seven firms will be part of programs in Raleigh and Charlotte between Sept. 18-20.

This is the second year for the program.

Cleantech Corridor

The seven firms:

  • Aurtra (Brisbane, Australia) - Aurtra protects transformer assets with an IoT-enabled sensor and cloud-based, real-time monitoring that shares insights about load conditions on grid health.
  • Breezi (Durham, NC) – Breezi keeps HVAC systems healthy with its IoT-enabled Air-Pulse, “a fitness tracker for HVAC equipment.” Analytics allow users to save energy, avoid repairs, and extend HVAC life.
  • Building Clarity (Raleigh, NC) – Building Clarity is a consultative, IoT-enabled engineering firm that helps clients transform their energy and HVAC environments for savings, efficiency, and resiliency.
  • Circuit (San Diego, CA) – Circuit is a local, on-demand, all-electric shuttle service company focused on first/last mile gaps. The service is free to riders and funded by cities, private developers, and advertisers.
  • Power Lines Pro (Sydney, Australia) – Power Lines Pro enables utilities to optimize existing infrastructure assets and prioritize future investment by creating a “digital twin” model of the utility network.
  • Tacit (Sunnyvale, CA) – Tacit enables capturing, preserving, and scaling tacit knowledge for industries where front-line employees are leaving the workforce.
  • Xtelligent (Los Angeles, CA) - Xtelligent provides traffic management technology for cities, improving road network performance by over 50% while also providing vehicle-to-infrastructure capabilities.
“We listened to the needs of our stakeholders – our electric utilities addressing energy challenges, local governments launching ambitious climate and smart cities initiatives, and global industry leaders – to inform our final selection,” said Bob Irvin, Executive Director of Joules. “These seven companies can directly help North Carolina communities and industry, and we are excited to facilitate pilot projects and full-blown deployments to create economic and environmental sustainability across the Corridor.”The cohort will be introduced to Charlotte audiences on Sept. 18 at the Duke Energy Innovation Center. Guest speakers include Brian Savoy, Duke Energy CAO and Senior Vice President of Business Transformation and Technology, and Apoorv Bhargava, co-founder and CEO of accelerator ‘graduate’ company WeaveGrid. Registration is free and open to the public at https://joulescohort5.eventbrite.com

The startups meet Triangle audiences on the evening of Sept. 19  at a networking event at Duke Energy in downtown Raleigh. Guest speakers include Stephen De May, Duke Energy’s North Carolina President. Tickets are available at http://researchtrianglecleantech.org/networking