On July 15, the Exelon Foundation and Exelon Corporation have selected 10 startups to receive a combined $1 million in direct funding to develop new technologies to mitigate and build resiliency to the impacts of climate change in the inaugural year of the company’s $20 million Climate Change Investment Initiative (2c2iSM).

The application process for year two is now open.

The initiative invests directly in the projects and people helping to address climate change mitigation and build resiliency to health and environmental pressures in under-resourced communities within Exelon’s service area.

Startup applicants were also required to demonstrate how their projects would meaningfully advance state and local jurisdictions’ own sustainability goals under the U.S. Climate Alliance.

PA Projects

These projects will benefit Pennsylvania--

-- BlocPower is an African American-owned technology company that developed a software platform for analyzing, financing, monitoring and managing clean energy projects, allowing building owners to identify and complete energy efficiency and electrification upgrades in urban communities.

These projects help lower energy bills for residents, provide good local construction and installation jobs, reduce the carbon footprint and increase resiliency. The Brooklyn-based startup has completed energy projects in over 1,000 buildings in New York State.

With Exelon’s support, BlocPower aims to complete similar projects in the under-resourced communities of other cities, including retrofits to multi-family affordable housing in partnership with the Philadelphia Energy Authority. The clean energy projects that BlocPower completes have the added benefit of helping cities and states meet their climate goals, create jobs, and advance environmental justice.

-- Based in Chicago, Greenprint Partners is a certified woman-owned/B-Corporation that reduces water pollution and flooding by working with water utilities and landowners to design, build, finance and maintain high-impact green stormwater infrastructure (GSI).

Greenprint is already working with the Philadelphia Water Department’s Green City Clean Waters initiative, seeking to more equitably disburse funds and high-impact stormwater management projects to underinvested areas.

GSI improvement projects like bioswales, rain gardens and tree trenches --- particularly in low-to-moderate income communities --- provide healthier environments and local contractor jobs.

Greenprint plans to work with Exelon and local government to expand its project development to communities in Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities, helping them to meet their climate and resiliency goals.

-- Philadelphia-based startup GrowFlux is a horticultural tech company that specializes in data-driven cultivation technology and offers an ecosystem of commercial-scale, wireless controls and sensors enable emerging indoor farms and automated greenhouses.

GrowFlux has deployed its technology at Second Chances Farm in Wilmington, DE, which hires formerly incarcerated people, providing training and green collar jobs in economically distressed communities.

Building on the Second Chances Farm project, GrowFlux will seek to further deploy their technology for Controlled Environment Agriculture farms in Philadelphia and other cities in Exelon’s service area to meet their sustainability goals.

The projects will help reduce GHG emissions and water consumption, provide sustainable, locally grown healthy food, repurpose disused commercial buildings and provide job creation and training through agri-tech programs.

-- With offices in Baltimore and Wilmington, DE, Boston-based New Ecology has developed a remote monitoring and optimization (ReMO) system to improve the performance of buildings with central boilers.

New Ecology seeks to deploy this technology primarily in the oft-overlooked affordable, multifamily housing sector. Deployment of the ReMO systems will help cities meet sustainability goals while providing owners with better operational insight and reduced utility costs.

Partnering with Exelon, New Ecology will scale the installation of ReMO by extending outreach efforts into low-income, multi-family building owners in Chicago, Philadelphia and Wilmington.

-- Propagate Ventures has developed an analytics and project development platform that reduce the cost and provide the resources needed for agroforestry, which is the strategic integration of fruit, nut and timber trees with agriculture crops to ensure long term resiliency.

Propagate Ventures’ solution contributes to the economic and environmental sustainability of rural communities by increasing profitability of farmland through diversified crop yields and supporting healthy soil and carbon sequestration with agroforestry.

In partnership with Exelon, the Hudson Yards-based startup will expand beyond current projects in Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake Bay region, by investing in agroforestry farms surrounding one or more of the cities in Exelon’s service territory.

These projects will help both urban and rural communities achieve their goals to sequester carbon, create a secure food supply, improve community health through the provision of fresh food and increase biodiversity.

-- Radiator Labs invented the Cozy™, a wireless, low-cost and easily installed retrofit that drops on top of steam heat radiators, providing a solution to the chronic problem of uneven heating in apartment buildings. Installation throughout a building can save up to 45 percent in heating costs and reduce GHG emissions by an average of 25 percent.

In partnership with Exelon, Brooklyn-based Radiator Labs plans to deploy their innovative solution in steam-heated multi-family housing units – often located in under-resourced areas - in Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia, helping these cities to meet their ambitious climate goals and improving the health and comfort of tenants.

“As the nation’s largest producer of carbon-free energy, we understand the important role we must play to help the communities we serve address the environmental and public health impacts of climate change,” said Chris Gould, Exelon Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Chief Innovation and Sustainability Officer. “Now more than ever, it’s become clear that real, fundamental change often comes from taking action at the local level. We purposely designed the 2c2i initiative to support early-stage, often-overlooked startups with the potential to make a meaningful, on-the-ground impact on our communities’ climate goals, health and environment.”

New Applications

The Exelon Foundation and Exelon Corporation are now accepting startup applications for year two of 2c2i. In partnership with Freshwater Advisors, 2c2i leaders are actively scouting for promising new startups and projects within Exelon’s service territory.

To qualify for consideration, applicants must demonstrate that their projects will benefit one or more of Exelon’s six major urban markets (Atlantic City, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, DE.), support work in under-resourced communities and have the potential to do one of the following:

-- Mitigate greenhouse gas emissions;

-- Boost the resiliency of urban infrastructure (e.g., the power grid, transportation systems, buildings, vacant land) against flood, stormwater and rising temperatures;

-- Help cities, businesses and communities adapt to climate change; or

-- Help achieve a state or city’s sustainability and climate goals.

For more information, visit the Climate Change Investment Initiative webpage.

Related Articles:

-- Pennsylvania, 14 States, DC Sign MOU To Zero Out Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Trucks By 2050

-- Agenda Added: House Environmental Committee To Hold Hearing July 21 On Proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Program For Power Plants

-- CFA Awards $10.9 Million To Support Clean Energy Projects In 8 Counties

-- Northampton Community College Awarded Grant To Help PA Ag Producers, Small Businesses Access Renewable Energy

-- Study In Philadelphia Links Growth In Tree Canopy To Decrease In Human Mortality

[Posted: July 15, 2020]

7/20/2020