WHY BETTER BUILDINGS

Nth Power and Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems Release Report on Innovating for Better Buildings Affirms that Market Meltdown is Opportunity in Disguise
November 2, 2009 (PRNewswire via Reuters)

"Nth Power, LLC, the veteran cleantech venture capital firm, and the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE) released a detailed report on the massive market opportunities for innovation within the US building construction industry. The detailed report gives a comprehensive description of the market dynamics creating the opportunities and explains the contrarian view that the current residential and commercial market meltdowns are a positive 'springboard for innovation.' The report also includes a guide for entrepreneurs interested in pursuing these large, yet challenging opportunities, as well as an overview of some exciting emerging technologies…

"Innovating for Better Buildings represents an integrated look at the building technology space from both a practical investor's point of view and an applied technological perspective…"

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"Nth Power and Fraunhofer believe that today there is a 'perfect storm' of forces within the US building construction industry leading to a revolutionary shift in attitude towards innovation. These forces are encouraging more stakeholder collaboration, better technology integration, and improved construction approaches that will enable cost effective, high-performance building technologies to be deployed on a massive scale. The authors believe that the recent market downturn is accelerating these changes. As construction slows down, those involved within the construction process have more time to respond to the growing demand for better performing buildings by focusing on better practices and technologies…

"The report provides a historical perspective of the industry's broken innovation process that has consistently produced buildings that are severe energy wasters. As a consequence, today's US residential and commercial buildings are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than every country except for China and the US itself. The good news is that much of this waste can be eliminated with readily available technologies and best practices…"

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"Underperforming or poorly integrated subsystems are a major source of inefficiency in buildings - if all but one system is efficient, a building can still perform terribly. Moving away from a component view to a whole-systems view is critical…Major construction companies are now recognizing and embracing these changes…

"Nth Power, LLC (www.nthpower.com) is a venture capital firm based in San
Francisco and is the first and most experienced venture capital firm funding
promising startup companies in the Cleantech space…Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE) (cse.fraunhofer.org) is one of six Fraunhofer USA research centers. Fraunhofer USA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft which has over 80 research units at more than 60 different locations throughout Germany…"