CLEAN TECHNOLOGY: AN EXPERT GUIDE

Clean technology – often shortened to cleantech – encompasses instruments, supplies and processes developed to conserve natural resources and minimize environmental harm. It today focuses primarily on sustainable energy creation and storage as well as water purification, management and efficiency to pursue environmentally responsible economic growth.

The central purposes of cleantech innovation are to increase efficiency in energy usage while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So major subsets within the wider field include renewable energy like solar, wind or hydropower, systems for smart grid distribution, electricity storage in batteries and fuel cells, green buildings using resource-conserving materials and more energy efficient transportation technology.

Various factors drive cleantech’s accelerated emergence and adoption worldwide such as climate volatility, resource constraints and supportive policies. Global strives toward decarbonization also boost investable opportunities for cleaner alternatives. VC funding in cleantech startups almost tripled to nearly $60 billion after years of decline. Even major fossil fuel corporations now earmark financing for renewable transition planning amid shareholder and regulatory pressure.

Cleantech’s enhanced viability today owes much to maturing base technologies like lithium-ion batteries and photovoltaics that significantly dropped costs and boosted storage capacities or conversion efficiencies over the past decade. Next generation advancements focus now on commercial scalability and grid integration. For example, perovskite solar cells aim for high volume manufacturability. Solid-state lithium battery innovations target increased safety. Also artificial intelligence and big data analytics assist utilities in balancing the variability challenges inherent to solar and wind generation.

Long-term projections remain robust for worldwide cleantech market growth in both developed and emerging economies. But near term turbulence persists around inflation, supply chain stress and looming global recession aftershocks. Critics also contend more governmental guidance and R&D support necessary to punctuate cleantech from niche to normalized.

Even so the fundamental environmental and economic motivations underpinning clean technology’s advancement remain undisputed. Its varied plays on sustainable infrastructure promise to both secure planetary health as well as leapfrog societies toward next-gen prosperity built on renewables-based platforms ranging from smart cities to electric aviation.