North Carolina awards $950,000 in "Green Business" grants to 14 firms

Local Tech Wire, August 7, 2009

North Carolina awarded $950,000 in "Green Business Fund" grants to 14 companies Friday as Gov. Bev Perdue signed legislation that moved the State Energy Office to the Department of Commerce from the Department of Administration.
Firms working on biofuel, battery solar energy and a variety of other so-called green technologies were selected.
The biggest grant of $99,486 went to Semprius, a startup focused on solar cells. Semprius is based in Durham.
In 2008 in the first year of hte program, the state awarded 13 grants worth nearly $1 million. Grants ranged in size from $18,000 to $100,000. The grants with detailed description of each program as provided by the governor's office:

• Aerofab Manufacturing Corp., Apex - $45,435
• Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute, Lenoir - $81,000
• Centralina Council of Governments, Charlotte - $85,000 - Greater Charlotte Region Biofuel Facility: "Brown" grease is waste oil from food preparation. It often is responsible for clogging sewers, causing overflows. In the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region, brown grease contributes to more than 55% of sewer overflows. The grant will help develop a Greater Charlotte Region Biofuel Facility that will turn brown grease from the region into bioful that can be used by consumers.
• Clean Marine Solutions, Wilmington - $84,602
• CPS biofuels Inc., Raleigh - $50,000 High Performance Biofuel Product Dervice from Biodiesel Waste: This project develops a fuel additive made from glycerol, a waste product of biodiesel production. The additive improves fuel economy in gasoline and diesel engines by increasing octane.
  
• EnSolve Biosystems, Inc., Raleigh - $50,000
• FLS Energy Finance LLC, Black Mountain - $60,000
• Innova Homes LLC, Asheville - $51,160
• InnovaTech Inc., Research Triangle Park - $53,317 Cost Effective Harvesting of Algae in Phytobioreactor Bio-fuel Systems: The grant funds development of a prototype phytobioreactor - a large tank for growing algae - to harvest algae for use in biofuel production. This project will increase the efficiency of algae-to-biofuels conversion.
• Microcell Corp. Raleigh - $80,000
• NC State University Solar Center, Raleigh $95,000
• Semprius Inc., Durham - $99,486
• Vesture Corp., Asheboro - $75,000
• Visible Energy Inc., Durham - $40,000