These startups are the winners of BloombergNEF’s annual award for potentially game-changing innovation in climate solutions.

It’s 2050, and you arrive at the restaurant in a car running on newly-recycled batteries whose copper and nickel were once used in another EV. The waiter strides up to the table and sprinkles a pungent protein powder made from fermented microbes onto a bowl of chemical-free edamame.

As you leave, your chair scrapes on a smooth gray floor made from carbon-free concrete delivered in ready-mix sacks on a freight ship fueled by cheap, clean-burning green hydrogen.

Welcome to the net zero future that the 12 winners of BloombergNEF’s Pioneers awards are working to build.

The award was conceived by Bloomberg’s energy-transition research arm as a way to spotlight early-stage innovators and identify those game-changing technologies that could power the Teslas of tomorrow.

Electric cars have barely broken through as the vehicles of the future yet entrepreneurs are already figuring out how to recycle the batteries they rely on and reduce the need to mine ever larger quantities of rare earths and precious metals.

Demand for future metals is expected to outstrip supply with Cobalt, lithium and nickel as key battery components.

High costs and a nascent market mean green hydrogen’s deployment today amounts to little more than a rounding error. But a surge in government support suggests supply will outstrip demand by the end of the decade, with low prices making it a go-to green fuel.

Hydrogen Supply Will Outstrip Demand

Source: BNEF

What seems a stretch today, could well be mundane tomorrow.

When BNEF launched its Pioneers awards back in 2010, the climate tech ecosystem was comprised mostly of companies developing solar, wind and battery solutions.

Its search for potentially disruptive climate technologies led to five winners that first year. There wasn’t a lot to choose from and the focus was firmly on the fundamental questions.

How can you power the world in a sustainable way? And how do you make it make financial sense?

Fast forward to 2023 and those problems have, for the most part, been solved. Renewable energy technologies are not only here, but solar is now cheaper to build and operate than fossil fuel power generation in most parts of the world.

They’ve graduated from a frontier technology backed by risk-taking venture capitalists to a scaling problem. The biggest obstacle facing solar power today is not the cost of panels but the lack of transmission capacity — the grid infrastructure can’t keep up.

Today’s startups have moved on to greening the rest of the economy, from what we eat and how we produce it, to the way we fuel global trade and how we manufacture the building blocks of future homes.

There’s more funding available today for clean tech innovators than ever, from venture capitalists, from banks, from governments looking to curb emissions fast enough to meet the Paris Agreement goals and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In Europe, a combination of regulation and incentives is pushing companies to cut emissions. Last year, the US joined the party, passing the most significant climate legislation in its history, which by BNEF’s estimates could unlock as much as $1 trillion in government support for climate solutions and trigger a wave of private financing. From rooftop solar at home to sustainable batteries for export, China, which already dominates the clean economy supply chain, is continuing to advance.

Last year, investment in clean energy worldwide equaled fossil fuels for the first time. In the US, sales of combustion engine vehicles will likely never recover to pre-Covid levels. The future’s electric.

It’s taken a long time to get here and there’s still a long way to go. Rising interest rates and slowing economies mean investors are likely to be more circumspect about backing high-risk or unproven innovations this year than they were last. And there will be other set-backs on the road to net zero.

Take Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. It unleashed an international dash for oil and gas and prompted some governments to reopen idled coal plants. Rising rates have also hit the tech sector hard and Silicon Valley Bank, long seen as the startups’ lender, is no more.

Climate Funding Gap Remains Huge

Low-carbon investment falls far short of what's needed to reach net-zero by 2050

“We have reached certain tipping points,” said Mark Daly, head of technology and innovation research at BNEF, which has been tracking climate investment trends for more than a decade. “But there are plenty of other areas of the economy where a tipping point has not been reached. And unless there’s more innovation and development there, it never will be.”

Each year, BNEF sets three challenges that need to be overcome to clear the path to net zero — and a “wildcard” bracket for early-stage companies doing something different. This year, it called for entries in three categories — hydrogen, metals and food. The 12 winners below were selected out of 348 entries. Bloomberg Green reporters and editors joined deliberations in the final round.

Challenge 1: Accelerating the Deployment of Clean Hydrogen

Hydrogen, the most abundant chemical element in our world, emits no planet-warming gasses when burned, presenting a tantalizing solution for hard-to-abate sectors like shipping.

The batteries needed to propel a container ship would be so heavy and bulky, it wouldn’t make economic sense. Steelmaking and other heavy industries often rely on fossil fuels or high carbon minerals not just to produce intense heat, but to create a chemical reaction.

So-called “green hydrogen” can serve as a feedstock for fertilizers and chemicals, a source of heat for steel or aluminum production, or a fuel for heavy transport, particularly when converted into derivatives like ammonia, a liquid that can be transported using existing infrastructure and equipment.

There are different ways to make hydrogen, including from fossil fuels. But green hydrogen is made by splitting water using industrial-scale electrolyzers in a process powered by renewable energy.

Despite its potential, hydrogen has played a small role in the energy transition so far. That’s because it’s still relatively expensive to make, store and transport. And despite its potential versatility, most machines and industries aren’t adapted to use it. With major subsidies for hydrogen set to kick in from the US climate bill, all that could change. BNEF awarded three startups working to make green hydrogen mainstream.

H2Pro was featured alongside SunGreenH2 and Mainspring Energy.

Read the full coverage here.

Edited by Lin Noueihed

Illustrations by Minky Lee and Jo Willard

Charts by Christopher Cannon