Reinventing Energy with the AWS Clean Energy Accelerator 2.0

Amazon’s innovation and resources made available to leading start-ups changing the world.

If there had been any doubt in the past, developments over the last couple of years have demonstrated how clean energy has become critical from both a policy and innovation lens. The global climate crisis requires significant innovations in clean energy deployed at scale globally. Although there has been significant progress and thought leadership across the energy transition, there is still a major gap in the path for achieving net-zero goals. There is a new global energy economy emerging with the promise that successful net zero focused partnerships could create a market for clean technologies worth over $1 trillion a year by 2050. What’s more, millions of jobs with the development of hydrogen electrolyzers and fueling, wind turbines, solar panels, long duration energy storage, carbon tracking tech, and advanced materials will also be created. The good news is that, according to the IEA, despite the pandemic, rising costs and slowing supply chains has accelerated renewable energy investment. In Europe, venture capital funding flowed to clean energy startups in the first-half of 2021 more than in the whole of 2019 and 2020 combined.

The AWS Clean Energy Accelerator 2.0 is a unique mentorship and co-innovation opportunity for mature start-ups, and is one of our key efforts to help address the innovation gap. The world’s most innovative, successful, and disruptive startups build on AWS. Lyft, Stripe, Slack, Klarna, Grab, Netflix, Airbnb and DoorDash are among the companies who built their businesses on AWS and went on to help define their industries. Similarly, the aspiration is to accelerate the energy startups of today so that they can define and shape the clean energy industry of the future.

Building on the inaugural program’s success, applications for the AWS Clean Energy Accelerator 2.0 are now open to startups from around the world through April 4^th, 2022. The ten startups chosen for the program will be announced by mid-April, 2022. AWS Clean Energy Accelerator 2.0 will support innovative mature startups that develop clean energy solutions by accelerating their impact, increasing their access to resources, and expanding their reach.

“The work already underway from last year is just a preview of what’s to come as more and more companies begin to develop new clean energy applications and services, especially startups,” said Howard Gefen, AWS General Manager of Energy. “The AWS Clean Energy Accelerator is aimed at accelerating the energy transition and quickening clean energy tech development and adoption through co-innovation between energy customers and startups. We are providing startups with the scale, agility, customer connections and global reach they need to power solutions, while also helping established players transform their existing core operations. We are launching the Clean Energy Accelerator 2.0 in that spirit.”

The accelerator is making its European debut in Lisbon, Portugal, which is rapidly becoming an innovation cluster. Every year, the city hosts the Web Summit, the world’s biggest event for startups, technology, and innovation, as well as Europe’s biggest tech conference. Lisbon is also a European Green Capital Award winner due to its green initiatives.

Over a virtual five-week period, the chosen finalists will receive technical, business, and go-to-market mentorship from AWS; up to $100,000 each in AWS Promotional Credit through AWS Activate to kick-start their data and operations transformation in the cloud. Additionally, the selected startups will gain access to the AWS Digital Innovation team, who can guide startups in using Amazon’s Culture of innovation and Working backwards mechanism to achieve solution alignment and accelerate pilots. The finalists will also receive visibility and overall guidance from supporting partners such as The Climate Pledge Fund and others.

The inaugural Clean Energy Accelerator selected ten startups representing eight countries selected from hundreds of applications across thirty-eight countries. By the end of 2021 several of those startups were listed on the top Global Clean tech 100. Learn more about last year’s AWS Clean Energy Accelerator and ten finalists.

The accelerator will culminate in an innovation showcase in Lisbon featuring the selected startups and reflections from energy industry leaders. The showcase provides the ten startups an opportunity to present their clean energy capabilities to an audience of leading energy corporations, investors, and advisors.

This year, AWS is partnering with Beta-i, an innovation consultancy based in Lisbon, to increase the global reach of the program. AWS and Beta-i will work together to select the ten startups to participate in this year’s Clean Energy Accelerator. They will judge each startup on factors including the overall value their solutions bring to the industry, their digital maturity, and their ability to collaborate.

If you are a startup that has demonstrated commercial traction, revenue, and the potential to scale in clean energy or climate technology, AWS would love to hear from you. Apply today!

Related resources:
AWS cloud solutions for energy