- Smart buildings emit about 40% of carbon dioxide and about one-third of consumed energy goes to waste.
- TurnTide’s electric motor is a software-controlled motor that can automatically control the usage of lights, heaters, and ventilation.
- Such innovation can offer additional energy savings.
Certain innovations change the world in a very impactful way. The most important thing to fight climate change has been the introduction of LED bulbs. The LED bulbs significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions by reduced energy consumption. Robert Downey Jr and Bill Gates back firms that have joined hands with investors like Amazon and iPod inventor Tony Fadell to invest in a company called TurnTide Technologies. This company believes that it has a newly innovated product – an electric motor – that can slow down climate change significantly.
“Turntide’s technology and approach to restoring our planet will directly reduce energy consumption,” said Steve Levin, the co-founder (along with Downey Jr. ) of FootPrint Coalition.
The buildings that run on various operations emit 40% of carbon dioxide worldwide, TurnTide noted. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), one-third of the consumed energy within the commercial infrastructure goes utterly to waste. Smart technology adds a layer of intelligence to reduce this waste and inefficiency. The technology accomplishes this by automatically controlling the usage of lights, AC, heaters, and ventilation. Moreover, TurnTide’s motors can offer additional savings.
This is the reason investors are ready to invest $100 million into TurnTide within the span of the last six months. Ryan Morris is the chief executive and chairman, who leads the company that commercializes technology that was first developed at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
About TurnTide’s Electric Motor:
TurnTide offers a software-controlled motor or switch reluctance motor. The motor runs on pulses of energy instead of deriving a continuous flow of electricity.
“In a conventional motor you are continuously driving current into the motor whatever speed you want to run it at,” Morris said. “We’re pulsing in precise amounts of current just at the times when you need the torque… It’s software-defined hardware.”
According to Morris, the technology took 11 years to come to fruition because the required computing power did not exist to make the system functional. Morris initially worked with Meson Capital which acquired the technology in 2013. It underwent another four years to develop before motors could actually function in pilots, he says. The company spent three years developing the commercialization strategy and to prove its value in the initial market – retrofitting the heating ventilation and cooling systems in the buildings are the basic factors that contribute up to 28% of carbon dioxide emissions that lead to climate change.
“Our mission is to replace all of the motors in the world,” Morris said.
Morris claims that this technology can be used in 95% of areas that use electric motors. But they will initially focus on the smart buildings because it is the easiest place to begin the testing with. Moreover, this can significantly impact energy consumption.
“The carbon impact of what we’re doing is pretty massive,” Morris told me last year. “The average energy reduction [in buildings] has been a 64% reduction. If we can replace all the motors in buildings in the U.S. that’s the carbon equivalent of adding over 300 million tons of carbon sequestration per year.”
Details of Bill Gates’ and Downey Jr.’s companies investment with TurnTide:
This is the reason Downey Jr’s Footprint Coalition, Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and the real estate and construction firm Fifth Wall Ventures have joined Amazon Climate Fund, Tony Fadell’s Future Shape, BMW’s iVentures fund, and other investors standing by the company. TurnTide has managed to raise $180 million for financing, which includes the disclosure of an $80 million investment round that closed in October.
Buildings are currently the point of focus for TurnTide which announced the acquisition of a small Santa Barbara, California-based building management software named Riptide IO. Other massive applications of the technology include electric vehicles.
“Two years from now we will definitely be in electric vehicles,” Morris said.
“Our technology has huge advantages for the electric vehicle industry. There are no rare earth minerals. “They’re expensive, destructive to mine and China controls 95% of the global supply chain for them. We do not use any exotic materials, rare earth minerals, or magnets… We’re replacing that with very advanced software and computation. It’s the first time Moore’s law applies to the motor.”
