For the first time, Energy Technology Ventures is taking a leap of faith with a company outside of the U.S.
The company, which is Israeli-based, is a water treatment company that may revolutionize the industry with its power-generating method.
Emefcy Ltd. uses electrogenic bioreactors to treat wastewater, and the naturally occurring bacteria within the reactors produces power from the waste.
Energy Technology Ventures is a joint venture of General Electric (NYSE: GE), ConocoPhilips Corporation (NYSE: COP), and NRG Energy Inc (NYSE: NRG), and is investing an undisclosed amount into the Israeli company.
The process Emefcy uses to treat wastewater not only produces renewable power to continue water treatment, but it also produces enough to actually put more power back on the grid.
This could completely change the water treatment industry, which currently is an expensive market that requires high amounts of energy and produces quite a bit of carbon.
In fact, water treatment alone uses 2% of global power and requires around $40 billion per year to function.
Though the electrogenic bioreactor process is currently an expensive project, research and development could make it a realistic and cost-efficient venture.
And investments are helping to push technological development ahead.
According to Emefcy CEO Eytan Levy, the Energy Technology Ventures investment will be used for just that – in fact, it might even allow Emefcy to commercialize the process as soon as the end of this year.
Since the process consists of recycling and treating wastewater, it could be very promising for water-deficient nations.
Pond Venture Partners, Plan B Ventures, and Israel Cleantech Ventures have also invested in Emefcy.
The renewable process could extraordinarily minimize the carbon output of a currently carbon-heavy project.
That’s all for now,
Brianna
