MIT Energy Competition - Ignite Clean Energy!

RSI Silicon, a materials company that has developed a low-cost process for making solar-grade silicon, walked away the big winner at last night's Ignite Clean Energy Business Presentation Competition. RSI Silicon won the grand prize -- $25,000 in cash plus other goodies (rent, legal services) for a total prize value of $111,000. The company also won The Peoples' Choice award, which attendees at yesterday's event could vote on.

Other winners included:

• Second place, student -- Bagazo, which aims to develop self-sustaining cooking fuel generation, using agricultural waste, for developing countries
• Second place, professional -- Fox2 Technologies, which is developing new sensor technology for airplane and trucking operators that improves fuel efficiency by more than 5 percent, while also reducing carbon emissions.
• Third place, student -- C3 BioEnergy, which is working on manufacturing renewable propane and a hydrogen byproduct from biomass feedstocks
• Third place, professional -- GreenRay, which is developing a plug-and-play, solar-electric system for the simple installation of solar power to common residences.

(Thanks to Mass High Tech for the descriptions of these companies; many of them don't yet have websites.)