Clean Tech Entrepreneurs Win $500,000

Five startups took home prizes worth half a million dollars Tuesday at the California Clean Tech Open awards ceremony at San Francisco City Hall.

The business plan competition, sponsored by Silicon Valley venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, academics and environmental groups, is designed to jump-start clean technology innovation. A day before California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law the state's landmark global warming legislation, several hundred people gathered in city hall to hear San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, VC and clean tech money man Vinod Khosla and other speakers hail California's green revolution. "We don't need to wait for permission from the president of the United States" to fight global warming, Newsom told the crowd.

Each winner scored a "startup in a box" package worth $50,000 in cash and $50,000 worth of legal, accounting, public relation and executive search services. Check out the winners after the jump.

The Renewable Energy Prize went to GreenVolts, a Bay Area solar startup developing high concentration photovoltaic technology that doesn't use traditional silicon wafers.

The AMD Smart Power Prize was won by KiteShip, a Palo Alto, Calif., company that makes huge sails for cargo ships that reduce use of heavily polluting marine fuel.

The California Investor Owned Utilities Energy Efficiency Prize went to Adura Technologies, a Berkeley, Calif., company that makes wireless mesh network lighting control systems that save energy in commercial buildings.

The Agora Foundation Water Management Prize was won by Crystal Clear Technologies. The startup operating from Meno Park, Calif., and Portland, Ore., has developed a nanotechnology-based, low-cost water purification system.

The AMD Smart Power Prize went to EDC Technologies of Sebastopol, Calif. The company sells Internet controlled hot water systems designed to save natural gas in apartment buildings and other commercial facilties.