Retrofitting homes for energy efficiency may not be as expensive or unattainable as consumers may think, says Next Step Living founder and CEO Geoff Chapin. His Boston-based startup is working to bring energy improvements to more households by helping consumers making sense of the array of rebates and financial incentives available for such home renovations, and marketing the improvements to wider groups of homeowners, rather than individuals.

“We felt the big reason why people hadn’t taken action yet was that they didn’t know the real value of what people could achieve,” says Chapin, who’s worked as a consultant in the environmental space. “And they didn’t have the community to make it all happen. So we took a community approach.”

Next Step promotes its services through community-based initiatives with cities, nonprofit groups, and employers, like Boston-based EnerNOC. The startup performs home energy assessments and helps homeowners take the next steps in sealing up their houses to prevent heated or cooled air from escaping, a primary factor in driving up energy costs. One such partnership is with the Mass Audubon Society, where members get a discount on Next Step‘s energy efficiency services and track their reduced carbon footprint as a group.

As far as home improvements go, many consumers look to new windows or insulation to reduce their energy costs, but air sealing is an earlier step that can be more effective (and less expensive) than those other methods, Chapin says.

“In the past, people have had insulation put down in the home before the air sealing,” Chapin says. “That’s like wearing a knotted sweater. The air sealing puts down a windbreaker level beneath before the air flows through.”

Next Step starts home energy assessments by blowing air out of the front door of the house, creating a vacuum effect that causes air from outside to leak into the house wherever it can. The technicians then take an infrared camera and highlight the areas through the home where the most air is leaking—in other words, the spots most in need of air sealing.

“It creates a visual picture of what happens and shows the biggest areas for improvement,” Chapin says. “It helps consumers understand why a certain room is always cold and helps them understand what has previously been a black box for their home.”

NextStep comes back a few weeks later to perform the air sealing—by using a caulking gun and sealing cracks with foam—and insulation updates, and also helps consumers make sense of what … Next Page »

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Everyone has their own green environmental “a-ha” moment. Maybe it’s seeing birds drowning in oil, or paying $4 a gallon for gas, or reading about the plastic trash heap the size of Texas swirling around in the Pacific Ocean. For Susan Hunt Stevens, it was discovering her young son had serious food and environmental allergies, which prompted her to examine which ingredients and toxins were causing the health problems.

Her discovery came back in 2007, and it roughly coincided with Stevens and her family moving into a 19th-century Victorian home outside of Boston. So, in part to create a better living environment for her family, she decided to do a major “green renovation.” This effort has included generating electricity from waste energy (boiled water), using light-emitting diodes and compact fluorescent lamps for lighting, buying energy-saving appliances and plywood cabinetry made without formaldehyde glues, insulating the roof with healthy spray foam, installing bamboo shades and cork floors, using low-flow faucets and toilets, composting kitchen waste, and so on.

Along the way, Stevens decided to blog about the experience. She knows a thing or two about online media and consumer marketing, having been a longtime senior executive with The New York Times and Boston Globe, where she oversaw the news site Boston.com, among other things. [Disclosure: Stevens joined Xconomy’s board of directors last month---Eds.]

But when she originally started blogging about green issues, she got questions from readers about the industry that she couldn’t answer. That started her on the road to taking classes at the Boston Architectural College, where she learned cutting-edge green design.

Stevens is now the founder and CEO of Practically Green, a stealthy Web startup based in Boston that combines many of the things she has done in her career. I sat down with her last week to talk about the company and its significance to green sustainability issues, online business models, and technology trends like social networking and videogame mechanics.

The first thing to know about Practically Green is that it’s not just another “green content” site, or how-to blog about sustainability and the environment. Instead, think of it as being like Foursquare or FarmVille for the green lifestyle, mixed with WeightWatchers.com in terms of accessibility and support networks. And throw in a little Amazon.com and TripAdvisor for consumer reviews and e-commerce. The site uses social networks, gaming mechanics, and expert content to help consumers figure out “how green” they are, find reputable green products and services, and connect with other like-minded people so as to stay motivated to live a greener lifestyle. The big idea is to help consumers lead healthier lives, while also aiding the environment—and saving on their electric bill.

It’s also an intriguing example of the “gamification” trend we’ve been reporting on lately, whereby consumer websites and companies are trying to boost traffic, engagement, and customer loyalty … Next Page »

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In a ceremony attended by the state secretary of energy and environmental affairs, the director of energy initiatives at Google, and the CEO of NSTAR, the state’s largest utility, the $200,000 MIT Clean Energy Prize was awarded yesterday to a Michigan startup, Husk Insulation, whose innovations could help make refrigerators far more efficient—and roomier to boot.

Funded by NSTAR and the U.S. Department of Energy, the grand prize honors the student team with the most convincing and promising business plan for a successful energy or clean technology startup. It was part of over $500,000 in cash and in-kind prizes handed out to five student-led startups yesterday, including Husk and the winners in four subcategories of this year’s competition.

The Obama Administration has made the push for higher efficiency standards for household appliances, including refrigerators, a key part of its energy policy. In a three-minute “rocket pitch” for Husk before the prize announcement yesterday, Husk vice president of sales and marketing Erica Graham said the company’s patented technology—in which rice husk ash is converted into the core material for vacuum-sealed insulating panels—could increase refrigerator efficiency by up to 50 percent. Moreover, the superior thermal properties of this agricultural byproduct mean that a 1-inch-thick panel containing rice husk ash provides as much insulation as a 4-inch-thick panel filled with polystyrene. So refrigerators made with the new material could have 20 percent more interior space on the same footprint.

If every refrigerator in the United States were replaced with a model containing Husk Insulation’s material, the country could reduce its annual electricity consumption by 57 billion kilowatt hours—the equivalent of closing 31 coal-fired power plants, Graham said. Such a reduction would cut the nation’s overall carbon-dioxide emissions by 1.5 percent. And that’s not even counting the reductions in petroleum consumption that would come from avoiding polystyrene.

Walking away from the competition with a $200,000 check was “exhilarating,” Graham told Xconomy after the announcement. “There were so many teams that were very qualified. We’re very excited.”

Graham said the money would be a key part of the seed round for Husk, which advanced to the finals of the clean energy competition by winning in the biomass category—an achievement that itself carried a $10,000 prize, sponsored by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s Renewable Energy Trust. The money “will help us get to a market-ready prototype,” Graham said.

Husk has been making the rounds of the cleantech business-plan competitions. In March, the startup won second prize in the Cleantech Venture Challenge hosted by the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Leeds School of Business. The same month, it won the $21,000 second-place award in a clean energy prize competition in Ann Arbor, MI, sponsored by Detroit-based utility DTE Energy.

The other finalists competing for the $200,000 grand prize included three startups led by MIT students and one led by students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY. Bob talked with students from several of the teams at last Friday’s reception for MIT-affiliated finalists in the Clean Energy Prize Competition and the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.

Levant Power, as winner of the transportation category, collected a $10,000 prize sponsored by Sandia National Laboratory’s Combustion Research Facilities. The company is developing an energy-recovering shock absorber for military vehicles, large trucks, and hybrid gas-electric cars. Founder Shakeel Avadhany, an MIT undergraduate, says the device can increase vehicle fuel economy by … Next Page »

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Aspen Aerogels, the maker of nanotechnology-based insulation products, has snagged $37 million in venture capital, according to a statement on the company’s website. The privately-held company, based in Northborough, MA, received the investment from Arcapita Ventures, Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, Reservoir Capital Group, and RockPort Capital Partners.

The company says its aerogel-based insulation products are as much as eight times more effective at conserving heat and energy than existing materials. That enables customers to save money in various industries like oil and gas production, airplane manufacturing, and even outdoor clothing.

“Aspen’s proprietary aerogel technologies and manufacturing processes have the potential to redefine large portions of the $30 billion global insulation market,” said Ramsey Battin, director of Arcapita Ventures, in a company statement.

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