Darren Kimura | |
|---|---|
 Kimura in 2013 | |
| Born | September 10, 1974 |
| Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur, Investor, Inventor |
| Known for | Inventor of MicroCSP |
| Title | Managing Partner of Enerdigm Ventures |
| Website | twitter |
Darren T. Kimura (born September 10, 1974, Hilo, Hawaii) is an American businessman, inventor, and investor. He is best known as the inventor of micro concentrated solar power (CSP) technology [1] [2] known as MicroCSP. [3]
Kimura was born to Japanese American parents in Hilo, Hawaii and graduated from Waiakea High School. [4] He achieved the rank of Eagle Scout as a member in the Boy Scouts of America. He studied Computer Science and Business Management at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He later attended Portland State University, studying Electrical Engineering and Stanford University studying Computer Science and is an Alumni from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. [5] During the 2009 flu pandemic, Newsweek covered Darren's challenges in finding Tamiflu for his wife Kelly due to hoarding. [6]
Kimura began his career as an entrepreneur bringing the sport of paintball to Hawaii while still in high school.[ citation needed ] When attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa he worked in the Information and Computer Sciences department, where he launched Nalu Communications, an internet service provider. [7] Later, he created and expanded Energy Industries Corporation. With the support of Energy Industries he created Energy Laboratories, [8] as an incubator for start-up companies, and Enerdigm Ventures, [9] a venture capital firm to seed and support early to growth stage companies. MicroCSP Technology and Sopogy, Inc. began as a spin-off of at Energy Laboratories and was initially funded by Kimura and Enerdigm Ventures. [10] Kimura and Enerdigm Ventures invested in the creation of LiveAction. [11] Kimura and Enerdigm Ventures invested in the creation of Spin Technology a Data backup product for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, [12] and Kimura joined Open Source technology provider ZEDEDA as its President and Chief Operating Officer. [13]
He also supported the construction of the world's first MicroCSP project, called Holaniku at Keahole Point. [14] [15] He served as a director to the State of Hawaii Venture Capital fund. [16] His entrepreneurial accomplishments has led him to be featured on the cover of MidWeek , [17] on the cover of Pacific Edge, [18] in Entrepreneur , [19] and in the 2007 book The Greater Good: Life Lessons from Hawaii's Leaders. [20] He was also a live guest with Al Gore on The Climate Reality Project on 24 Hours of Reality – The Dirty Weather Report . [21] He was featured in the Hawaiian Electric Company's clean energy promotion, which was highlighted during the APEC United States 2011 [22] and is an author at Cisco blogs. [23]
In 2012, Kimura launched a campaign [24] to change the name of the Honolulu International Airport to the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, in honor of the late Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye which was achieved in 2017. [25]
Kimura started Energy Conservation Hawaii in 1994, [26] from the back of his SUV, [27] using his surfboard as his desk. [28] In a few years the company reached $50 million in revenues and began national expansion. [29] Kimura changed the company name to Energy Industries Corporation to appeal to its national markets, and he remains the largest shareholder. The underlying concept for creating Energy Industries Corporation was to help make energy efficiency simple. In his work at Energy Industries Corporation, Kimura provided Energy Star consulting services in such locations as Hawaii, [30] Palau, [31] Guam [32] and Saipan. [33] In 2008, Energy Industries Corporation was featured in The Wall Street Journal article "Alternative State", about renewable energy projects created in Hawaii. [34]
The concept for MicroCSP technologies were created when Kimura attempted to install a conventional Concentrating Solar Power trough in Kona, Hawaii. Realizing that it was uneconomical and not practical to ship, install and operate such large components in remote locations like Hawaii, Kimura worked on reducing the dimensions of the solar collector which led to reconfiguring the technology and incorporating the use of state of the art materials. [35] MicroCSP is used for community-sized power plants (1 MW to 50 MW), for industrial, agricultural and manufacturing 'process heat' applications, and when large amounts of hot water are needed, such as resort swimming pools, water parks, large laundry facilities, sterilization, distillation and other such uses. [36] MIT also studied the use of MicroCSP technology in power generation using the Organic Rankine Cycle. [37] Kimura trademarked the term MicroCSP [38] and later released the term for use in the public domain to help accelerate MicroCSP adoption. His US Patent on the idea ( U.S. patent 20,080,127,967 ) served as the basis for other MicroCSP inventions. Companies producing MicroCSP technologies include GlassPoint Solar [39] Abengoa Solar [40] Aora [41] Sun2Power [42] Chromasun [43] SolarLite [44] NEP Solar [45] Novatec Solar [46] Industrial Solar [47] Focal Point Energy [48] SunTrough [49] Focused Sun [50] Heat 2 Power [51] and Nanogen [52] and Tamuz Energy. [53]
Solar Power Technology company or "Sopogy", was a solar thermal technology supplier, was founded in 2002 at the Honolulu, Hawaii–based clean technology incubator known as Energy Laboratories. [54] The company began its research on concentrating solar thermal energy to produce solar steam and thermal heat for absorption chillers or industrial process heat. The company has also developed applications that incorporate its solar collectors to generate electricity and desalination. Kimura created the company name from taking sections of key words including "SO" from Solar, "PO" from "Power", and "GY" from "Energy and Technology". [55] The company's OEM and IPP sales teams are located in Honolulu along with its research and development, [56] and in 2006 it expanded its manufacturing, C&I, and oil and gas sales teams in its Silicon Valley facility. [57] Sopogy has installed 200 megawatts in China, [58] [59] and 360 megawatts in Thailand. [60] Kimura and Sopogy, along with First Solar, were featured in the Whole Foods Market documentary Thrive. [61] In 2011 Sopogy was honored with the APEC Business Innovation Award, [62] and was featured on the cover of the Los Angeles Times . [63]
Sopogy completed a Series E preferred financing in October 2012 led by Mitsui & Co. and SunEdison, a U.S. solar company, Sempra Energy, 3M, and others. [64] The company announced that Darren Kimura had stepped down as the chairman, chief executive officer and president in March 2013, and SunEdison installed one of its executives as president of the company. [65] After completing a hand-over period, Darren Kimura left the company in May 2013. [66] Sopogy was acquired by Hitachi Power Systems in 2014. [67]
Enerdigm Ventures invested in the founding of LiveAction, Inc., an enterprise network management software company which was originally a government project funded in 2007 at Referentia Systems, Inc. [68] and Kimura joined the company as Chairman of the Board of Directors, Executive Chairman [69] and later as Chief Executive Officer. [70] The Company is best known for its NetFlow visualization capabilities [71] and quality of service monitoring and configuration capabilities. [72] Kimura led LiveAction to achieve a place on the Cisco Solutions Plus Program [73] and completed LiveAction's Series A financing that included participation by Enerdigm Ventures, [74] AITV and Cisco Systems [75] LiveAction expanded its capabilities in scale to achieve an industry leading 1 million flows per second [76] and began expanding as a network visualization platform including capabilities in Software Defined Networking and SD-WAN. [77] Under Kimura, LiveAction launched LiveAgent to extend visibility to the network end point [78] and LiveAction completed a $36 million Series B financing led by Insight Venture Partners, Cisco Systems and AITV in early 2016. [79] In December 2017, Kimura led the acquisition of LivingObjects' Service Provider network monitoring platform [80] and to the creation of the LiveSP business unit at LiveAction. [81] In June 2018, Kimura led the acquisition of Savvius [82] formerly known as WildPackets [83] famous for their OmniPeek protocol analysis software. Kimura retired from LiveAction business operations in 2019.
In 2020, Enerdigm Ventures invested in Spin Technology, Inc., formerly known as SpinBackup a data backup product for G-Suite or Office 365 and Kimura joined the company as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Executive Chairman. [84] where he developed SpinOne, the company's integrated product offering also referred to as Spin.ai. [85] The technology provides API based data protection for businesses critical SaaS cloud based data in G Suite and Office 365 environments, Application and Extension risk assessments for G-Suite and Cyber Liability Insurance . [86] Spin.ai has a 4.9 rating out of 5 in the G Suite marketplace. [87] . In 2022, Spin Technology closes it's Series A financing [88] and Enerdigm Ventures and Kimura exited the company.
In 2021, Kimura joined ZEDEDA, an open-sourced, distributed, cloud-native edge computing orchestration solution as it's President and Chief Operating Officer. [89] . While at ZEDEDA, Kimura led to the acquisition of the company's $26 Million Series B [90] and $72 Million Series C financing [91] at a $400 Million post-money valuation [92] . After nearly 4 years of service, Kimura announced his exit from the company in Q4 2024. [93]
While at ZEDEDA, Kimura served on the steering committee of Margo, a Linux Foundation initiative for interoperability at the edge of industrial automation ecosystems. [94]
Kimura received the 2002 SBA Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. [95] He was honored as the 2007 Green Entrepreneur, [96] and received the Blue Planet Foundation award in 2009. [97] He also received the Hawaii Venture Capital Association Deal of the Year award in 2012. [98] He was named to the 2010 Hawaii Business Magazine 's "10 for Today", along with professional baseball player Shane Victorino, and founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar, [99] and was named to the Pacific Business News 's "10 to Watch in 2013", [100] along with video game developer and video game Tetris distributor Henk Rogers.
Kimura is active in community and philanthropic activities with a strong focus on Hawaii. He serves as vice president and director at Blue Planet Foundation, [101] and vice president and director at SEE-IT (Science Engineering Exposition of Innovative Technologies), [102] He is also on the board of directors at PBS Hawaii, [103] is entrepreneur in residence at Punahou School, [104] is on the board of directors at Enterprise Honolulu, the Oahu Economic Development Board, [105] and is on the Dean's Council of University of Hawaii at Manoa's College of Engineering. [106] Kimura sponsors the Hawaii Island Science Fair "Kimura Award for Innovations in Clean Energy [107] " which was awarded to Felix Peng (2016) of Waiakea High School, [108] Ben Kubo (2017) of Parker School, Cesar Rivera (2017) of St Joseph School of Hilo. Also in 2017, Kimura expanded the Hawaii Island Science Fair award to include the "Kimura Award for Innovations in Computer Science" [109] which was awarded to Ara Uhr of Hilo High School. Kimura also serves as an advisor to the Japan Innovation Campus [110] based in Silicon Valley, Palo Alto CA which is sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry as an initiative of the Japanese government's Five-Year Start-Up Fostering Plan [111]
Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy for use in industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors. Solar thermal collectors are classified by the United States Energy Information Administration as low-, medium-, or high-temperature collectors. Low-temperature collectors are generally unglazed and used to heat swimming pools or to heat ventilation air. Medium-temperature collectors are also usually flat plates but are used for heating water or air for residential and commercial use.
Gemasolar is a concentrated solar power plant with a molten salt heat storage system. It is located within the city limits of Fuentes de Andalucía in the province of Seville, Spain.
Sopogy short for Solar Power Technology was a solar thermal technology supplier founded in 2002 at the Honolulu, Hawaii-based clean technology incubator known as Energy Laboratories. The company began its research on concentrating solar thermal energy to produce solar steam and thermal heat for absorption chillers or industrial process heat. The company has also developed applications that incorporate its solar collectors to generate electricity and desalination. Sopogy's name origin comes from industry key words "So" from solar "po" from power and "gy" from energy and technology. The company has its OEM and IPP sales teams along with research and development located in Honolulu, and in 2006 expanded its manufacturing, C&I and oil and gas sales teams in its Silicon Valley facility. Pacific Business News and Greentech Media reported that the VC-funded micro-concentrator solar power firm was shutting down operations based on statements from its President David Fernandez, however Hitachi Power Systems acquired Sopogy in a private transaction in 2014.
The Solana Generating Station is a solar power plant near Gila Bend, Arizona, about 70 miles (110 km) southwest of Phoenix. It was completed in 2013. When commissioned, it was the largest parabolic trough plant in the world, and the first U.S. solar plant with molten salt thermal energy storage. Built by the Spanish company Abengoa Solar, the project can produce up to 280 megawatts (MW) gross, supplied by two 140 MW gross (125 MW net) steam turbine generators: enough electricity to meet the needs of approximately 70,000 homes and obviate the emission of roughly 475,000 tons of CO2 every year. Its name is the Spanish term for "sunny spot".
Concentrated solar power systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight into a receiver. Electricity is generated when the concentrated light is converted to heat, which drives a heat engine connected to an electrical power generator or powers a thermochemical reaction.
BrightSource Energy, Inc. is an Oakland, California based, corporation that designs, builds, finances, and operates utility-scale solar power plants. Greentech Media ranked BrightSource as one of the top 10 greentech startups in the world in 2008.
SolarReserve was a developer of utility-scale solar power projects which include Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Photovoltaic (PV) technology. The company has commercialized solar thermal energy storage technology that enables solar power tower CSP plants to deliver electricity day and night. In this technology, a molten salt is used to capture the energy from the sun and store it. When electricity is needed, the stored liquid salt is used to turn water into steam to turn a turbine and generate electricity.
eSolar is a privately held company that develops concentrating solar power (CSP) plant technology. The company was founded by the Pasadena-based business incubator Idealab in 2007 as a developer of CSP plant technology. The company aims to develop a low cost alternative to fossil fuels through a combination of small heliostats, modular architecture, and a high-precision sun-tracking system. In October 2017, an article in GreenTech Media suggested that eSolar ceased business in late 2016.
Solar power in Arizona has the potential to, according to then-Governor Janet Napolitano, make Arizona "the Persian Gulf of solar energy". In 2012, Arizona had 1,106 MW of photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems, and 6 MW of concentrated solar power (CSP), bringing the total to over 1,112 megawatts (MW) of solar power. As an example, the Solana Generating Station, a 280 MW parabolic trough solar plant, when commissioned in 2013, was the largest parabolic trough plant in the world and the first U.S. solar plant with molten salt thermal energy storage.
Sierra SunTower was a 5 MW commercial concentrating solar power (CSP) plant built and operated by eSolar. The plant is located in Lancaster, California. As of mid-September, 2022, the two towers that were the center of the facility are no longer standing. However the rest of the plant is still present.
Holaniku at Keahole Point is a 2MW micro-scaled concentrated solar power plant in the Kona District of the island of Hawaiʻi. It is located in the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii at Keahole Point.
Solarlite CSP Technology GmbH is located in Mecklenburg-Pomerania, Germany. Solarlite develops decentralized solar-thermal parabolic trough power plants and process heat plants.
Areva Solar was part of the renewable energies portfolio of the French nuclear group Areva, headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in the United States and Australia. It designed, manufactured and installed solar steam generators for electric power production and industrial steam uses. Before 2010, the company existed as Ausra Inc. In August 2014, AREVA announced it was shuttering AREVA Solar.
The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project is a solar thermal power project with an installed capacity of 110 megawatt (MW) and 1.1 gigawatt-hours of energy storage located near Tonopah, about 190 miles (310 km) northwest of Las Vegas. Crescent Dunes is the first commercial concentrated solar power (CSP) plant with a central receiver tower and advanced molten salt energy storage technology at full scale, following the experimental Solar Two and Gemasolar in Spain at 50 MW. As of 2023, it is operated by its new owner; ACS, and in a new contract with NV Energy, it now supplies solar energy at night only, drawing on thermal energy stored each day.
Energy in the U.S. state of Hawaii is produced from a mixture of fossil fuel and renewable resources. Producing energy is complicated by the state's isolated location and lack of fossil fuel resources. The state relies heavily on imports of petroleum; Hawaii has the highest share of petroleum use in the United States, with 67% of electricity generation in the state coming from petroleum in 2023, compared to less than 1% nationally.
ACWA Power is a developer, investor, co-owner and operator of a portfolio of power generation and desalinated water production plants with a presence in 13 countries across the Middle East, Africa, and central and southeast Asia. ACWA Power's portfolio of projects in operation and development has an investment value of USD 85.7 billion, and a capacity of 55.1 GW of power and 8 million m3/day of desalinated water.
Termosolar Borges is a hybrid biomass-parabolic trough solar thermal power plant which provides electricity to Spain's transmission system. It is located about 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of Barcelona, about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south-east of Lleida, near Les Borges Blanques, Catalonia, Spain.
mobi, Inc. is a wireless carrier founded in 2004 and based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. The company provides service on each of the major islands of Hawaiʻi, as well as on the mainland United States through roaming agreements with other carriers.
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