San Diego's Cleantech Cluster
800+ cleantech companies and counting
Through collaboration and leadership, the San Diego region has established itself as a global leader in the cleantech economy. With over 800 cleantech companies in the region, including over 300 innovator companies and over 400 market enabler companies, San Diego’s diverse cluster of cleantech enterprises makes for a hotbed of innovation and investment.
San Diego’s cleantech cluster is supported by a collaborative network of city officials, private and public businesses, leading universities, prominent research institutions, and nonprofit organizations combining synergistically to accelerate the adoption of cleantech activities and to attract national and multinational leaders to the region.
Leading the effort and tracking the growth of cleantech companies in the region through the region’s only cluster database is CleanTECH San Diego. The organization was created to help the region prepare for and benefit from the nation’s move to a clean technology economy. CleanTECH San Diego is building on the region’s leading position in life sciences, materials and technology, with a mission to accelerate the region as a world leader in the clean technology economy.
Over 121,000 San Diegans are employed in this burgeoning cleantech sector with job growth estimated at six percent by 2015. To create a baseline from which to track the growth and economic impact of San Diego’s cleantech sector on the region’s economy, CleanTECH San Diego and Bank of America commissioned San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) to compile regional data in biofuels, clean transportation, energy efficiency, energy storage, smart grid and solar energy generation. Read the reports here.
Other major milestones for the region’s cleantech economy include:
- San Diego ranks as the Number 1 Solar City by Environment California
- San Diego earns iHub Designation for Solar Storage and Biofuels by the state of California
- SDG&E named the most intelligent utility in the U.S. three years in a row (2009, 2010, 2011) by Intelligent Utility Magazine.
- New cleantech manufacturing facilities expand in the region, generating hundreds of new jobs
- Receipt of a $4 million grant to create workforce training programs to support the growth of the region’s biofuels sector
- CleanTECH San Diego ranks as one of the Top 10 cluster organizations in the world
- CleanTECH San Diego is a co-founding member and 2010 host of the U.S. launch of the Global Cleantech Cluster Association (GCCA)
- Ten more reasons why San Diego is a cleantech leader