More than 75 cleantech and clean energy leaders representing the investment community, startups, utilities and public officials gathered in New York City last week for NECEC’s Second Annual Cleantech Financial Innovation Summit, hosted and sponsored by Wells Fargo and Chubb.

The focus of the day-long event was finding solutions to they key financing and investing challenges impacting the clean energy industry. NECEC lead the group of passionate and forward-thinking executives and industry leaders in interactive discussions and dialogue to highlight and develop ideas for new and potential financial innovations with the power to unlock solutions for the 21st-century energy system and clean transportation markets.

The morning speakers discussed various public and private capital financing mechanisms needed to scale the build out of a 21st-century energy system, while the afternoon session focused on the latest financial innovations unlocking new investors and growth in the Northeast. Speakers included:

• Dirk van Ouwerkerk, Partner for Microgrids, Anbaric
• Robert F. Lurie, Executive Vice President, CFO and Chief Strategy Officer, New York Power Authority
• Rhys Marsh, Director, CIT
• Bryan Garcia, President, and CEO, Connecticut Green Bank
• Mark Barnett, Co-Chair, Energy & Cleantech Group, Foley Hoag
• Alistair Pim, Corporate Development Executive, NECEC
• David Miller, Founder and Executive Managing Director, Clean Energy Venture Group
• Rachel M. Wasser, Director of Investment Operations, PRIME Coalition
• Rob Day, Founder, Spring Lane Capital
• Régine Clément, CEO, CREO Syndicate
• Daniel Hullah, Managing Director, GE Ventures
• Peter Rothstein, President, NECEC
• Greg Gorski, EVP Innovation, and New Business, ENGIE
• Henrik Holland, Head of Products, Connected Energy, Shell
• Mathew Sachs, VP Distributed Energy Development, National Grid

Following each panel, business leaders broke into collaborative breakout sessions for valuable learning and networking. Overall it was a great day full of collaboration between leaders in the finance community and clean energy industry to work towards new investment models, capital sources, and approaches to syndicate investments and public/private partnerships, as well as new energy services business models and solutions to drive the industry forward.