The Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council held an engaging lunch & learn at UBS The Siler-Rhea Group’s office location in Downtown Knoxville.

The event included Jetta Wong, Senior Advisor at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator serving as keynote speaker.

Jetta has over 14 years of experience developing programs and policies that support energy and environment technologies. Prior to joining LACI, Jetta Wong established the Office of Technology Transitions for the United States Department of Energy and served as its first Director. In that capacity, she assisted the private sector, state and local governments, universities, laboratories and other stakeholders and engaged with the Department on the commercialization of new technology.

She spoke about the status of cleantech, several cleantech accomplishments within the Department of Energy, and the organization she works for the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator.

“Cleantech is here to stay, and it’s not just because we want it to but the numbers are there,” said Wong.

She talked about how wind and solar are now competitive in several parts of the country, and that the audience should continue to think about how cleantech can continue to be competitive.

“Since 2008 distributed PV, utility-scale PV, wind power, and batteries have decreased in cost, and that’s what we need to see because that’s what innovation is all about,” said Wong.

She stressed the importance of economics and again that the cleantech sector is here to stay. She also talked about how the U.S. is in competition with China when it comes to cleantech. It’s been recently announced that China will invest $360 billion by 2020 in renewable energy, averaging $120 billion a year.

“We also need to be thinking about how we can bring private capital back into clean energy,” said Wong.

For more on Jetta’s presentation, visit TAEBC’s Facebook page.