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Manifest Mind® advises companies and strategic investors who must understand clean and sustainable technologies


We work to help high-net worth individuals, multi-nationals, & entrepreneurs maximize their investments:

Reports, Books, & Briefings on emerging markets
 Speaking Engagements & Industry Roundtables
 Limited Consulting Engagements

Our advisors are practitioners who are experts on smart grids & cities, analytics, modeling, renewable energy, energy efficiency, advanced resource management, and the stewardship of natural resources.

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Featured Research

Our research is featured in leading print and digital publications across the globe, and purchased by individuals, governments, and corporations that are making substantial investments in technology-driven reshaping, emerging, and developing markets. Visit our catalogue here.

The HEM Market Unraveled

The HEM Market Unraveled

  • Bryan Jungers: Author
  • Carol L. Stimmel: Founder and Managing Director


How Techno-Fetishism Unraveled the HEM Market and How Services Will Mend It


Over the last decade, many analysts have continued to produce myriad Home Energy Management (HEM) market forecasts, yet they have largely failed to materialize. This is because there has been a widespread belief among industry thought leaders that with enough education, proof, and insight of the negative impacts of energy wastage on the environment and the consumer wallet and information about how to change it, that home energy management technologies would simply take hold. This has been as effective as feeding cauliflower to a child who doesn’t like vegetables. The reason that these models have not risen to the level of expected buoyancy is a poor recognition of the emerging role of the service sector that increasingly drives the North American consumer purchasing decisions, including technology for the home.

Our expectations for the future of the HEM market represent a radical departure from this classic model – rather than relying on people to adopt gadgets and new habits, we see a more natural progression in the delivery of HEM services via channels to the home that customers already use and trust.

In the context of home services, total consumer demand for energy management is likely to expand rapidly relative to the limited market reach of product-only channels. We anticipate that the HEM market spending potential in North America via the dominant delivery channels will reach an annual value of $2.2 billion in 2022 and a cumulative market value of $15 billion in the 8 years forecasted, beginning in 2015. Because we are defining a shift from one market scenario to another, we have leveraged a normal baseline from the existing work in the field and driven our model from a familiar point-of-view. These channels include home entertainment, security, new construction, upgrades and retrofits, as well as utility services or programs.

However, we strongly assert that a continuing perspective of techno-fetishism will result in missed opportunities for market offerings that provide the value that consumers are actually seeking within the context of services. In fact, given current market characterizations for HEM, by around 2020 we expect those forecasts to be approaching saturation, whereas the economic shift to advanced services will likely be experiencing the beginning of a sharp rise. With this improved interpretation, we calculate that we will experience a healthy CAGR of 11.8% for the true HEM market beginning in 2015 through 2022.

This report may be acquired for the investment cost of $199 USD. “How Techno-Fetishism Unraveled the HEM Market and How Services Will Mend It” is available only under our Enterprise License agreement. This is our most flexible license, and allows for distribution across your company (license details are provided at purchase). Purchase now and you will be taken directly to our secure gateway. Once your payment is authorized, a link to the file will immediately be emailed to the address provided at checkout.

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Industry Briefings

Industry Briefings

Deep-dive weekly updates are available solely for our subscribers. Quarterly briefings are available for download by the public.

Industry Briefing, Q4 2014: Who Really Killed the Electric Car? Fracking.

Many of us hope this epitaph is never written. Yet, energy independence may come at a long-term cost. This briefing, written by the Manifest Mind leadership team Carol L. Stimmel and Bryan Jungers, provides critical insight for investors in the cleantech market.

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Advanced Lighting for Indoor Agriculture

Advanced Lighting for Indoor Agriculture

  • Bryan Jungers: Author
  • Carol L. Stimmel: Founder and Managing Director

A wide and growing array of commercially available lighting equipment is now being designed, manufactured, and marketed directly for use in controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) applications. CEA involves the use of technologies and techniques to protect and improve the cultivations of commercial agriculture. The reliable evaluation of performance for lighting-product performance is complicated by the diversity of technologies, the many variations in product design that “enhance” existing technology, and the wide variety of approaches to equipment and systems integration for commercial CEA applications. Today, poor product specifications and performance details are inconsistent from one manufacturer to the next, making the direct comparison of relative performance attributes like operational energy usage nearly impossible.

Within controlled agricultural environments, there is a growing demand for technology that will ensure consistently high crop yields and growth quality, energy, water, nutrients, labor, and reduced time to complete a grow cycle. this practical report explores lighting for its role in precision, high-yield indoor horticultural operations and provides fact-based insights for investors, product, and operators.

This report may be acquired for the investment cost of $344 USD. “Advanced Lighting for Indoor Agriculture” is available only under our Enterprise License agreement. This is our most flexible license, and allows for distribution across your company (license details are provided at purchase). Purchase now and you will be taken directly to our secure gateway. Once your payment is authorized, a link to the file will immediately be emailed to the address provided at checkout.

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Hydroponics for Sustainable Cultivation

Hydroponics for Sustainable Cultivation

  • Dulcey Simpkins, PhD: Author
  • Carol Stimmel: Author

Agriculture is a very conservative sector with many barriers to change and an inertia where “traditional” methods persist. Nevertheless, the drivers for transformation are more compelling. Movement toward protected agriculture is already surging worldwide, and soilless cultivation is riding that wave. The worldwide market value of hydroponically produced food will grow at 6.5 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the five-year forecast period from 2013 to 2018. This is a healthy pace compared to world gross domestic product (GDP) growth, which has ranged from 2.5 to 4.0 percent since the Great Recession, and is forecast at 2.9 percent for 2014.

This report provides a competitive assessment of the hydroponic food production market and the forces shaping it, the technologies and skill sets involved, and some key players and their prospects. It also covers important issues and trends affecting agriculture and food security that make hydroponics a viable and growing market—in particular, global phenomena like climate change that transcend any given market or firm—and identifies strategies and tools for risk mitigation and a sustainable, profitable path forward.

The “Emerging Hydroponics Industry” report with global financial forecasts through 2018 may be acquired at two separate investment levels:

Enterprise License (may distribute to anyone in your company): $895 USD
Personal License (may not distribute the report in any form): $595 USD

Please accurately specify which type of license you require for your needs, so we may continue to offer this flexibility to all of our readers. Purchase now and you will be taken directly to our secure gateway where you will be asked to agree to our terms. Once your payment is authorized, a link to the report (PDF) and forecast file (XLS) will immediately be emailed to the email address you provide at checkout.

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The Greening of the Marijuana Growing Industry

The Greening of the Marijuana Growing Industry

  • Bryan Jungers: Author
  • Carol Stimmel: Author

The United States is currently experiencing a radical transformation with respect to the legal status of marijuana – or in botanical terms, Cannabis. While some states have allowed for the medical use of cannabis since the mid-1990s, in 2012, two states legalized the recreational use of the plant. Colorado and Washington, especially, are grappling with the complex issues related to the  booming cannabis market sector, not the least of which is the intense energy drain that legal grow house operations put on the electricity grid. In Denver alone, industrial real estate brokers report that millions of square feet of industrial warehouse space is occupied by cultivation facilities. While illegal grow house operations have been a problem for electricity providers for many years, it has been assumed that with legalization this problem will grow dramatically worse. This is arguably not the case.

This report by Manifest Mind demonstrates that this is actually a moment of opportunity for growers, energy efficiency product and service vendors, and utilities alike. In fact, there are many viable solutions to the issue of grow house energy demand that were simply not available under the specter of criminalized growing operations. This report introduces the state of the industry, the fundamentals of the cannabis grow operation, techniques for managing energy demand, and best practices for applying these techniques directly for financial and environmental benefit.

This report may be acquired for the investment cost of $344 USD. “The Greening of Marijuana Growing Operations: Best Practices for Energy Efficiency and Conservation in the Cannabis Industry” is available only under our Enterprise License agreement. This is our most flexible license, and allows for distribution across your company (license details are provided at purchase). Purchase now and you will be taken directly to our secure gateway. Once your payment is authorized, a link to the file will immediately be emailed to the email address provided at checkout.

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Big Data Analytics Strategies for the Smart Grid

  • This book provides an in-depth analysis that will help utility executives, as well as regulators, investors, large power users and entrepreneurs, understand some of the tectonic changes coming to an industry that from the outside can seem impervious to change. Making sense of a chaotic future, Carol charts a path where everyone can benefit

    Amit Narayan, PhD, CEO, AutoGrid
  • Not only will adopting big data and predictive analytics improve the transmission and distribution of energy, it more importantly will enable providers to adopt a services mentality. In her exceptional book, Carol examines these trends and breaks down very complex topics into prose that is easy to understand. I highly recommend this book to anyone in the energy industry…

    Adrian Tuck, CEO, Tendril
  • Ms. Stimmel provides the framework, methodology, insight, and experiential observations to help utilities conceive, plan, implement, enhance, and sustain the imperative smart grid analytics required to achieve the inexorable change taking place in the energy delivery ecosystem.

    Ivo Steklac, GM Residential & Commercial Energy Solutions, SunPower Corporation
  • The author has done an excellent job of leveraging her experience in the industry and her strong technical background to create a book that is a very easy-to-read, useful tool for anyone trying to get started in applying big data analytics to the utility industry.

    Ron Gerrans, CEO, Genus Zero and former CEO, E Source

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Speaking our Minds

We are talking about ENERGY EFFICIENCY TECHNOLOGIES

The words “sustainability” and “cleantech” mean very little anymore; without a way forward they mean nothing at all. On our blog, the team and guest writers discuss our diverse world — people, the built environment, nature, and their relationships to the economy. We encourage passionate response and dialogue, as together we explore the factors relating to the endurance of systems and processes that will make the world more livable for all.

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Leadership Team

Our leadership team works hard to ensure our clients have the information they need to make enduring investment decisions in the complex world of cleantech and sustainability. Our integrity, independent spirit, and ability to create expert teams on-demand, have rapidly made Manifest Mind the most trusted source of insight for assessing opportunities in developing human economies, the built environment, and natural ecosystems.

Carol L. Stimmel

Carol L. Stimmel

Founder and Managing Director View Details
Bryan Jungers

Bryan Jungers

Principal Research Analyst View Details
Ryan Karlin

Ryan Karlin

Program Manager View Details
Janice Field

Janice Field

Community Outreach and Events Director View Details
Carol L. Stimmel

Carol L. Stimmel

Founder and Managing Director

Carol Stimmel has 23 years in emerging technology markets including operating roles, research and analysis, and product design. Despite studying philosophy which twisted her in knots, she is a frequent speaker, authored Big Data Analytics Strategies for the Smart Grid, The Manager Pool, and is deep into a new book on Smart Cities. She holds several technology patents, including energy benchmarking and communications.

Carol began working with “big data analytics” in 1991 while hacking code and modeling 3D systems for meteorological research—years before that combination of words ever became buzzword compliant. Over the course of her career, she has spent the last nearly 8-years focusing on the energy industry, including smart grid data analytics, microgrids, home automation, data security and privacy, smart grid standards, and renewables generation. She has participated in emerging technology markets for the majority of her career, including engineering, designing new products, and providing market intelligence and analysis to utilities and other energy industry stakeholders.

Carol has owned and operated a digital forensics company, worked with cutting-edge entrepreneurial teams; authored many industry publications; and held leadership roles with Gartner, E Source, Tendril, and Navigant Research.

Carol holds a BA in Philosophy from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and is working towards yet another professional certification at Stanford.

Bryan Jungers

Bryan Jungers

Principal Research Analyst

Bryan Jungers is a civil engineer who is an expert on the EV market, natural ecosystems, energy systems, and new tech assessment. His range of engineering modeling and simulation skills puts him on the razor’s edge of the advanced vehicle, energy-storage systems, air, watersheds and emerging markets for clean energy technologies, products, and services.

Our clients love his down-to-earth and accessible style, while never losing touch with the goals of his work — which usually involves something quite impressive with a spreadsheet. Bryan has worked with the Schatz Energy Research Center, the California Energy Commission (CEC), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and E Source.

He received his B.S. in Environmental Resources Engineering from Humboldt University and a Masters of Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Davis.

Ryan Karlin

Ryan Karlin

Program Manager

Ryan Karlin used to be up-close-and-personal with a Navy nuclear propulsion plant, but now focuses his extraordinary attention to detail on renewable and clean tech projects. Ryan has the business credentials and a tested ability to see the whole picture, while understanding every detail. Our clients appreciate his professional, tireless, and positive business ethic, which is always a cut above expectations.

Ryan has worked with several utilities in designing, implementing, and evaluating smart grid programs to meet short and long term strategic goals. Aside from running a tight ship, Ryan provides analysis to help smart meter enabled demand side management administrators design programs to achieve their goals and better understand their customers.

He holds a BS in Nuclear Engineering Technology from Thomas Edison State College and an MBA from the University of Colorado.

Janice Field

Janice Field

Community Outreach and Events Director

Janice is responsible for planning and direction of all corporate outreach, marketing, and special events sponsored by Manifest Mind.

With over 15 years of planning B2B conferences in the energy sector, from intimate workshops to multi-track conferences for hundreds, she has a proven track record for hyper-competence, grace under fire, and patience with last minute changes, busy executives, and late shipments. She is a maven of conference logistics, marcom, and happy, engaged attendees.

Apart from her obvious attendance at the school of hard knocks, Janice also holds a BA in English-Communications from St. Francis University.

Testimonials

  • Manifest Mind brings a fresh perspective to everything in which they are involved. Their vast knowledge and expertise allows them to develop innovative solutions that add real value to clients and further the growth of the cleantech industry. Manifest Mind challenges you to think beyond your comfort zone until the right solution is found.

    Wendy Potomski, Managing Director, Brookstone Strategy Group
  • Manifest Mind’s The Greening of Marijuana Growing Industry is a seminal report on this rapidly-evolving industry. Insightful, informative and constructive, this report highlights the challenges and portrays a vision for finding a meaningful path forward.

    Rich Barone, CEO, Croptimize
  • The team’s insights and enthusiasm are invaluable, and Carol is one of the top analysts in the energy industry. I admire their dedication to working with both energy providers and technology vendors to navigate our evolving market.

    Brad Langley, Director of Corporate Communications, Tendril
  • Engerati’s partnership with Manifest Mind has been created through a shared passion for knowledge. This opportunity will allow us to award our community with deeper coverage of the fast moving data analytic space, through Manifest Mind’s comprehensive industry reports and insights.

    Adam Malik, Content Director, Engerati
  • Instead of reading ten different reports you can just read this one to get up to speed quickly on the worldwide hydroponic industry. This is a detailed report that provides important and hard-to-find insights on the current and future state of the worldwide hydroponics industry.

    David E., Strategy Consultant, North America

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