In an article a few days ago, US Today highlighted 3 innovative renewable energy companies that may be big players in the future.  One is publicly traded geothermal upstart Raser Technologies (RZ) which is able to get plants up and running quickly while tapping into cooler sources of water for energy.  It recently completed its first commercial scale geothermal plant, a 10MW geothermal plant in Utah in just 6 months and plans to begin selling the energy to Anaheim, California by years end. 

The article also highlights two private companies in wind and solar energy – Heliovolt with its building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) and ExRo with its variable speed generators that fluctuates with the wind for better efficiency.