GREEN START-UPS: GOOGLE recently announced two new investments in the green business sector: one in a US electricity-saving start-up, the other in a disruptive technology company that customises weather insurance for the agriculture industry.

If you’ve noticed that your laptop computer and mobile phone chargers get hot while they’re in use, this is because about 10 per cent of the electricity – which you’re paying for – dissipates as heat, as it is converted from alternating current to direct current.

California-based Transphorm, which has just received $20 million (€14.3 million) of investment led by Google, claims its technology can solve that problem and reduce the energy lost by up to 90 per cent.

The company’s technology uses gallium nitride, a semiconductor material found in LED lighting, to achieve these results. It can help to improve the efficiency of electric vehicles, data centres, solar power installations and buildings’ power systems.

Google is also a co-investor in a $42 million (€30 million) funding round in WeatherBill, a company founded in 2006 by two former employees.

Its insurance products are aimed at farmers wishing to protect their businesses and crops from adverse weather brought on by climate change.

Its technology enables the real-time pricing and purchasing of customised weather insurance by using data from weather modelling and local weather monitoring systems to pinpoint weather conditions expected to adversely affect a farmer’s land.

The company’s software then automatically pays the farmer if those weather incidents happen.

Agriculture is a $3 trillion (€2.14 trillion) global market, and more than 90 per cent of crop losses occur because of unexpected weather.

As the effects of climate change increase, so will the frequency of these occurrences, according to WeatherBill chief executive David Friedberg, who cited recent droughts in Russia and China and flooding in Australia as examples.