New incubator aims to charge energy sector.

• Position: Charlotte

The Charlotte energy sector, which President Barack Obama has repeatedly praised, features such behemoths as Duke Energy Corp. and Siemens Energy Inc., a subsidiary of Germany-based Siemens AG. But economic-development officials are quick to admit its biggest flaw: a Sack of startups. "It's one of those areas that we're probably a little more challenged in," says David Swenson, senior vice president of Charlotte Regional Partnership. CLT Joules, the first energy-specific business incubator in the Queen City, hopes to change that.

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The nonprofit will open its doors in April, providing discounted office space at Packard Place--a for-profit, nonindustry-specific incubator in downtown Charlotte--and a 12-to 24-month business-management program for startups or companies that generate less than $1 million of revenue. Co-founder Curtis Watkms, a project manager in Charlotte-based Duke Energy's global-technology department, hesitates to discuss requirements but says, as an example, tenants won't be solar-panel installers; they'll be designing better solar panels. Three startups have committed to it, though Watkins won't reveal their names until they move in. An all-volunteer board of directors, which includes Watkins, a City Council member, the chief operating officer of a Virginia-based smart-grid company, a lawyer and an accountant, will mentor them.

Watkins came up with the idea two years ago. "I had been doing some research around what other cities with large energy industries had been doing. One of the things that stood out was they all had something to attract...