Sydney Lienemann, bottom right, founder of UpCycle Power, celebrates her win at the Arrowhead Innovation Fund’s 2021 Pitch Competition. (Courtesy photo) SANTA FE, N.M. — Old electric vehicle batteries could soon provide backup storage power for renewable generation systems through a local startup, UpCycle Power, which plans to repurpose used car batteries for clean-energy markets. The company won a $5,000 first-place prize last March at Arrowhead Innovation Fund’s 2021 pitch competition at New Mexico State University after UpCycle founder Sydney Lienemann received in-depth mentoring and assistance from NMSU to turn her innovative idea into a marketable product. The Foster Innovation Exchange Prototyping Lab at New Mexico State University has supported the development of a complex prototype for Evus, a startup creating a technology intended to mitigate scaling and fouling formation in all water filtration plant and heat transfer systems. (Courtesy photo)