Cleantech Update

San Diego-based Achates Power has raised $12.1M in a $20M funding round. The startup's include Sequoia Capital , Madrone Capital Partners, Rockport Capital Partners, and InterWest Partners . Achates had raised $35M. It is developing a diesel engine technology that promises a 50% improvement in fuel economy at a cost hike of 30% of current diesel models. For you gear heads out there, know that fuel efficiency gains are achieved, in part, because the two-stroke engine lacks a cylinder head, an engine component that loses 8% of energy as heat. Rather, there are two pistons, which offer 2x the power density, in the engine, which is lighter and smaller than its competition. Achates has in interesting financial model - it plans to license its technology to engine manufacturers and vehicle makers for $50M, plus a 5% royalty per unit. Achates has a couple of other startup competitors including EcoMotors and Transonic Combustion The Rest @ The Alarm Clock

Miasole was founded by veterans of the hard disk industry with founder Dave Pearce who leveraged their expertise in hard disk manufacturing to introduce new manufacturing processes into the thin-film solar industry. In December 2006, the company's CEO announced that 50MW of manufacturing capacity as well as an IPO is imminent but the company failed to deliver on the milestone. In September 2007, semiconductor equipment executive Joseph Laia was brought in as CEO to move the company to volume production. The company has 40 MW of production capacity at its Santa Clara facility, and claims that as of May 2008 it was making modules at 9% to 10% efficiencies on those production tools. NREL has since independently verified two 10% Miasole CIGS modules. At this time, none of the company's founders is with the company any longer. Kannan Ramanathan, who served as chief research officer at Miasolé from 2006 to 2008 has left the company in November 2008. Dave Pearce stepped...

The Obama administration on Friday used the California site of a planned solar-panel factory to complete the first-ever loan guarantee for a renewable-energy project, a $535 million deal that will allow Solyndra Inc. to create hundreds of jobs. The announcement, outlined by Vice President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a region battered by an auto-factory shutdown, comes as Obama administration officials are hoping to show that investments in clean energy projects can help reverse almost two years of job losses. In March, Solyndra became the first company awarded a loan guarantee under a 2005 program intended to spur renewable energy projects. But the company for months had been unable to lock in the loan because of problems raising the necessary private funds required by the Energy Department to close the deal. Fortunately for Solyndra, its venture backers stepped up, investing $198 million in equity in a round led by shareholder Argonaut Private Equity, an investm...

This interesting piece was posted in the Linkedin Cleantech group  pormoting research white paper.com. Promoting commerce is a great thing if its good stuff.  Its an exec summay of  global meta analysis whitepaper on what kind of cleantech each country will be meeting in the future. Thanks, Karen Zang -Editor CleanTech &  Environmental: Emerging Markets Part 1 Our research has highlighted a number of emerging opportunities and markets for different environmental applications; with new opportunities in emerging markets, let us look at China and Gulf States in Part 1. Visit http://researchwhitepaper.com for Global CleanTech & Environmental Capital Providers Guide We had interviewed a number of CleanTech /Environmental professionals in emerging markets last month as well as meeting with the Government policymakers to find out what their “priorities” are in terms of cleantech / environmental tasks. China (National and Health Issues) • H...

Augsut 5th The Energy Information Agency (EIA), has issued a draft analysis which makes the case for chartering a Green Bank/Clean Energy Deployment Administration. A Green Bank would, according to John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, “enable clean-energy technologies—in such areas as wind, solar, geothermal, advanced biomass, and energy efficiency—to be deployed on a large scale and become commercially viable at current electricity costs.” The establishment of a Green Bank and the Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) has already been included in the House energy bill and the Senate Energy Committee bill. Reed Hundt, co-chair of the Coalition for the Green Bank said, “CEDA’s low-cost financing can protect consumers state by state from any electricity price increases as well as create millions of new jobs converting our nation from carbon to clean as the basis of our economy.” Podesta pointed out that “China is investing $220 billion of its economic stim...

August 18, 2009, 5:56 am The U.S. green technology sector, which suffered a drop in funding early this year, is seeing renewed interest with venture dollars flowing in once again to promising startups and some companies looking to resurrect public offerings that had been set aside, Reuters reported. Investment is seen shifting from capital-intensive energy generating technologies, such as solar and wind, to those associated with energy storage, transportation and efficiency. Bets are being placed on lithium-ion battery makers and startups in the smart grid sector that offer a range of possibilities from helping electric utilities operate systems more efficiently to enabling consumers to control energy use. Smart grid technologies aim to make the existing power grid more efficient and reliable. “Six to nine months ago, people were putting the brakes on everything,” said Gary Vollen, managing director of Robert W. Baird’s clean technology investment banking . “I don’t think w...

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Renewable Ventures, a Fotowatio company, today announced the completion of Solar Fund V to finance more than $200 million of new solar energy projects across the United States. The fund's first project is a two-megawatt solar photovoltaic project located in Ft. Collins, Colorado that will sell energy to Colorado State University and renewable energy credits to one of the state's utilities, Xcel Energy. Solar Fund V, the fifth fund organized by Renewable Ventures and the first as Fotowatio's U.S.-based subsidiary, reinforces the company's growth strategy in the United States. The fund will focus on the development and acquisition of commercial, public sector, and utility-scale solar projects from one to 10 megawatts in size. "With this new infusion of capital, we stand ready to work with businesses, utilities and others to immediately finance, develop, or acquire megawatts of large-scale solar projects in the U.S.," said Re...

US venture capital investment in cleantech companies in Q2 2009 reached $572m, an increase of 73 per cent in terms of capital, with 48 financing rounds, a 100 per cent increase in number of transactions compared to Q1 2009, according to an Ernst & Young analysis based on data from Dow Jones VentureSource. Compared to Q2 08, the second-highest quarter for cleantech investment on record, the Q2 09 results were 59 per cent and 16 per cent below those record levels in terms of capital and number of transactions respectively. Venture capital investment in cleantech in Q2 09 was lead by the Energy/Electricity Generation category, which raised $157m, a quarterly increase of 181 per cent as compared to Q1 09 . Within this category, solar deals received the lion’s share of capital, more than trebling to $148m compared to the prior quarter. Deal activity in the solar segment represented 26 per cent of all quarterly cleantech investment by venture capital firms. The solar results were driven...

SOLAR Size of industry:Worldwide: $29.6 billion U.S.: $3 billion, accounting for 0.4% of the nation's electricity Major players: First Solar, SunPower, China Sunergy (China), Suntech Power (China) Potential: Could provide 10% of the nation's electricity by 2025. Worldwide sales could grow to $81 billion by 2018. Problems: Solar energy wonÕt be cost-competitive with other forms of energy until 2015Ñtoday it relies heavily on subsidies. Also, growth depends heavily on the development of nationwide power grids. WIND Size of industry:Worldwide: $51 billion- U.S.: $17 billion, accounting for 1.3% of the nation's electricity Major players: General Electric, Vestas (Denmark), Gamesa (Spain), Siemens (Germany), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan) Potential: The industry seeks to produce 20% of U.S. electricity by 2030. Sales could hit $35 billion a year in a few years. Worldwide: $139 billion by 2018. Problems: Getting the electricity to major cities from remote wind farms will re...

From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, June 2009 Business isn't so sunny these days for SolarCity, the country's largest installer of residential solar-power systems. But Lyndon Rive, chief executive of the Foster City, Cal., firm, says it's an absence of financing, rather than a lack of demand, that has caused the slowdown. "Once you address that bottleneck," he says, "solar power will boom." So, too, will the entire spectrum of renewable-energy stocks, which lately have generated as much sizzle as a solar panel in an eclipse. A year ago, alternative energy shone brightly. Then came the financial crisis, which starved the industry of its lifeblood: capital. Lack of it caused demand to tumble and inventories to grow. Says Gregory Wetstone, of the American Wind Energy Association : "Our astronomical growth came to a screeching halt in late 2008." As a result, alternative-energy stocks crumbled. The WilderHill Clean Energy Index, which ...

Summer 09 The State of Renewable Energy Finanace Video from the European Venture Capital Forum specficially focused on CleanTech

After a two-quarter period of falling venture capital investments in the cleantech space, the industry is finally picking back up again. But the prospects for early-stage companies and entrepreneurs looking for funding is mixed. "It's a challenge for the venture community to have the conviction to truly invest in the kind of venture-backed profile deals that we need and not invest in another 'me-too' deal that is defining today."-- Ira Ehrenpreis, General Partner, Technology Partners Despite the recent declines in investment, the macro-trends for cleantech venture capital are very positive — funds are getting bigger, the market for clean energy has grown to a respectable size and long-term signals from government are coming together. “This is a renaissance time for the cleantech sector,” said Ira Ehrenpreis, a general partner with the firm Technology Partners , at a recent panel discussion in New York City. “This is not an obscure area of investment anymore.” Last...

July 9, 2009 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which was enacted in February, permits an applicant to receive a grant from Treasury in lieu of claiming investment tax credits (ITCs) or production tax credits (PTCs ). Today the U.S. Treasury Department issued much-anticipated guidance concerning applications to receive cash grants in lieu of claiming income tax credits for certain renewable energy projects. Although the guidance includes a sample application form, the U.S. Treasury has stated that it will not accept applications until August 1. Click here to read the full analysis on this guidance including grant details, eligibility and the application process at www.stoel.com . The Rest @ Stoel Rives

Photovoltaic Solar Modules / Germany February 4, 2009 This notice is to inform the public that the Export-Import Bank of the United States has received an application to guarantee approximately $15 million in commercial bank financing for the U.S. export of approximately $ 31 million worth of photovoltaic module manufacturing equipment and services for the construction of a new thin film photovoltaic production facility in Germany. The U.S. exports will enable the German company to produce approximately 21.5 megawatts (MW) worth of amorphous silicon thin film photovoltaic modules per year on average during the 8.5-year repayment term of the loan. Available information indicates that all of this new German production will be consumed in Germany. Please note that this transaction was first posted in the Federal Register on September 25, 2007. Interested parties may submit comments on this transaction by e-mail to economic.impact@exim.gov or by mail to 811 Vermont Avenue, NW., Room 1238...

DOE announced on March 26 that it plans to invest $3.2 billion in energy efficiency and conservation projects in U.S. cities, counties, states, territories, and tribal lands. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act , will provide formula grants for projects that improve energy efficiency and reduce fossil fuel emissions. Funding is based on a formula that accounts for population and energy use, to ensure accountability, DOE will provide guidance to grant recipients and require them to report on the: number of jobs created or retained, energy saved, renewable energy capacity installed, greenhouse gas emissions reduced, and funds leveraged. The funding will support: Energy audits and energy efficiency retrofits in residential and commercial buildings, The development and implementation of advanced building codes and inspections The creation of financial incentive programs for energy efficiency improvements. Transp...

Green-tech venture capital funding soared last year, aided by megadeals in thin-film solar companies, according to preliminary figures released Tuesday by the Cleantech Group . During 2008, green-tech venture investments jumped to $8.4 billion, a 38 percent increase, according to the report. Solar investments helped drive the growth, capturing 40 percent of green-tech investments. Thin-film solar deals did particularly well, capturing the three largest investments in green technology last year. NanoSolar raised $300 million last year, followed by Solyndra with venture investments of $219 million and SoloPower with $200 million . Cleantech Group's senior research director, Brian Fan, said in a statement: 2008 saw solar take a 40 percent share of clean-technology venture investment dollars, led by mega investment rounds in thin-film solar, concentrated solar thermal, and solar-service provider companies. TRENDS Investors also continued to migrate from first-generation ethanol and ...