Cleantech Update

Yingli Enery Holding Company, China's largest PV Producer, producing 450-500 Megawatts this year, has declared a loss on unchaged production. Add this to Spains. PV market drop and we are see ing the affect of PV Overall Prices coming down. -Editor NEW YORK (AP) — Solar cell maker Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. on Wednesday posted a second-quarter loss driven by one-time charges, sending shares tumbling in premarket trading. Shares of Yingli fell 12.5 percent, or $1.47, to $10.27. The Baoding, China-based company reported a loss of 393.7 million Renminbi ($57.6 million), or 3.03 Renminbi per American Depository Share (44 cents per ADS), compared with earnings of $203.9 million Renminbi, or 1.57 Renminbi per ADS ,during the same period last year. Results include charges related to debt extinguishment and derivative liabilities. Excluding one-time items, adjusted earnings amounted to 119.8 million Renminbi ($17.5 million), or 0.91 Renminbi per ADS (14 cents per ADS). An...

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...

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

Here is a video of their process in Action from their website Originoil is only obne of several companies researching algea as biofuel.

Energy Star Could Get Tougher Source: BUILDER OnlinePublication date: July 9, 2009 By Teresa Burney Qualifying for the Energy Star label on homes is likely to become much more difficult in 2011. The Department of Energy is seeking comments now on proposed significant increases in Energy Star specifications. "They are much stricter, intentionally," said Sam Rashkin, national director of Energy Star for homes, of the new specs. "It should be a bit of a stretch for builders." While adding between $2,000 and $4,000 to a home's cost, roughly $10 to $20 a month more in mortgage costs, the changes should save homeowners between $30 and $50 a month on their utility bills, said Rashkin. In the long run, the change in specs will be good for builders of new homes because it "substantially increases the differential between the new product and their competition, a used home." That angle has not escaped the notice of builders who have been signing up for the progra...

By Sybille de La Hamaide PARIS (Reuters) - Production of biodiesel in the European Union rose by more than 35 percent in 2008 and capacity will grow again this year although half the plants are idle due to poor demand, the EU producers group said on Wednesday. The Brussels-based European Biodiesel Board (EBB) said the European production of biodiesel, by far the main biofuel made in the bloc, had reached 7.76 million tonnes last year putting the EU's global market share close to 65 percent. However, the EBB qualified the 2008 rise as "moderate" compared to the jump of 65 percent in 2005 and 54 percent in 2006 but the rise was only at 17 percent in 2007. "In line with the trend initiated in 2007, the year 2008 saw a relatively small increase in EU biodiesel production, and even a reduction in two major producing Member States, Germany and Austria," the EBB said in a statement. For detailed statistics of biodiesel output per country and estimates for the 2009 cap...

The Loopwing Wind Turbine This loopy looking item is a striking wind turbine design with some interesting features. A Japanese company is offering this small-scale wind turbine that touts an amazingly low 1.6m/sec (3.5 mph) minimum generation speed (compared with 8-11 mph for many turbines.) The company claims a number of benefits for the Loopwing turbine attributed to the unusual configuration of the blades. Because there are no blade tips, the Loopwing doesn't have tip vortex effects, and is therefore much quieter. This also reduces vibration, which helps with both noise and extending the life of the turbine and generator. The blade configuration is also responsible for its low start speed. Check out this awesome broken-english press material: People witnessing a test model in operation gave high evaluation saying that there is no noise at all. The unique-shaped blade has self-stalling capability and it can avoid over-speeding. Loopwing’s rotation has globular trajectory and...

The hydrogen economy goes down the toilet: Energy experts have mixed opinions on whether hydrogen might make sense as a portable fuel of the future. It can be made using electricity from renewable sources, which is good, but the process is inefficient and requires fresh water, which is already in short supply in many areas of the globe. All of which makes a recent paper on an alternate method of producing hydrogen rather intriguing. The method dispenses with splitting water entirely and instead generates hydrogen from one of the things that frequently ends up fouling water: urine or, more specifically, the urea it contains. Getting urea to break down and liberate hydrogen requires much less energy input, but still faces a substantial challenge: namely, getting to it before bacteria have the chance to metabolize it. The Rest @ ARS Technica

Plans for the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle have been scrapped, energy baron T. Boone Pickens said Tuesday, and he's looking for a home for 687 giant wind turbines. Pickens has already ordered the turbines, which can stand 400 feet tall — taller than most 30-story buildings. "When I start receiving those turbines, I've got to ... like I said, my garage won't hold them," the legendary Texas oilman said. "They've got to go someplace." Pickens' company Mesa Power ordered the turbines from General Electric Co. — a $2 billion investment — a little more than a year ago. Pickens said he has leases on about 200,000 acres in Texas that were planned for the project, and he might place some of the turbines there, but he's also looking for smaller wind projects to participate in. He said he's looking at potential sites in the Midwest and Canada. In Texas, the problem lies in getting power from the proposed site in the Panhandl...

BRISTOL TOWNSHIP – Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger today toured The Bridge Business Center in Bristol Township, Bucks County, where $1 million in federal recovery funds are being used to install a modern energy system in a former Rohm & Haas laboratory. Secretary Hanger witnessed a milestone in the project’s development, as seven micro-turbines were lifted by crane and placed on the roof of a building at 360 George Patterson Blvd., where renovations are underway in the 50,000-square-foot, multi-tenant facility. “This is how recovery funds are making a real difference in people’s lives,” said Hanger. “In a community that has suffered from an economic downturn, we see this developer making not only a $4.5 million investment in adaptive reuse of a building on a designated brownfield site, but also in providing a clean, affordable and reliable source of energy for its tenants.” In March, Governor Edward G. Rendell announced the $1 million Penns...

I pulled this from a Alfagy's website: They are developing wood mass gassification in a high heat low oxegen invironment, the burining the clean gas. Very interesting... -CTE Editor The range of fully automated Wood Gasified Heat and Power Plants are as follows: The ENERCARB wood gas technology offers customers a turn-key automated solution for heat and power generation from wood. We can provide a complete solution covering the full value chain from wood preparation to power generation in the 250 kW to 1,000 kW range. This is a gap in the market where the company believes there is a potential £725m market worldwide.A full scale 500 kW wood gasification plant was built for a client and has been operating since April 2009. Over the next 3 years sales of wood gasification plants are expected growing rapidly with the introduction of new support structures. Biomass accounts for around 5 per cent of total energy consumption in Europe. In countries such as Finland, Sweden and Austria it...

Feathered fuel tank soaks up hydrogen by Chris Spitzer, The Oregonian Friday June 26, 2009, 8:43 PM The gas tank of the future may be full of chicken feathers. Engineers have discovered a way to store large amounts of hydrogen fuel using carbonized downy fluff, which could help pave the way to clean, green cars. A practical hydrogen car has been elusive for decades. Before the announcement this week by University of Delaware engineers, a nonstop trip from Portland to Eugene in a hydrogen car would need a tank bigger than 100 gallons to store liquid or gaseous fuel, even under high pressure. Treated chicken feathers work like a sponge. They soak up large amounts of hydrogen and hold it in a small space so the tank can be a conventional size and the fuel won't need to held under dangerously high pressures. Hydrogen creates only water vapor when it burns, unlike gasoline that emits carbon dioxide, a culprit in climate change. "It's the most energy-rich material we have,"...

Why small-scale, local power -- the microgrid -- could be the answer to our energy crisis. And why the big utilities are fighting it with all they've got. Infographic: The Microgrid Dream House In April 2007, a helicopter landed in a backyard in Johnson Valley, California, a desert hamlet of 440 residents on the outskirts of Joshua Tree National Park. "One of the neighbors went out and asked them what they were doing just a few hundred feet from his house," Jim Harvey, a local landowner, recalls. "They said, 'We're the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and congratulations! You're the lucky lottery winners of a brand new power line that's going to come right through the middle of your town.' " That power line is called Green Path North -- an 85-mile-long high-voltage transmission wire from Los Angeles through public and private lands, connecting the city to potential geothermal and solar-thermal resources, with the whole shebang to be...

HELMSFORD, N.Y. -- Coca Cola Enterprises signed a 10-year contract with UTC Power that will bring two fuel cells to its southern New York bottling plant. The UTC Power fuel cells will produce heat and energy that can satisfy nearly a third of demand at Coca Cola’s bottling plant in Elmsford, N.Y. The project received $2 million in funds from the state’s Energy Research and Development Authority . South Windsor, Conn.-based UTC Power will retain ownership of the fuel cells, in addition to operating and maintaining them. The company began offering the 10-year energy services agreement a few years ago, according to company spokeswoman Peg Hashem.“It’s helpful for those who don’t want to spend the capital upfront,” she said. Fuel cells produce electricity, heat and water by combining hydrogen and oxygen in an electrochemical process. The PureCell 400 fuel cells to be deployed at Coca Cola’s bottling plant are more than twice as energy efficient as traditional power sources and can ea...

A new design for fuel cells could make them fault tolerant and resilient to adverse environmental and internal influences.A team from Imperial College London is developing the technology through a project sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Current fuel cells are designed with electrodes connected in a series. The weakest link in the cell dictates performance and reliability. Imperial College chemist Anthony Kucernak and his team will redesign fuel-cell stacks so they can switch out bad units and allow the cell to continue operation. 'We will do it with a series parallel geometry,' he said. 'The stack will look like a normal stack but the electrodes will be in parallel with one another. 'While electrodes in a current fuel-cell stack are integrated with one expensive insulated gate bipolar transistor, the Imperial team proposes integrating less expensive multiple field-effect transistors with each and every electrode in the sta...

These come from a NCSU Solicitations Newsletter -Editor The RFPs created or supplemented as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) are identified in the RFP titles. The Recovery homepage ( http://www.recovery.gov/ ) has links to State-level Recovery sites where you may be able to track down some sub-grantee opportunities. Washington State’s Recovery site does an outstanding job showing where WA Recovery funds are going and who to contact for more info. Here’s a link to all of the State sites: http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/state-recovery-page . 1) Renewables and Energy Efficiency Improvements The U.S. Department of Agriculture requests proposals for Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements. This program will provide support to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to purchase and install renewable energy systems and make energy efficiency improvements. $51.6 million expected to be available, up to 1,100 awards anticipate...

(June 5, 2009) Campbell, CA - Real Goods Solar (NASDAQ: RSOL) announced today it has signed a contract to design and install solar electric systems totaling 3.65 megawatts for the Fremont Union High School District in Sunnyvale, Cupertino and west San Jose, California. The new solar systems will be constructed as carports at all five high schools in the District and are expected to save District taxpayers over $12 million in the total cost of electricity over the next 25 years. The five systems will contribute enough electricity to cover about 45% of the power usage of each school. This solar program, exceeding $30 million, is believed to be the largest direct purchase by a secondary school system in North America, financed by a portion of a $198M school bond approved by the District’s voters in June 2008. The District researched many alternative energy options before choosing Real Goods Solar for these installations across school campuses. The system monitoring that Real Goods Solar ...

Did you see the Matthew Mcconaughey movie, Sahara? This appears to be a Concetrated Solar Facility like the one inthe movie. -Editor Starwood Energy Signs Power Purchase Agreement with Arizona Public Service Co.; To Build the World's Largest Dispatchable Solar Plant with Lockheed MartinPRNewswireGREENWICH, Conn.May 22 Solar-Thermal Electric Generating Facility Will Produce Up to 290 MWs of Clean Electrical Power and Serve Nearly 73,000 Customers Project is Latest Result of Starwood Energy's Alliance with Lockheed Martin to Build Utility-Scale Solar Energy Facilities GREENWICH, Conn., May 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Starwood Energy Group Global, LLC ("Starwood Energy"), a private investment firm focused on energy infrastructure projects, today announced that its affiliate, Starwood Solar I, LLC ("Starwood Solar") has signed a definitive power purchase agreement ("PPA") with Arizona Public Service Company. ("APS"). Starwood Solar will contract with ...

Capstone Receives Order for C200 Microturbines for China Southern Power Grid Pilot Project Capstone Turbine Corporation - 05.26.2009 Capstone Turbine Corporation (www.microturbine.com) (Nasdaq:CPST), the world's leading clean technology manufacturer of microturbine energy systems, today announced that it has received an order for three C200 microturbine systems for China Southern Power Grid Co., Ltd. ("CSG"). CSG was established on December 29th, 2002 as a result of the power sector deregulatory reform in China. CSG is one of two state-owned power grid companies in China. CSG invests in, constructs and operates the transmission and distribution networks in Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Hainan provinces and regions. The low-emission, highly efficient, natural-gas powered turbines will be installed in a 330,000-square-foot CSG dispatch building and serve as a pilot project to show the benefits of microturbines in a combined cooling heat and power ("CCHP"...

Charlottesville to be First City in Dominion Virginia Power's 'Smart Grid' Network Innovative program opens doors to wide range of energy conservation options Press Release June 18, 2009 CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Charlottesville has been selected as the first city in Virginia and one of the first in the nation to benefit from "smart grid" technology that will make the delivery of electricity more efficient and less costly while improving customer service. Smart grid capabilities also will promote energy conservation and environmental responsibility. Dominion Virginia Power executives joined Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, University of Virginia President John Casteen, state and local officials, and private industry partners today to unveil SmartGrid Charlottesville. The $20 million program begins with the installation of about 46,500 "smart meters" in the city of Charlottesville and Albermarle County. More than half of the meters have been installed, with completi...