Smart Grid VC Investment Surge?

Last year investors mostly talked about the smart grid - this year they’re investing.

Last year, despite the hype, not that much VC funding went into the smart grid.

But it looks like a shift has occured in VC willingness to invest in the grid.

We have six smart grid investments so far in 2010, only three weeks into the year:

Ecobee raised $6.4 million from Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund, JLA Ventures and Tech Capital Partners for programmable thermostats for residential and light commercial applications.
Ecofactor's $2.4 million dollar raise
Ember raised $5 million in venture debt from Wellington Financial for ZigBee chipsets for wireless Home Area Networks.
PassivSystems, a UK-based smart grid home energy management firm, received funding from Wheb Venture.
Tantalus Systems, a maker of two-way, real-time smart grid data communications, raised a $14 million funding round led by Redpoint Ventures. Tantalus’ wireless communications technology automates processes like outage detection, load forecasting, billing and reporting, demand response, and maintenance.
Verdiem's $4.7 million from Kleiner Perkins and Microsoft for PC energy management

And here's a re-cap of smart grid VC investment from last quarter: