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T-RECs Invade California Energy Market

To meet renewable goals, California utilities can buy power from Arizona households. It’s a new ball game.

To meet their renewable standards, California utilities are now able to look outside the state. What happens next should be interesting.

California's Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)… Read More ›

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Green Kingpins Part 5: Paul Holland and the VCs at Foundation Capital

“We’ve never been big believers in the whole supply-side.”

Foundation Capital is a disciplined greentech venture investor.   The VC firm has attempted to stay away from billion-dollar solar factory investments like Solyndra and Nanosolar or the materials research and fuel cell manufacturing done at Bloom Energy.

However, Foundation has invested in some of the more capital-efficient solar firms such as SunRun and Azure Power, as well as a number of smart grid investments such as eMeter, EnerNoc (now… Read More ›

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Green Kingpins Part 4: VC Vinod Khosla

“500 million people on earth enjoy a lifestyle that 9 billion people will want in 2050.”

Vinod Khosla and his Khosla Ventures have a war chest of more than $1 billion to put into greentech startups.  And they are busy, having invested in more than 40 new firms.

Mr. Khosla is somewhat of a contrarian and can always be counted on to say something that doesn't agree with the conventional wisdom.  Actually sometimes he says things that don't agree with things he's said.

Last year Khosla said, “I do not believe carbon sequestration can… Read More ›

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U.S. Biodiesel Lives to See Another Day: Tax Credit Back!

The $1.01/gal tax credit is reinstated

Mark Twain once quipped, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."  Two weeks ago, we wrote that U.S. Biodiesel producers were up the creek without a paddle.  (see The State of U.S. Biodiesel)

The U.S. Congress just threw them a life vest.

On December 31, 2009, Congress allowed a crucial $1.01/gal tax credit expire resulting in U.S. biodiesel production capacity running at around 15%.

Fortunately for biodiesel producers, the… Read More ›

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Chinese Wind Power Group to Build Factory in Nevada

The power plant will be in Texas but the wind turbine factory will be in the Silver State.

Chinese companies know technology -- and the U.S. political system, too.

China's A-Power Energy Generation Systems said it will build a previously announced U.S. wind turbine assembly facility in Nevada, a move that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saluted.

Last year, A-Power, along with Shenyang Power Group, U.S. Renewable Energy Group and Cielo Wind Power announced plans to build a  $1.5 billion, 600-megawatt wind farm in Texas. China's… Read More ›

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A Qualcomm for the Smart Grid?

Does a standard need to be open, or just openly licensed?

On-Ramp Wireless says it has solved a number of the problems with smart grid communications and better yet, they have done it in such a way that may allow them to avoid becoming road kill in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

The San Diego-based company has devised a networking platform called Ultra-Link Processing (ULP) that reads like a utility's network manager's wish list -- in theory, anyway. ULP signals have a five-mile range, do not… Read More ›

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Biofuel Catalyst from a Crustacean?

Is the “Gribble worm” the future of cellulosic ethanol?

It seems that not one week goes by without a new "breakthrough" in advanced biofuels (see Solar + Water + C02 = Diesel?).

While we are sanguine about the long-term prospects of advanced biofuels that do not compete with food sources (see Biofuels 2010: Spotting the Next Wave), in reality, there are a dearth of commercial projects out there.

In 2010, we hope to see the first second-generation cellulosic ethanol facility come online from Range… Read More ›

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Who Wins in the Home Star Program? GridPoint, Big Box Retailers

Will federal and state programs help those that sell big-screen TVs and dishwashers?

GridPoint is going home again.

The Arlington, Va.-based company -- which has raised over $200 million to date -- started out in the early part of the decade promoting a system for managing energy in upper-middle-class homes. Because energy prices were still comparatively low at that point, the market failed to develop. In turn, GridPoint decided to take the software and transform it into an operating system for the grid.

Then, in 2008, the… Read More ›

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Mystery Electric Car Maker Wants to Take Over Toyota’s Nummi Plant

Aurica? Isn’t that the bald guy from Goldfinger with the laser?

Aurica who?

Aurica Motors today announced plans to take over the Nummi automotive plant run by Toyota in Fremont, California. When Toyota vacates, Aurica wants to make all-electric cars with swappable batteries at the plant. The company claims that its "Recurve" drivetrain allows Aurica's car to go farther on a charge than competing cars can.

"Aurica's drivetrain holds the secret to increasing range," the company's website says. (The drivetrain… Read More ›

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News Wednesday: Revenue, Losses Grow at A123; EnerNoc Bundles its Apps; Algae Soap and Smart Meters

Battery orders should zoom in 2011, 2012, says A123.

It still hasn't made a profit, but customers want their batteries, says A123 Systems.

The Watertown, Mass-based battery manufacturer said that its net loss for 2009 came to $85.8 million, higher than the loss of $80.5 million in 2008. The good news, however, is that sales are growing fast. Revenue for 2009 came to $91 million, a 33-percent jump from the year before. Total battery capacity shipped for the year came to 66.5 million watt-hours,… Read More ›

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NC Utilities and Regulators At Odds Over Smart Grid Reporting

Commissioners to decide whether deployment plans, interactivity details must be disclosed.

Regulators and utilities in North Carolina agree that more information needs to be shared about smart-grid deployment in the state, but they're not yet synced on what information that should be.

The North Carolina Utilities Commission has proposed that each utility file a "smart grid technology plan" as part of its biennial resource plans. Two of the three utilities regulated by the NCUC have counterproposed to limit their reporting to the… Read More ›

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Green Kingpins Part 3: VC John Doerr of KPCB

“We need a clean energy Netscape moment.”

The occasionally lachrymose but always compelling John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins has been a longtime and vocal advocate of all things green, both in Silicon Valley as well as in Washington, D.C., where he is an advisor to President Obama.  Doerr has invested in some of venture capital's most famous successes (Google, Amazon, Sun) and in some less than successful efforts (GO Corporation, MyCFO, Segway).

He has spearheaded KPCB's investment efforts… Read More ›

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Green Kingpins Part 2: Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics

“We are at the early stages of seeing what biology can do.”

By the time they are done, J. Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics and KR Sridhar of Bloom Energy will have raised more than a billion dollars of venture investment between the two of them.   Both of these men are world-class entrepreneurs with world-class investor backing.

They spoke at the Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics event last week.  The men are in very different markets and deal with very different sciences.  But both are both taking on… Read More ›

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Green Kingpins Part 1: KR Sridhar of Bloom Energy

According to the Bloom CEO, “The economics of the electrons are already there today with subsidies.”

By the time they are done, J. Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics and KR Sridhar of Bloom Energy will have raised more than a billion dollars of venture investment between the two of them.   Both of these men are world-class entrepreneurs with world-class investor backing.

They spoke at the Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics event last week.  The men are in very different markets with and deal with very different sciences.  But both are both taking on… Read More ›

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When Sleep Saves

Starwood Hotels saved $350,000 by putting computers into sleep mode.

Sleep saved Starwood Hotels and Resorts $350,000 in 2009.

The company initiated a program in 2007 to put employee PCs into sleep mode after an hour of inactivity, according to Mark McBeth, Vice President IT, North America for Starwood. IT managers often come up with these sorts of programs, but the goals can get sidetracked when employees reset their computers.  (The system also does an early sleep on desktop monitors.)

For its 13,000 desktops,… Read More ›

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Showa Shell Shows Off Second-Gen CIGS Panel

Efficiency in the champion cell is at 16 percent.

Showa Shell Solar Co. Ltd exhibited its second-generation CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) photovoltaic panel at PV EXPO 2010, a trade show that took place last week in Tokyo.

The PV panel was developed with a technology that will be introduced to the company's third plant, which is now being built in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan. Showa Shell Solar showcased it under the name "Solar Frontier," which will officially go into effect as of April… Read More ›

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LED Light Bulb Maker Lemnis Gets $37.5 Million More

LEDs will be a $1.6 billion market by 2012.

Lemnis Lighting has raised $37.5 million in a fourth round of funding from unnamed African investors to bring LEDs home and expand its product line.

The company currently produces a screw-in LED bulb that replaces an incandescent household bulb.  Lemnis' Pharox bulb puts out about the same amount of light as a 60 or 40 watt incandescent, but only consumes 6 watts. It costs $40 but saves about $12 a year in power. Thus, it pays itself off but… Read More ›

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News Tuesday: IBM Eyes Plastic Recycling, Sentilla Cuts More Data Center Power, and More

Old plastic milk jugs are our greatest national asset.

If you've never thought of IBM as a plastics company, you'd be wrong.

Big Blue was one of the world's hotbeds of polymer science in the 80s and 90s as part of its overall commitment to material science. This week, IBM and Stanford researchers published a paper describing how they have found ways to employ new forms (organocatalysts) to develop new types of polymer molecules. Ideally, these catalysts could be used to recycle plastic or develop… Read More ›

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The Network in the Ceiling

It’s amazing what you can do when you string Ethernet cable everywhere. With video!

Forget wireless. The future belongs to Ethernet cables, says Redwood Systems.

The semi-secretive lighting company has come up with a method that potentially eliminates a number of the headaches around the challenge of reducing power consumption in buildings. At the same time, the company is helping to pave the way for ameliorating other problems like high labor rates for construction work, better fire safety and improved security.

Redwood… Read More ›