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Can Climate Skeptics Be Convinced?

With climate change occurring faster than ever, some new persuasive techniques are needed.

Thomas Friedman, in Hot, Flat and Crowded, proposes that we refer to our time as the "Energy-Climate Era."  Friedman's thesis -- that the converging trends of rapid population growth, man-made climate change, and peak oil will define our time -- is well-argued.  But events since the date of publication invite a refinement upon Friedman's label for our time.

First, and consistent with Friedman's analysis, the market for clean power is developing… Read More ›

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SunPower Gives Its Outlook for 2010, 2011

The American solar firm boasts record earnings and record efficiencies.

In a market where some crystalline silicon companies are taking a severe beating (See Shyam's Q-Cells analysis), SunPower held an open house for press and an earnings call which revealed strong earnings and a relatively bright outlook.

First, the numbers from the earnings call:

2009 Year End and Fourth Quarter Numbers

• SunPower reported 4Q09 results with revenues of $548M, gross margin of 21.8%, compared to $465 million in the third quarter of… Read More ›

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Oorja Readies its Competitor to Bloom Energy, Panasonic

Moonshine goes in one end. Lots of electricity comes out the other.

Fremont, California-With stationary fuel cells hot again, Oorja Protonics is jumping into the market.

In a few months, the company, which specializes in methanol fuel cells, will release a fuel cell capable of generating 5 kilowatts of power, enough to run a home or small business or to provide backup power to cell towers.

It's somewhat small in size, as well. Check out the video: the 5-kilowatt fuel cell fits on top of a gurney. It is about the… Read More ›

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Greentech Media Site Maintenance Notice

Greentech Media will be down for site maintenance Thursday, March 18 at 11 p.m. EST for 2 hours.

In order to continue to provide high quality news, market research and events, and to support our rapidly growing online community, we are performing some routine site maintenance.  Please be aware that www.greentechmedia.com and www.gtmresearch.com will be down for 2 hours starting Thursday, March 18 at 11 p.m. EST.

Thank you for your… Read More ›

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Sources: BrightSource Raising $150M Mezzanine Round

The solar thermal player, fresh from $1.37B in Fed loans, needs to raise a mezzanine round.  En route to IPO?

BrightSource Energy, the VC-funded solar thermal hopeful, is looking to raise a $150 million mezzanine round, according to sources. The effort has been going on for a few months -- the firm needs equity to match their DOE loan guarantee.  

Investors in BrightSource have already put in more than $160 million into the firm. Their investment syndicate includes VantagePoint Venture Partners, Google.org, BP Alternative Energy, StatoilHydro Venture,… Read More ›

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Carbon Caps and Job Creation

The data says they can create jobs, argues the Union of Concerned Scientists.

A March 4 letter from legislative analyst Mac Taylor to California State Sen. Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto) attempts to cast doubt on the economic benefits of the state’s landmark global warming bill, AB 32. According to Jasmin Ansar, a climate economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Taylor fails to cite any research to support his claims that the state’s economy would suffer under AB 32.

The public release of Taylor’s letter… Read More ›

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Carlyle Group Teams with EDF to Make Energy Efficiency an Investment Factor

Big business meets big green.

The Carlyle Group, the massive investment firm, and the Environmental Defense Fund have created EcoValueScreen, a business process tool that will help Carlyle determine the eco-worthiness of potential acquisitions and opportunities for fine-tuning the operations of these businesses after they get gobbled up by Carlyle.

The overall idea is that costs or liabilities can be wrung out of most existing companies because energy and fossil fuel-based… Read More ›

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SEIA on Utility-Scale Solar

There are over 100 utility-scale solar projects in the U.S. totaling 17,000 MW now in the planning stage.

I listened in on a press conference this morning from the solar advocates at SEIA as they reviewed U.S. solar in 2009 and focused on utility-scale solar.

Rhone Resch, CEO of SEIA, led the call and covered some quick stats:

In 2009 there was 58 megawatts of utility-scale solar deployed in the U.S. in 5 projects.  The compelling news is that SEIA expects to see more than 200 megawatts of utility-scale solar from concentrated solar power (CSP) and… Read More ›

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The True Cost of Corn Ethanol

A number of recent studies have missed the mark.

There have been a number of recent articles and reports that have come out attempting to quantify whether the various subsidies for first-generation biofuels, such as corn ethanol and soybean-derived biodiesel, make economic sense.

And while they are interesting, most are missing the bigger picture.

This month, the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) interpreted a University of Missouri study to mean that the "current corn ethanol tax… Read More ›

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General Electric To Take On First Solar

A giant awakens in cadmium telluride.

First Solar won't be the only name in cadmium telluride solar panels soon.

General Electric today announced it will research and develop thin-film solar panels with PrimeStar Solar, specifically cadmium telluride solar cells, and then start selling them next year. Although Q-Cells and a few startups have launched plans to get into cad tel, First Solar is virtually the only large mass producer of cad tel solar modules.

GE invested in PrimeStar, a… Read More ›

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Q-Cells Declares 2009 Loss of $1.8 Billion; CEO Resigns Amidst “Huge Loss of Confidence”

They were the number-one cell producer in the world in 2008. What went wrong?

Leading German cell producer Q-Cells has gone from weakness after weakness over the last 12 months, and someone had to pay. As things turned out, it happened to be the man at the top. CEO Anton Milner quit his job last Thursday, citing a "huge loss of confidence" on account of the company's terrible 2009 results. The company declared a loss of 1.36 billion Euros ($1.84 billion) for 2009, compared to a net profit of 190 Euros (about $257 million)… Read More ›

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Energy Efficiency: Can It Be a Common Ground?

Sometimes the political poles are far apart, but when it comes to efficiency, opponents are closer together, says the NRDC. Will game consoles be next?

My fellow efficiency advocates and I have spent countless hours over the last year negotiating with manufacturers of every appliance and piece of equipment imaginable, trying to reach agreements on what the next energy standards will look like. These standards set the minimum level of efficiency that every product covered must meet to be sold and are generally set by the Department of Energy. Sometimes, advocates and industry representatives can… Read More ›

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Ed Markey Launches Bill to Give Consumers Access to Power Consumption

The people have a right to know what a kilowatt hour is!

Congressional Representative Ed Markey, one of the sponsors of the omnibus energy bill that remains in legislative limbo, has introduced the e-Know bill that proposes to secure the privacy of individuals as well as give them access to data about their daily power consumption.

The bill follows a broadband strategy unfurled by the Federal Communications Commission that goes into detail on how energy will become a larger part of the internet.

A lot… Read More ›

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Maine Joins EnerNoc’s Network

Maine is the latest government to sign on with EnerNoc for demand response services.

Demand response is on the move in New England.

The executive branch of the state of Maine is the latest customer to get on board with EnerNoc’s demand response network. The Boston-based company already has six Maine facilities enrolled, including administrative buildings and correctional institutions.

Maine’s half-dozen facilities joins more than 6,500 sites, from government buildings to commercial spaces, that use EnerNoc’s DemandSMART network… Read More ›

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Intel Readies Energy Hullaballo. How Serious Are They About Power?

Intel is a shark. It must keep moving forward or it dies.

Intel will unfurl some more information on March 23 on all of its efforts in the energy world.

We've covered quite a number of the company's efforts in the past. The basic strategy is the same one Intel has used in other markets: it wants to promote new applications and then sell chips to run those applications. (In the verb-less Intel code language, this strategy is called "New Uses, New Users.") Intel sent LED bulbs and notices to reporters… Read More ›

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News Wednesday: ZigBee and WiFi to Cooperate, Aurora Gets $15 Million and More

In Home Area Networking, the unholy marriage has occurred.

They must have shared a heartfelt hug after this one.

The ZigBee Alliance and the Wi-Fi Alliance have said they will collaborate on applications for home energy management and networking. The initial goal will be to get Smart Energy 2.0, a standard promoted by ZigBee, to work on Wi-Fi.

ZigBee and Wi-Fi are both wireless protocols for allowing different devices to communicate, but they aren't the best of friends. In the early part of the decade,… Read More ›

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Intermolecular’s PV Development: R&D in Hyper-Drive

Dozens of photovoltaic process experiments on a single wafer

Here's a (likely apocryphal) tale told in the thin-film solar manufacturing world:

An unnamed CIGS solar startup was doing process development and ran out of the de-ionized water used as a cleaning agent in their manufacturing process.  That particular day, they substituted straight California tap water in their process and rather than ruin their experiment - the efficiency of the new PV material jumped a few percentage points. 

The firm… Read More ›

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CPV Semi Startup Solar Junction Gets More Funding

A $13.3M inside round keeps the firm going while they wait for the CPV market to emerge.

It's quiet in the world of Concentrating Photovoltaics (CPV). 

While c-Si and CSP are furiously running the race, CPV is still at the starting line.
 
What little news there has been in CPV has been less than dramatic.  There was December's Concentrix acquisition.  And what amounts to a big CPV deployment by Concentrix -- 1 megawatt in New Mexico, which we covered here -- as well as some other minor personnel developments. 

There hasn't been a… Read More ›

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March Madness: kWhOURS Aims to Modernize Energy Audits

Crazy capital letters, but an interesting company.

"When you were conducting energy audits, what was your medium of choice?" Carter Erwin asked Colin Davis at a recent MIT Energy Conference.

"Pen and paper, floor plans if I was lucky, Excel spreadsheets, and crying softly in a cubicle as my life ticked away doing data entry," Davis responded, describing his prior work in a commercial energy auditing industry that is seemingly stuck in the 20th century.

Davis and Erwin are among the entrepreneurs… Read More ›