As promised, we asked the smart team at New Energy Finance to provide a bit more information about their returns study that we mentioned earlier in the week. Michael Liebreich, Chairman and CEO at NEF, was kind enough to provide some additional explanation of their methodology, for those interested: "Hi, Rob - Your calculations are correct: the group has put in EUR 283.6m into 129 portfolio companies. It has had exits totaling EUR 390.4m. It is sitting on unrealized value of EUR 339.0m. Total value = EUR 729.4m. The unrealized holdings have indeed been held at book unless there has been a revaluation event. So we have the following: · 53 of the portfolio companies are held at exactly book value. · There have been 15 IPOs and 10 trade sales · 21 have been revalued upwards at subsequent rounds (with at least one external investor). We do not accept self-reported write-ups or valuations based on comparables etc. · 19 have been revalued down, some significantly, some only marginally. This we do either at subsequent rounds, or if companies self-report a write-down · There have been 11 liquidations, with most but not always all money lost It is the group of 21 valued upwards that are driving the unrealized gains. Of these gains, a reasonably significant proportion is held in what are now public equities, to which we give a 15% liquidity haircut, to be on the conservative side. I can’t comment on what proportion of the invested funds went into the exited companies as opposed to the others – the steering committee didn’t choose to release that information. The conclusion of the study was exactly as you understood it: "great returns, but not yet in the bag." Hence the use of the phrase "on track" in various places." Thanks much to Michael and his team for the helpful explanations... Other news and notes: Here's a great interview by Jennifer Kho, of A123's David Vieau... And finally, two interesting market data points on concentrated PV market adoption -- first, 24 gigawatts of CPV projects under development in California? And second, floating solar islands in the Persian Gulf?