• Last week, VentureWire broke the news that solar financing startup Recurrent Energy has raised a $10mm Series A, led by MDV and including JEN Partners. The round was actually closed back in March, but had been only recently publicly confirmed by the company. CEO Arno Harris also wrote about the round on his blog today -- he's been talking about Recurrent there for a while... The solar financing space has been pretty hot lately, with a lot of startup groups pursuing the large market of empty rooftops out there...

• Solar thin-film modco Energy Photovoltaics has raised a $77.5mm round of senior secured notes as part of a Series B round of financing. Unnamed VCs and other institutional investors participated in the financing.

Other news: Speaking of solar, Ed Gunther has a nice writeup of the Intersolar conference in Germany (including a trade ad that brings new meaning to "balance of system")... Tom Konrad shares his refined thoughts on the ethanol market... The California Clean Tech Open has put out a call for submissions... A useful overview of Fuel Cell 2007... Nanotech sector update: DuPont is teaming up with Environmental Defense to come up with safety guidelines for nanotech -- and some are expecting upcoming exits to re-invigorate venture interest in the space... Finally, it was a tough past week for cleantech investors on the policy front -- while many other VCs have been focused on the proposed tighter taxation treatment of carried interest, cleantech VCs are probably more disappointed in Congress' inability to follow through on anticipated policy support for clean energy technologies (more details here)... Maybe someone can rent these guys out and send them to Capitol Hill, clear out some of the deadwood holding back economic progress.