Viewing posts tagged "Admin"

Friday folderol

Some random items, including some administrative housekeeping:

1.  If you haven't seen it, it's worth reading DOE Secretary Chu's op-ed on weatherization and all of the governmental support being thrown toward that part of energy efficiency.  Heady times for residential and commercial energy efficiency efforts.  Side note:  The Secretary of Energy is publishing his op-eds in the Huffington Post now?  Wow, this Internet thingy might actually be catching on.

2.  How the government "picks winners and losers" is a topic of much conversation these days, re: cleantech and otherwise.  It's especially a topic given the structure of some of the programs being used to accelerate commercialization and adoption of clean technologies -- such as the DOE loan guarantee program, etc.  See, for example, this interesting editorial in the Washington Post that a colleague pointed out to me today, and the very good discussion we had on the PE Hub panel on the topic here in Boston this week (note: link may disappear behind subscriber wall soon).  It's tough, though, to come up with strong alternative solutions to what's being done.  There are gaps that need to be specifically addressed, especially at the seed / very early stage (where ARPA-E is intended to aim) and at the "first of a kind" project finance stage (which is where the loan guarantee is intended to aim).  There isn't enough funding to support every deserving effort, nor would we necessarily want that (define "deserving"?).  I've seen proposals to do it more hands-off, by having the money go in some form to private sector investors who would make the decisions, perhaps as matching funds to provide leveraged returns for private LPs in the fund, to fix the risk v. reward imbalance that created the capital gap.  Some of these ideas have merit, but even then some government body needs to be determining which funds would receive the leveraging support and which wouldn't.    Broader market-based systems (including cap and trade, carbon taxes, ITCs, PTCs, etc.) are more diffuse in impact and harder to target at specific capital gaps.  And doing nothing is not an option.  So I'll let the debate go on, but my feeling is that you simply have to design the best policy you can, hope the DOE can attract the best decision-makers that they can (and I've seen some really smart people go into the DOE over the past year or so), and accept a necessarily imperfect process.  Easy to say, hard to stomach. 

3.  Speaking of policy issues, a few days back I wrote about a study which examined coal-fired generators in the U.S. and concluded that there could be a relatively low natural limit on carbon prices under a cap and trade scheme.  I mentioned a few gaps I saw in the analysis, and for you wonks out there like me, a reader wrote in and pointed out another important one:  Elasticity of demand means that some of the costs on the generators will be passed downstream, so that they would require higher carbon prices than indicated in the study before making the decision that shutting down is worth it.  Of course, generators would also be able to pass some of the costs upstream as well, in all likelihood.  It's still a very intriguing study conceptually, but between failure to address elasticities of demand in the electricity value chain, and the other factors I mentioned in the post, I'm not sure I would want to do any significant investment planning around the specific price limits they indicate.

4.  An administrative note:  Over the 4+ years of writing this column, I've attempted (not always successfully) to hew to the most rigorous of blogosphere rules regarding notification of self-interest, in that I've tried to note whenever I've mentioned a company in which I have some stake in their success.  But in my current position that's becoming impossible, due to the breadth of indirect investment activities involved.  I can't reveal self-interest in many cases without possibly revealing some fund's confidential information, and I can't mention some companies and not others because then the occasional obvious failure to mention a deal becomes an indicator by itself.  So my choices are either to never mention any companies at all ever again, or simply to ask you all to trust me that I won't too horribly pump up a company or fund where I have a significant self-interest, without noting that.  I may still mention self-interest sometimes if I can, but not always.  Is that okay?  Tough call, and I've wrestled with it for a while.  Flames, suggestions, etc. are all welcomed in the comments or via email.

5.  Another administrative note:  Yes, I know I'm horribly behind on listing deals that get announced in the sector.  Apologies, but still, no one seems to have complained yet.  Maybe I can stop that practice?  Or maybe a smart Sloan student reader wants to help me with it?

Cleantech Investing: Four Years Old

Happened to notice that Sunday will be the fourth anniversary of my first Cleantech Investing post.  Going back through the archives really helps bring home what a wild ride it has been over the past 48 months in this sector.  And the fun continues…

Many, many thanks to those of you who have made this site such a fun and interactive experience.  Keep those comments and questions and gripes coming!  I hope I can continue to make this column a useful resource for you (and the few thousand of our closest friends who regularly stop by).  And if you are a web2.0 type, check out the Twitter feed and the Facebook page for readers, so you can network with your fellow C.I. subscribers…

In this era of “capital efficiency” and “energy efficiency is the next big thing” and “smart grid”, it’s fun to look back at some of what I and others have said on this over the past few years.  In particular, this three part series (column one, column two, and column three) on the smart grid kind of made me both smile and cringe when I stumbled upon it today.

And of course, there are deals to report:

• PE Hub yesterday reported two solar financings that sound like they’re of the convertible notes + warrants variety:  Optisolar raised $30mm, and Heliovolt has raised $17.5mm of a planned $32mm round.

• Thin film developer Sencera has taken in a $15.6mm investment from Quercus Trust.

• VentureWire reported that Silver Spring Networks has added $15mm to its Series D.  The additional capital apparently came in at a 20% premium on their first close back in October.

Other news and notes:  Here’s one take on the SBIR reauthorization debate…  CFR has a good overview of the clean coal debate...  Google’s Dan Reicher says energy efficiency could be the next big thing...  And finally, I’ll extend the same generous offer to Fisker that I made (unsuccessfully) to Tesla—simply give me one of your cars for a two-week test drive, and I promise a GLOWING review on this website!

Connecting with other C.I. readers

Well, better late than never—to help you find and connect with other Cleantech Investing readers, I’ve set up a Facebook group.

Click here to visit and join.

Hope it’s useful…

Go vote.

Stop reading blogs and go to your polling place.  Take a friend.

We’ll do an update once everyone gets a chance to catch their breath.