Michael Kanellos: July 22, 2008, 1:01 PM

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Attention Solar Industry: Prod Congress With a Call Tomorrow

The renewable energy tax incentives will come up for a vote again soon in Washington, and a group of investors/activists will work the phones tomorrow to try to get a few key lawmakers to support incentives once again. And they want your help. The organization, a Facebook group called Renew Solar and Wind Incentives Now, is asking members and anyone else to call up the offices of three U.S. Senators--Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Richard Lugar of Indiana, and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina-- and Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland and express their support for the tax incentives. The organization is not targeting die-hard opponents, explained Josh Becker, one of the organizers and a San Francisco-based venture capitalist. Instead, these are lawmakers that have supported incentives in the past and thus may do so again. Here are the numbers if you have some free time for calls tomorrow:

Senator Chuck Grassley (IA, R): (202) 224-3744
o Chief of Staff: David Young

Senator Richard Lugar (IN, R): (202) 224-4814
o Chief of Staff: Marty Morris

Senator Elizabeth Dole (NC, R): (202) 224-6342
o Chief of Staff: Greg Gross

Congressman Steny Hoyer (MD, D): (202) 225-4131
o Chief of Staff: Bill Cable

Daniel Englander: July 22, 2008, 6:43 AM

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GT Solar To Build Turnkey IPO

There’s been a run on adult diapers as the equity analyst crowd gets ready for what may be the most anticipated solar IPO in recent memory. GT Solar, a New Hampshire-based manufacturer of production equipment for wafer and panel makers (they’re a manufacturer’s manufacturer), is set to debut on the NASDAQ sometime this week, more than a year after the company postponed its first filing. The latest go around has GT Solar anticipating a $530 million day, more than twice its original expectation a year ago. If it happens at the scale GT anticipates, this will be the largest U.S. solar IPO. But will it sell?

The rush to expand production capacity in the last two years has created a big opportunity for equipment manufacturers in both the silicon and thin film space. While Applied and Oerlikon have become household names (though in many ways, they already were), smaller companies like Spire and GT Solar have quietly trucked along, raking in the big bucks on the back of huge growth in the Chinese midstream and downstream production markets. GT Solar’s revenue quadrupled during FY 2008 to $244 million, with 97 percent of its revenue coming from China. This is likely to continue as the market converges on cost-based production centers. Oerlikon, for example, has already announced plans for significantly expanding its presence in the Asian market.

But with solar stocks still shaky (five times fast!) and policy uncertainty in Spain and the U.S., how certain can GT Solar be of a successful IPO? Morningstar analyst Rick Hanna said recently, “a hot solar market for them is like a gold rush: The miners might not know for sure whether there is gold in the hills, but it sure is good to be the company selling picks and shovels to them.” I’ll agree with Shovelman Rick on this one, though, with one caveat. How long will it be until a Chinese company gets to where GT is today and kicks them down a few notches in their primary market?

Now stay tuned for Steve Pluvia to tell us none of this matters because First Solar and Applied will rule the world!!!

Eric Wesoff: July 22, 2008, 5:20 AM

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California Cleantech Open Event at Google, Pt. 1

The California Clean Tech Open presented an event at Google last night – with a panel discussing “Renewable Technologies of the Future” and a showcase of Renewable Energy Alumni and current contestants in the CCTO competition.

The location was not the Google planetary headquarters but another campus in Mountain View, Calif., which I’m pretty sure was once the satellite parking lot for the Shoreline Amphitheater. This is how I remember the place.

Hal La Flash, Director, Emerging Clean Technology Policy at PG&E, who is everywhere these days, introduced the panel where we heard from:

• Dan Adler, President, California Clean Energy Fund

• Jim Shandalov, e-Solar

• Neil Renninger, CTO, Amyris

• Marianne Wu, Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures

Mr. Adler spoke of the recent big concept moves by Al Gore and T. Boone Pickens. “The six trillion dollar global energy market [needs projects of this scale in order to] internalize the externalities of green house gases,� he said.

But let’s face it, in a public forum like this, a new fact or idea presented by a VC or a startup would be conspicuous all by its lonesomeness, so we move on to the real action – the conversations in the hallways.

Bob Cart, CEO of Greenvolts, is a past winner of the CCTO and is the real deal – a VC funded startup with a 2-megawatt, 20-year contract to supply power to PG&E via their GV-1 CPV system, soon to installed near Tracy, Calif. The firm expects to close a substantial funding round by the end of the year.

Kevin Surace is the CEO of Serious Materials, a developer of eco-friendly building materials.  The start-up recently acquired Alpen Windows, an energy-conscious window manufacturer.  Mr. Surace enthusiastically rattled off some statistics:

• 9 percent of global energy goes to passenger cars but 52 percent is tied to buildings, and 12 percent of global energy usage goes to inefficient building materials.

“After you’ve taken care of walls, insulation, and ducts – you’re left with windows which is why we acquired Alpen Windows,� said Surface. “The R value of most windows is terrible, the best is R3.  The DOE has been trying to raise the R value of windows for years but the only people who talk about R value is us and Alpen Windows. That’s why we bought them.�

There were a number of CCTO entrants looking for seed funding in the hallways.  I’ll mention one here and the balance in my next post.

Gigagreen plans on building a dirigible that extracts energy from the jet stream and transmits it wirelessly to earth. The company’s “high altitude wind energy� platform “beams power� to earth – using what? Alex Flemming, the founder, would not reveal the precise method. He denied it was microwaves, which I think leaves a long extension cord or lasers or magic as the only other technology alternatives.

Gigagreen actually has a few competitors in the field of high altitude wind energy, amongst them Makani Power.  Founded by sail makers, kite boaters, and wind surfers, a group of folks long known for their entrepreneurial energy and work ethic, they were funded by Google in a $10M round A, about two years ago.   Locate the employee with actual utility experience in this team and get back to me.

My next post will cover the other CCTO entrants including a number of interesting solar plays, a perpetual motion machine, black light power, cold fusion and more.