financing

Rick Merritt
EE Times

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The U.S. Department of Energy has 60 days to set up a competitive process to award an estimated $4.3 billion for projects that will upgrade the nation's electric grid. That's one of the top clean technology provisions of the $787 billion economic stimulus package President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday (Feb.. 17).

Obama signed the bill against the backdrop of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, in part to showcase its clean energy focus. As part of the trip, Obama also visited Namaste Solar, a Boulder-based maker of photovoltaics.

The stimulus package "means a lot of [smart grid] projects will move a lot faster," said Katherine Hamilton, president of the GridWise Alliance, a broad consortium of 75 companies, academics and electricity providers advocating for power grid upgrades.

The bill provides $4.3 billion that the DoE can disperse as 50 percent of the funding for any two-year smart grid projects.

George Leopold
EE Times

WASHINGTON — Below is a summary of energy and other technology spending provisions in the economic stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law on Tuesday (Feb. 17) by President Obama.

Programs and funding amounts are based on a House-Senate conference report released by Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.):

# $30 billion for smart power grid, advanced battery technology and energy efficiency initiatives.

# $20 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency over the next decade. The provision includes a new manufacturing investment tax credit for facilities used to make components used for renewable energy production, advanced battery technologies and "next-generation green technologies."

# $400 million to fund establishment of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, an initiative championed by House Science Committee Chairman Bart Gordon of Tennessee. Congress approved the new Energy Department R&D agency last year, but no funds were appropriated.

# $580 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology for technology innovation and manufacturing standards programs.

The Speaker's office estimates that energy funding in the stimulus package could create nearly 500,000 U.S. jobs.

According to Obama administration timeline for tracking stimulus spending, federal agencies must begin reporting how stimulus funds are being allocated beginning March 3.

Source: Solarbuzz

As part of a strategic $300 million equity financing, Nanosolar has added new capital bringing its total funding to date to just below half a billion U.S. dollars.

Last December, the company introduced the Nanosolar Utility Panel™ to enable solar utility power, giving utility-scale power producers the solar panel technology to build and operate cost efficient solar power plants.

Nanosolar has received strategic backing by partners, which the company says are ideally suited to accelerate the implementation of this business — in the form of product supply agreements, strategic collaboration, and equity investments. As part of the transaction, the boards of directors of AES Corporation (one of the world’s largest power companies), the Carlyle Group, EDF (the world’s largest electric utility), and Energy Capital Partners signed off on investments into Nanosolar through Riverstone Holdings, EDF Renewables, and simultaneously formed AES Solar.

A fraction of the oversubscribed Nanosolar equity round also included financial investors such as Lone Pine Capital, the Skoll Foundation, and Pierre Omidyar’s fund as well as returning investors including GLG Partners, Beck Energy, and Conergy founding investor Grazia Equity. The transaction closed in March 2008.

The alliance for solar utility power is the outcome of a year long effort on behalf of the company's strategic partners examining the solar industry, investigating virtually every solar company on the planet, and conducting one of the most thorough due diligence efforts on our manufacturing operation, our scale-up capabilities, and our readiness for the level of cost efficiency demanded by solar utility power.

Martin Roscheisen, CEO says, "We are honored to have been selected as the company of choice to partner with by such a distinguished and sophisticated group."

The new capital will allow us to accelerate production expansion of the company's 430MW San Jose factory and 620MW Berlin factory. Earlier, Nanosolar secured a 50% capex subsidy on its Germany based factory.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy John Mizroch announced yesterday that DOE will invest up to $24 million in Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond—subject to the availability of funds—to develop solar energy products to significantly accelerate penetration of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States. The Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems (SEGIS) projects will provide critical research and development (R&D) funding to develop less expensive, higher performing products to enhance the value of solar PV systems to homeowners and business owners. These projects are integral to President Bush’s Solar America Initiative, which aims to make solar energy cost-competitive with conventional forms of electricity by 2015. Increasing the use of alternative and clean energy technologies such as solar energy is critical to diversifying the Nation’s energy sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on foreign oil.

“Harnessing the natural and abundant power of the sun and cost-effectively converting it into energy is an important component of our comprehensive strategy to commercialize and deploy advanced, clean, alternative technologies to enhance our energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” DOE Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Mizroch said. “Our investment in these grid integration projects will lay the groundwork for high levels of solar photovoltaic market penetration to help meet the President’s goal of making solar power cost-competitive with conventional sources of electricity.”

Mark LaPedus
EE Times

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Materials supplier Voltaix Inc. said that it has received $12.5 million in financing from Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel Corp.

The investment will accelerate Voltaix' manufacturing capacity expansion. Voltaix (Branchburg, N.J.) manufactures electronic chemicals and gases, including CVD precursors for production of advanced photovoltaic cells.

The company, the former ChemOvonic Division of Energy Conversion Devices Inc., was spun off as an independent business in 1986. In 1998, the company acquired Florida Scientific Laboratories Inc.

Intel itself is making a big push in solar. Intel is spinning off an internal startup business in the solar-cell arena. The internal solar unit, formerly inside Intel's New Business Initiatives group, is being spun-off into a new company called SpectraWatt Inc.

Intel recently invested 24 million euros (about $37.5 million) into Berlin-based solar module manufacturer Sulfurcell GmbH. The company produces monolithic solar modules that feature a high efficiency. The move is part of Intel's clean tech investment strategy.

Peter Clarke
EE Times Europe
(07/21/2008 10:31 AM EDT)

LONDON — Wakonda Technologies Inc. (Medford, Mass.), a developer of solar photovoltaic products, has said it has raised $9.5 million in Series A financing from Advanced Technology Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, Applied Ventures, LLC and the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund.

Wakonda said it is developing a material that enables the production of high performance solar cells.

Photovoltaic cells based on III-V material and developed for satellites exceed 30 percent efficiency. This is far higher than the efficiency of commercially-available silicon and thin film cells. However, these satellite cells are very costly, as they are produced on expensive single-crystal wafers.

Wakonda plans to create a low-cost, virtual single-crystal material to simulate the expensive single crystal III-V wafer.

"We're delighted to have the support of this top-tier group of investors to help us accomplish this goal. Their experience and track records give us additional confidence that we will achieve our commercial market objectives," said Wakonda founder and CEO Les Fritzemeier.

"In a market filled with innovative ideas, Wakonda's approach for producing low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells stood out as having breakthough potential," said Bill Wiberg, General Partner, ATV, who co-led the round of financing.

The company has been developing its technology in conjunction with the Rochester Institute of Technology, where Wakonda co-founder and CTO Ryne Raffaelle, leads the NanoPower Research Lab, and with Cornell University and the NASA Glenn Research Center.

Wakonda CEO Les Fritzemeier spent years at American Superconductor Corp. working on products for the electric power industry and Rockwell International working on aerospace power systems. He holds 22 U.S. Patents, a PhD from Columbia University and an MBA from California Lutheran University.

Agence France-Presse - July 8, 2008
US automobile giant General Motors (GM) will announce Tuesday that it will build the world's largest rooftop solar power station at its biggest factory in Europe, the Financial Times reported.

Its factory in Zaragoza, northern Spain, will be clad in 183,000 square metres of solar panels in a 50 million euro (78.5 million dollar) project to provide a quarter of the factory's power at peak times, the paper said.

The carmaker is working with Veolia Environnement of France and Clairvoyant Energy of the US on the project, which is part of a commitment to greater sustainability.

GM is due to install solar panels on its factory in Saint Petersburg next and is looking at whether to roll out the scheme to its other 19 plants across Europe.

Agence France-Presse - July 1, 2008
Author: Bogonko Bosire

The world is enjoying a "green energy gold rush", the UN's environmental agency said Tuesday as it published a report outlining a 60 percent hike in investment in renewable energy in 2007.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) study, published in Nairobi, said more than 148 billion dollars (93 billion euros) of new funds were ploughed into the quest for cleaner energy last year.

The massive demand for solar , wind and biofuel energy was being powered by prevailing climate change worries, growing support from world governments and rising crude oil prices, the UN agency said.

"Just as thousands were drawn to California and the Klondike in the late 1800s, the green energy gold rush is attracting legions of modern-day prospectors in all parts of the globe," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a statement.

"What is unfolding is nothing less than a fundamental transformation of the world's energy infrastructure."

The UNEP report said wind energy had attracted the highest investment, raking in 50.2 billion dollars in 2007. As of March 2008 its production capacity was more than 100 gigabytes, it added.

Solar power grew most rapidly, attracting some 28.6 billion dollars in new capital and growing at an average annual rate of 254 percent since 2004.

Biofuel investment declined by one-third to 2.1 billion in 2007 with new investment shifting from the US to the growth economies of Brazil, India and China.

Much of the new cash flowed into Europe and the US, but China, India and Brazil were drawing increasing interest with investment in the three nations up from 12 percent in 2004 to 22 percent last year -- an increase from 1.8 billion dollars to 26 billion.

Effectively, China, India and Brazil accounted for nearly a quarter of the new investment in clean energy.

Sustainable energy accounted for 23 percent of new power capacity added globally in 2007, about 10 times that of nuclear, the report added.

"Investment in the sustainable energy sectors must continue to grow strongly if targets for greenhouse gas reductions and renewables and efficiency increases are to be met," according to the report.

"Investment between now and 2030 is expected to reach 450 billion dollars a year by 2012, rising to more than 600 billion dollars a year from 2020."

The report added that energy from biomass and geothermal power were being lined up as the next growth industries as the world strives to end its dependency on fossil fuels blamed for contributing to global warming.

Developing nations like China, which has already surpassed the US as the world's largest carbon polluter, are under pressure to take quick measures aimed at curbing its greenhouse gas emissions.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the world most populous nation on Tuesday to accept its global responsibilities on climate change.

"China is a global power with a global responsibility and global interests," he said in an address at Beijing's Foreign Affairs University.

"Major emitters from the developing world must also increase their contributions to reduce carbon emissions."

Steiner said transition to cleaner energy sources had become inevitable in the modern world.

"With world temperatures and fossil fuel prices climbing higher, it is increasingly obvious to the public and investors alike that the transition to a low-carbon society is both a global imperative and an inevitability.

"This is attracting an enormous inflow of capital, talent and technology. But it is only inevitable if creative market mechanisms and public policy continue to evolve to liberate rather than frustrate this clean energy dawn."

Although Africa continues to lag other regions in terms of sustainable energy investment, financing in the clean energy sector climbed to 1.3 billion dollars in 2007.

This was five times the level of the previous year and reversed a gradual decline since 2004, the report added.

Fiona Harvey. Financial Times. London (UK): Jun 25, 2008.

Lord Nicholas Stern, author of 2006's Stern report on climate change, will launch a new carbon credit rating agency today that will be the first to score carbon credits on a similar basis to that used to rate debt.

Carbon credits have come under increasing fire as investors, academics and non-governmental organisations have complained that many of them lack credibility. Recent studies have confirmed findings by the Financial Times last year that suggested as many as half of carbon credits promised under the Kyoto protocol would fail to materialise.

Lord Stern, the former World Bank chief economist whose landmark report on the economics of climate change warned that the world risked economic depression if action was not taken urgently on greenhouse gases, said carbon trading was a "key plank" in dealing with climate change.

"If we are to attract the levels of finance necessary to make this a mainstream market and have a strong impact on emissions reduction, risks must be clearly understood, articulated and managed. A detailed ratings system is a vital tool to bring greater clarity, transparency and certainty to the market," he said.

The agency, run by the IdeaCarbon group of which Lord Stern is vice-chairman, said it would offer investors a guide to the quality of credits and the likelihood that they would be delivered. Sellers of carbon credits would have to pay to have their products rated, while buyers would also pay to gain access to the ratings.

Under the Kyoto protocol, companies are issued with United Nations-certified carbon credits in return for funding projects - such as wind turbines or solar panels - that reduce emissions in developing countries. These credits can be sold to rich-country governments to meet their emissions targets under the protocol, or to companies covered by the European Union's emissions trading scheme, which can use the credits to increase the quota of carbon they may produce.

Credits can fetch from $2 (pound(s)1) a tonne of carbon dioxide to more than $15, the spread reflecting the variation in the projects' quality.