21st Century Regenerative Technology

1. ReCellular Calls In $15M in Funding
2. Abengoa Rakes in $426M for 4 Solar Power Plants

ReCellular Calls In $15M in Funding

2008-08-08 15:12

Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups

With so many electronics makers and independent firms out there ready to recycle or revamp your cell phone, there really are no more excuses for tossing it in the trashbin. One of the longest-standing is ReCellular, which claims to be “the world’s largest recycler and reseller of used cellular phones and accessories.” Yesterday the nearly two decades old Dexter, Mich.-based company said it had raised $15 million from Investor Growth Capital to help grow its operations.

ReCellular says its revenues have already grown an average of 25 percent per year for the past eight years, and this year is on track to process more than 6 million phones. The new capital will be used to ramp up its expansion, the company says, including opening more offices and hiring more staff. ReCellular says it is also looking to make some acquisitions in the gizmo recycling space.

Like many of its startup competitors, ReCellular buys old phones from customers and collects donations, but instead of selling the phones on eBay, it offers them up directly to the customer through its web site. Broken phones are refurbished while worthless phones are broken down and recycled. The company also runs donation programs including the Cell Phones for Soldiers program, whose phone return envelopes you may have seen included in your last Amazon order.

Startups working in this space — and possible acquisition candidates — include BuyMyTronics.com, FlipSwap and the newly rebranded Gazelle.

Despite the numerous recycling options, just 3 percent of cell phone owners recycle their devices, and some 50 percent are unaware of cell phone recycling options altogether, according to studies from Nokia, the world’s largest handset maker. One big goal for ReCellular, and the industry as a whole, is to make clear to the consumer that while recycling is important, it can also be easy.

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Abengoa Rakes in $426M for 4 Solar Power Plants

2008-08-08 07:00

Craig Rubens - Energy

The solar arm of Spanish renewable energy and engineering giant Abengoa says it has completed raising funds for four new solar power installations it plans to build across Spain — Over €280 million ($426.33 million) was raised from 14 mostly Spanish banks for the projects. Most of those funds, or €210 million, will go toward the construction of Abengoa’s Solnova #4 Concentrating Solar Power plant while the other €70 will be used to build three solar photovoltaic plants.

Construction of the Solnova #4 plant will begin in September in Seville and the facility is planned to have 50 megawatts of power output capacity, the company says. The plant will use the same parabolic trough technology as the Solnova 1 and Solnova 3 plants. This is the “proven” trough technology that Abengoa’s senior adviser to the U.S., Fred Morse, told us the company plans to employ in their U.S. installations. That is, if the ITC sticks around.

Solnova 4 will join four other planned installations Abengoa is working on at their Solucar platform in Seville. The company says the entire site will generate a total of 300 MW from an array of solar technologies. PS 10, a central power tower installation using heliostats, is already generating 11 MW; another 1.2 MW is being produced by a low-concentration PV installation. Solnova 1 and 3 will each have a capacity of 50 MW using the parabolic trough design and are currently under construction. More installations using parabolic troughs and tower technology are under development as well as a concentrated solar power plant using dish Stirling technology.

Even though the Spanish government could shrink its solar incentives, Abengoa, which brought in €3.21 billion ($4.89 billion) in sales in 2007, has the financial wherewithal to keep these projects afloat and with this new backing from a consortium of banks we look forward to all of their solar systems coming online.