-
1. Index Ventures Drums Up €350M Fund, Adding More Cleantech
-
2. OptiSolar Hawks Its Crown Jewels to First Solar
-
3. Daily Sprout
-
4. Florida Utility Kicks Off Solar Feed-in Tariff, a First for the U.S.
Index Ventures Drums Up €350M Fund, Adding More Cleantech
Josie Garthwaite - Startups
While Index has invested in more than 100 startups since its launch more than a decade ago (including such high profile tech ventures as Skype and MySQL), its cleantech portfolio remains sparse. Since joining the green VCs at Kleiner Perkins in backing rubber recycler Lehigh Technologies last summer, Index has yet to make another cleantech play.
With another €350 million in hand, Index may be ready to bulk up that portfolio with clean technology investments that jive more with the firm’s history of getting in on the ground floor. Five-year-old Lehigh, which had already been running a 83,000-square-foot manufacturing plant for about two years by the time Index and Kleiner closed their $34.5 million investment, offered a way to test the sector’s waters. This latest fund is meant for bolder moves: According to the company’s announcement today, the fund “reinforces the firm's commitment to investing in innovative and disruptive companies, from the very earliest stages.”
Hear Microsoft, IBM, Dell and Cisco execs at GigaOM’s Green:Net.
OptiSolar Hawks Its Crown Jewels to First Solar
Kevin Kelleher - Big Green
The credit crisis isn't just shaking up the solar industry, it's reshaping it — forcing major deals to shift from the weak to the strong.
OptiSolar, a privately held startup that won a coveted 550 megawatt solar project to supply PG&E with solar power, is selling its project pipeline — Topaz and much more — to First Solar for an equity stake in the latter valued at $400 million.
In addition to the PG&E project, the pipeline will present First Solar with other projects that are in talks with utilities in California and the western U.S. that could generate 1.3 megawatts, as well as land rights to 136,000 “strategic” acres capable of producing up to 19 gigawatts of new projects, and the staff of 30 or so that won these projects for OptiSolar.
First Solar is an industry leader that only last week was worrying that canceled contracts from some customers might leave it with too much inventory. OptiSolar recently laid off nearly half its staff and delayed construction of an ambitious new plant, citing financing concerns. Today’s deal is aimed at addressing the companies’ respective problems.
The benefits appear to be stronger for First Solar, however, which said it won out over several other bidders. At once, it has gained what it's been wanting for years: a sizable chunk of the market for U.S. utilities, many of which are mandated by state regulators to rely more on renewable energy.
“This is a watershed acquisition…that will catapult us into a whole new league when it comes to the U.S. utility market,” said First Solar CEO Michael Ahearn. “Many of these kinds of projects are still in the thinking stage and years away from realization. This package in total would be very hard to replicate at all and certainly not without many years of work.”
Although the acquisition is expected to add about $70 million in new revenue to First Solar from projects close to completion, it will subtract 35-40 cents from its per-share earnings, largely because of the stock dilution from OptiSolar's equity stake. First Solar said the pipeline will add modestly to earnings next year and increase volumes by 600-700 megawatts between 2010 and 2013.
To meet the demand from PG&E and any other projects, First Solar will need to expand its production capacity. In a call with analysts, the company said it expects the 550 MW Topaz project to require three years to install, and to rely on some outside contractors to help build it in that time frame. But the payoff could be a much stronger footing in the U.S. market than it had expected even a few months ago.
Hear Microsoft, IBM, Dell and Cisco execs at GigaOM’s Green:Net.
Daily Sprout
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
Behold the Salt: Startup SolarReserve uses the sun's heat to boil water, spin a turbine and heat a salt, which melts into a liquid that can maintain vast amounts of heat. — NYT’s Green Inc.
Mitsubishi Pairs With Peugeot: Mitsubishi Motors Corp said today it will work with PSA Peugeot-Citroen on its new electric car, the i MiEV, aiming to sell the car in Europe from the end of 2010 or early 2011. — Reuters
TV Execs Minding Their Carbon: Even hybrid vehicles emit greenhouse gases when blown up, so TV producers trying to reduce carbon emissions from their shows are buying offsets. — International Herald Tribune
Building to Demand: Gearing up to introduce the 2010 Prius into a shrinking U.S. auto market that now includes a cheaper, revamped competitor from Honda, Toyota says it may have to dial back its goal of selling 180,000 units in the model’s first year. — Bloomberg
Let’s Make a Deal: Bolivia’s President Evo Morales says he’s ready to sink some $200 million into mining the country’s robust lithium reserves — he just needs to find the right partner. — MSNBC
Florida Utility Kicks Off Solar Feed-in Tariff, a First for the U.S.
Josie Garthwaite - Energy
Utilities and policymakers have started to warm up to feed-in tariffs for residential and commercial solar systems over the last few years — proposing programs to buy surplus power from customers’ photovoltaic systems as a way to encourage installations. Now there’s something to show for all the buzz: Gainesville Regional Utilities, or GRU, of Florida officially launched yesterday a feed-in tariff program modeled after those in Europe, the first U.S. city to implement such an incentive for clean energy.
GRU has set an initial rate of 32 cents per kilowatt-hour for customers who sign up in the first two years of the program. At the end of next year, the city-owned utility will evaluate the market and set a rate for 2011 (expected to be less than the initial 32 cents). Contracts will guarantee fixed rates for 20 years.
Not everyone can participate — the utility will add just 4 MW per year for the next decade in an effort to keep costs down for ratepayers, who will subsidize the $1.5 million program through their utility bills. According to the Gainesville Sun, the 4-MW-a-year cap will limit increases to between 3 and 5 percent. The Sun reported this weekend that GRU hit its 2009 cap with 35 contracts in just three weeks, and has already lined up customers for 60 percent of the 2010 allowance.
Feed-in tariff momentum is also picking up steam elsewhere in the U.S., and around the globe. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, for example, is pushing for a feed-in tariff that would guarantee a rate for surplus electricity from residential solar systems for about a decade.
Michigan utility Consumers Energy wants to test a program somewhat more limited than the one launched in Gainesville: The utility recently proposed to pay residential customers 65 cents per kilowatt-hour and commercial customers 45 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2009, with slightly lower rates next year — higher rates than what GRU has promised for the first two years. But it’s not necessarily a better deal for customers, as Greentech Media explained in a recent post: The proposal includes caps at 150 KW per customer, contracts that run out after 12 years, a $25-a-month participation fee and a total program cap of just 2 MW.
In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa set a goal of getting 10 percent of its energy from solar by 2020 in November. To help reach that target he proposed a new feed-in tariff that would allow solar energy providers to sell power directly to the utility, reaping tax incentives valued at up to 60 percent of installation costs. And Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski proposed a feed-in tariff for solar energy projects modeled after the granddaddy of tariff systems, Germany's, which encompasses all electricity from renewables.
Hear Microsoft, IBM, Dell and Cisco execs at GigaOM’s Green:Net.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment