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1. eSolar Wins Massive Solar Thermal Deal in China
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2. Earth2Tech Week in Review
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3. Greentech Factories Get $2.3B in Tax Credits, Obama Wants $5B More
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4. 5 Energy Management Tools Launched at CES
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5. Big Auto & Oil to DC: Relax on the Ethanol Blend
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6. Konarka Raises $23.8M, Inches Toward Commercialization
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7. PHOTOS: 8 Green Cars to Watch at the Detroit Auto Show
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8. Boeing: The New Solar Thermal King, In Patents
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9. Green:Net 2010: Don't Miss It!
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10. Daily Sprout
eSolar Wins Massive Solar Thermal Deal in China
Katie Fehrenbacher - clean power
eSolar says this will be China’s largest solar thermal project — technology which uses mirrors and lenses to concentrate the sun rays to power a steam turbine — and the first 92 MW project will get built this year. A company called China Shaanxi Yulin Huayang New Energy Co. will own and operate the initial projects.
This deal is huge for the startup, which is just 3 years old and uses modular designs, small mirrors and computing power to lower the cost of solar thermal technology. The company turned on it first solar thermal pilot project in the U.S. in August 2009, the 5 MW "Sierra SunTower," which uses 24,000 mirrors and is located in Lancaster in Southern California.
The young history hasn’t stopped it from winning over international and U.S. deals. Over the past couple of years, the company has inked a deal with California utility Southern California Edison for a 245 MW solar thermal power plant, won two 92 MW deals with NRG Energy, signed an agreement with India's Acme Group to build up to 1 GW of solar thermal projects (Acme also made a $30 million equity investment in the company), and established a partnership with a South African-based energy firm to expand sales operations across the sub-Saharan region of the continent.
Investors are clearly interested in the firm, too. eSolar has raised at least $160 million from Bill Gross' Idealab, Google.org, Acme and other investors.
So what’s all the fuss about? eSolar former CEO Asif Ansari (the current CEO is now chip veteran John Van Scoter) previously explained it to us that the company builds 33 MW modular power plants, with thousands of flat mirrors that are one square meter in size. The company can replicate the number of modules depending on the size of the plant the utility needs, and the uniform modularity makes it easy for any sized utility to incorporate solar thermal power into the grid, as well as increases the addressable market in developing countries.
Todd Woody reports that eSolar already manufactures its mirrors in China, and under the terms of the agreement with Penglai will also build its power plant receivers in the country.
Image courtesy of eSolar.
Earth2Tech Week in Review
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
5 Energy Management Tools Launched at CES: While digital home energy management tools aren't dominating the headlines from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year, a few consumer electronics makers, utilities and software designers have launched some interesting products at the show. Gadget makers are starting to fold in energy management as one part of the entire consumer option.
PHOTOS: 8 Green Cars to Watch at the Detroit Auto Show:When the Detroit Auto Show kicks off next week, we’ll see concepts for greener cars — a sign of how even in a time when more car companies are questioning the value of these budget-busting events, they’re still betting that demonstrating green innovation (with designs like the eight we’ve picked out) will be worth the price.
“Google Energy” Subsidiary: What’s Google Up To?:The search engine giant has created a subsidiary called "Google Energy," which is looking to buy and sell electricity on federally regulated wholesale markets. Given the legal permission to act as a utility — basically buying and selling clean energy — Google could help offset its carbon emissions that result from its large power needs.
Volt Battery Pack No. 1 Rolls off Assembly Line, Finish Line in Sight: The first battery pack for General Motors’ upcoming Chevy Volt rolled off the line at a Brownstown, Mich. factory this week. A few hurdles remain for production of the vehicle, but GM hinted the price point may come down sooner rather than later from the previous estimate of $40,000.
DOE to Invest $47M in Data Center Efficiency Projects:Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced this week that the Department of Energy will spend $47 million of its stimulus funds on 14 projects that will make information and communication technology more efficient, with a strong emphasis on data center efficiency.
Greentech Factories Get $2.3B in Tax Credits, Obama Wants $5B More
Josie Garthwaite - Big Green
According to a release from the Department of Energy today, more than 500 requests for tax credits totaling more than $8 billion rolled in for the program — “far more interest than anticipated.” The agency says it now has “a substantial backlog of technically acceptable applications” for “worthy projects.” Rather than showing these applicants the door, the Obama administration hopes Congress will green-light an additional $5 billion in funding to expand the program.
The creation of the tax credit program this summer was a big deal because while credits were already available for renewable-energy generation projects, these were some of the first to offer a boost further upstream for the manufacturing of gear needed for the installations. The idea of the program is to help make the U.S. a manufacturing hub for clean power equipment.
Back in August, the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group, predicted that the credits, combined with other provisions under the Recovery Act, would create 110,000 solar jobs by the end of 2010. The DOE estimates that the facilities supported by the awards announced today will generate more than 17,000 jobs. With matching funds from the private sector, the agency expects the projects to result in another 41,000 jobs. About 30 percent of the projects will be completed this year, according to the DOE.
One of the biggest winners in today’s announcement is General Electric, which the Department of Energy has awarded credits for eight projects — including $25.5 million for a battery plant in Schenectady, NY. In May 2009, GE CEO Jeff Immelt announced (pictured) that GE would make an “initial investment” of $100 million in a new upstate New York battery factory (a site for the facility was chosen in Schenectady a few months later). The conglomerate hoped stimulus funds would help it accelerate construction of the plant to build sodium-based battery cells for hybrid freight trains and other applications.
A startup funded by GE Equity and GE Energy Financial Services (as well as the Angeleno Group and others), also scored credits today: TPI Composites, which announced an agreement in 2007 to supply GE with wind turbine blades, won tax credits for facilities in Iowa and Nebraska building composite materials for lightweight turbine blades.
The DOE awarded nearly $17 million in credits to electric car company Think North America to set up a vehicle assembly and component manufacturing facility in Indiana. Other projects OK’d for credits today include smart meter maker Itron (for expansion of a South Carolina meter factory), PPG Industries (for a Louisiana facility producing coatings for solar cells) and W.L. Gore & Associates (for production of emission-reducing gas turbine filters and advanced membranes used in high-efficiency buildings, vehicles and fuel cells). The full list can be downloaded here.
Top photo courtesy of Flickr user chaunceydavis818
5 Energy Management Tools Launched at CES
Katie Fehrenbacher - Green IT
GE’s Smart Home Energy Panel: GE has launched an energy panel in conjunction with gadget-maker OpenPeak, which connects via wireless standards ZigBee and Wi-Fi to a smart meter (GE also makes smart meters), connected appliances (GE makes those too) and connected thermostats. GE says the device is shaped like a table-top picture frame and will also connect with “Internet news, sports, music, weather services, social networks like Facebook and instant messaging.”
GE and OpenPeak’s energy panel is different than the Home Energy Manager that GE announced last year (and which is shaped like a large table-top picture frame) and which is supposed to be available in 2010. GE tells me that the HEM is being developed in-house, and that the panel announced today with OpeanPeak is market-ready.
Direct Energy’s Energy Gadget: As we first reported energy reseller Direct Energy and a group of gadget heavyweights, including appliance maker Whirlpool, retail group Best Buy, and gadget developer OpenPeak, launched a home energy management device dubbed the Home Energy Management (HEM) center at CES. Tim Woods, founder of POCO Labs, the group that will conduct the in-home tests for Direct Energy, told us the device will also offer communication and social networking information.
Control4’s Energy Management Gear: Control4 only started focusing on utilities and smart meters back in July 2009, but at CES it showed off its Energy Management System (EMS) 100. The package, which includes a Zigbee-enabled thermostat and a touch-screen energy device controller will be available in April, says CNET.
Tenrehte Technologies’ Wi-Fi Smart Plugs: A Rochester, New York-based company called Tenrehte Technologies is developing Wi-Fi-enabled smart plugs called Picowatts that can be used instead of smart meters. According to Smartmeters.com the Picowatts are about the size of an Apple AirPort and will cost $79 will then go on sale in April. The product will be sold directly to consumers.
Intamac’s Energy Offering: Connect home player Intamac said at CES that it has partnered with D-Link to offer a Home Energy Monitoring Starter Kit. The kit includes two power sensor adapters that plug into the wall sockets. When appliances are plugged into these adapters, users can see energy consumption of those devices on the mydlink.com web site. Sounds pretty weak if you ask me.
Big Auto & Oil to DC: Relax on the Ethanol Blend
Josie Garthwaite - Biofuels
Now, in a six-page letter addressed this week to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and White House climate czar Carol Browner, the group — including the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute – say they want the EPA to hold off on final decisions about ethanol fuel blend standards until after the Department of Energy has spent “all the $15 million targeted for expanding and accelerating mid-level ethanol blends research in the 2010 appropriations bill.”
The position to support a delay puts the group behind the letter directly in conflict with the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol lobbying group, which warned last month the EPA’s delay “threatens to paralyze the continued evolution of America’s ethanol industry.” It’s the companies that make the cars and run the gas stations, rather than those that produce the ethanol, that will have to deal most directly with the potential consequences of a new fuel blend, such as vehicle warranty issues or new equipment requirements. And it’s these companies’ brands on the line if customers aren’t happy with how their vehicles perform with the new blends.
Ethanol lobbying group Growth Energy (headed by General Wesley Clark) and 54 ethanol manufacturers applied in March 2009 for approval to use a 15 percent blend of ethanol in gasoline, rather than the current max blend of 10 percent. Federal statutes called for the EPA to provide an answer within 270 days. The EPA previously had a December 1, 2009 deadline to hand down a decision on this issue.
But the EPA opted to postpone its decision until mid-2010 to allow for more testing. As Green Inc. wrote, the EPA said, “some initial results indicate that raising the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline would be feasible for newer cars,” likely models from 2001 and later.
Most of this week’s letter is dedicated to a summary of research the groups would like the government to pursue. Higher levels of ethanol can damage engines, they note, and the “effects of long term exposure need to be determined.” Furthermore, the groups argue that the DOE should add testing of electronic sensors to its program, and they claim the agency’s testing of fuel dispensers is incomplete: “There are too many different dispensers installed across the country for the DOE testing to be sufficient.”
The importance that some ethanol proponents are putting on this E15 waiver decision highlights a difference in priorities for the corn ethanol vs. cellulosic ethanol industries. As Katie reported from the Las Vegas Clean Energy Summit this summer, getting even an incremental uptick in ethanol blends is the top priority for Growth Energy in the face of a difficult year for the industry, with plants closed down and a slew of bankruptcies. But for earlier-stage cellulosic ethanol developers, more focus is on proving that the economics of their technology works at a large commercial scale — a milestone that keeps slipping just out of reach.
Image courtesy of the Department of Energy
Konarka Raises $23.8M, Inches Toward Commercialization
Katie Fehrenbacher - clean power
By my rough calculations, the company has raised close to $175 million in private equity and $20 million in government grants. That puts it close to the $200 million mark, which only a few greentech companies have achieved, including smart grid network maker Silver Spring Networks and thin film solar firm Solyndra.
Konarka's special sauce lies with its organic solar panels. The “Power Plastic” is able to absorb a much wider spectrum of light than other thin films, allowing for higher efficiencies and even indoor applications.
So with all that funding will Konarka, which spun out of the University of Massachusetts in 2001, be churning out its Power Plastic in significant volumes soon? Seems like it’s getting ever closer and starting to ship initial volumes, but, hey, we understand that the transition from pilot to commercial scale takes some time to ramp up. And if they’re manufacturing and shipping a lot of product, then they’re being very quiet about it.
Back in October 2008 Konarka officially “opened” its manufacturing plant in New Bedford, Mass., which was supposed to have a production capacity of 1 gigawatt per year. At the time the company said it planned to hire more than 100 additional employees as production increased toward capacity over the next 2-3 years, and that commercial production of its branded organic photovoltaic "Power Plastic" was supposed to start in the first quarter of 2009.
You might remember that October 2008 was also around the time of the big market crash, and all of 2009 proved economically difficult. In February 2009 Konarka raised just $5 million in financing for manufacturing and job creation in Massachusetts in the form of a long-term loan from the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency and the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust. And a Konarka spokesperson told us in Feburary 2009 that Konarka planned to start shipping its first products from the New Bedford plant around the end of the first quarter or the beginning of the second quarter of 2009.
All of 2009 I was waiting for some big announcements about commercial volumes from Konarka but over the year the company announced a variety of small first time shipments. For example, in April 2009 a company called SKYShades received its first shipment of Konarka’s solar power plastic.
We’ve reached out to Konarka and are waiting to hear back on how far along they are in production. Like we said, it’s a gradual process to ramp up volume manufacturing.
PHOTOS: 8 Green Cars to Watch at the Detroit Auto Show
Josie Garthwaite - Automotive
The annual event, which kicks off on Monday with two days of press previews, will include an array of concepts for greener cars, including hybrids, plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles — a sign of how even in a time when more and more car companies are questioning the value of these budget-busting auto shows, they’re still betting that demonstrating green innovation (with designs like the eight shown below) will be worth the price.
Hyundai Blue-Will Plug-in Hybrid (concept, North American debut). Hyundai claims its concept can go up to 40 miles on electric power. It has a 1.6-liter gas engine and a 100 kw electric engine. Some parts are made with bio-based or recycled plastics. A touch screen in the center stack gives drivers “continuous feedback on fuel consumption and driving efficiency.” Solar cells in the glass roof “provide a trickle charge that helps operate a cabin cooling fan, reducing interior temperatures while the car is parked in the sun.”
BMW Concept ActiveE (electric concept). BMW has envisioned the Concept ActiveE as a four-seat sedan with a lithium-ion battery, 100-mile range and a smartphone app to monitor battery charge and condition. It's based on the BMW 1 Series Coupe.
Images courtesy of the automakers.
Boeing: The New Solar Thermal King, In Patents
Ucilia Wang - clean power
A patent tracker by Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti shows that Boeing has snagged 14 solar thermal patents in the U.S. since 2002, more than any other company. The technologies covered include the use of molten salt to store energy and the heating of fluids to produce steam for running a generator, according to the Albany, N.Y., law firm’s latest Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI).
Although Boeing hasn’t made headlines with its solar thermal technologies in recent years, it was once a key player when it came to building solar thermal power plants, including as part of a consortium that built Solar Two in California’s Mojave Desert. Solar Two was an experiment in developing the so-called “power tower” technology, which uses a field of mirrors to concentrate and direct sunlight to heat water or molten salt in a central tower. The steam produced is then used to run turbines for electricity generation.
Molten salt, a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate, is good for energy storage and allows a power plant operator to use it even at night to run the generator.
Boeing and the other members of the Solar Two consortium, among them privately held Bechtel inaugurated the power plant in 1996. Solar Two lasted till 1999, as planned; the mothballed plant was recently detonated by Southern California Edison.
Boeing also had designs on co-developing a solar thermal power plant called Solar Tres in Spain, but ditched the idea, according to a 2007 presentation by Sener, a Spanish engineering firm.
Power tower technology is considered a newer — and some investors would say less proven — approach than the parabolic trough technology that relies on curved mirrors to heat fluid-containing pipes to generate the steam. BrightSource, based in Oakland, Calif., is a champion of the power tower technology. eSolar out of Pasadena, Calif., built a 5-megawatt power tower-based plant in Southern California last August.
The CEPGI also analyzed patents for solar-cell related patents (photovoltaics), and found Canon to be the top dog. Canon has 2.5 times more patents than Sharp, the second on the list. Sharp is one of the top global producer of solar cells and panels and boasts 1 gigawatt of manufacturing capacity. Canon, on the other hand, is better known for making calculators and other gadgets embedded with solar cells.
But most of the 88 patents by Canon deal with what CEPGI calls “enabling technologies,” which aren’t part of the solar cells but help those cells to perform their task. Enabling technologies include power conversion, diodes and trackers.
By the way, Japanese companies dominate the list of top 15 PV patent holders, the CEPGI said. The top 3 are all Japanese firms and have collectively accumulated 17 percent of all PV patents. Boeing does rank No. 4 on the PV list because it owns solar-cell developer SpectroLab.
Solar patents aren’t as popular as wind and fuel cell patents, which reign among the cleantech categories tracked by CEPGI. But solar is gaining and could overtake wind this year, the law firm said.
Image courtesy of NREL.
Green:Net 2010: Don't Miss It!
Katie Fehrenbacher - Green IT
While Green:Net 2010 will be bigger, it will still feature the cutting edge, under-the-radar and next-generation ideas and innovators in the space where green meets IT. This year we’re placing more focus on the smart grid and connected cars, and we’ll also feature topics like home energy management, carbon software, investing in energy efficiency and infotech, greener data centers and using the web for a green social movement.
We’re just starting to put together the lineup, but have already secured some great speakers (more on that in the coming days). If you feel that you, or someone you know, would rock Green:Net as a speaker, drop me a line at events AT gigaom.com. We’ll also be featuring our Green:Net startup launchpad again, so contact us if your new company fits the bill: a new company with an innovative idea and technology for how IT can fight climate change (preference given to stealth companies that launch at Green:Net 2010).
Daily Sprout
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
Meet the Climate Killers: Tim Dickinson argues 17 “polluters and deniers” are derailing efforts to curb climate change. Investor Warren Buffett tops the list for bad-mouthing climate legislation and pouring billions of dollars into the country’s biggest climate polluter and top coal hauler. – Rolling Stone via Mother Jones
Hybrids for the Win: When asked to rate which alternative fuel technologies will be most important for the auto industry over the next five years, auto execs ranked hybrid systems at the top. Battery electric power, fuel cell electric power, and biodiesel filled came in next, in that order. — CNET’s Planetary Gear
EPA Proposes Tighter Smog Standards: The EPA today proposed new standards for ground-level ozone (aka smog) that would replace standards set in March 2008 by the Bush administration. The agency’s science advisers have criticized those Bush era standards as being too lax. — Washington Business Journal
India Plows Ahead on Climate Plans: “India will go ahead with its plans to combat climate change without waiting for global finance as nations prepare for fresh talks after failing to agree on a binding global treaty at Copenhagen last month.” The country’s environment minister said today that international finance should play a “supportive role,” not “a catalytic or a start-up role.” — Bloomberg
The Year in Carbon Trading: The market for trading CO2 jumped 68 percent last year compared with the previous year, mainly because of increased trading activity in Europe. But the value of the market remained roughly unchanged after carbon prices fell, according to Point Carbon. — NYT’s Green Inc.
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