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1. Areva to Buy Solar Thermal Startup Ausra
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2. Pole Solar: Petra Solar Goes Big With $40M Funding Round
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3. AMEE Raises $5.5M for Carbon Accounting Engine
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4. The Anxiety of Digital: Cars, Power Grid Up Next
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5. Better Place Preps for Israel Launch: Partners, Demo Center
Areva to Buy Solar Thermal Startup Ausra
Katie Fehrenbacher - clean power
Areva, which has a large nuclear portfolio, says it will use the Ausra acquisition to become “the world leader in concentrated solar power,” and will sell solar thermal tech to utilities and independent power producers. Solar thermal technology uses mirrors and lenses to concentrate the sun rays to power turbines, and utilities have been turning to it in droves as of late.
During 2009 Ausra changed its strategy from looking to build and operate its own solar thermal power plants to providing its equipment to solar power producers. Building and operating these solar power plants would have taken a ton of financing, which, in a hard economy, would have proven to be a difficult route. Proof of that came at the end of last year when Ausra announced that it will sell its Carrizo Energy Solar Farm project, a proposed 177MW project still under development in San Luis Obispo, Calif., to industry thin-film solar giant First Solar. And in September Ausra said it had been chosen to provide its equipment for a 100MW concentrated solar thermal power project being developed in Ma'an, Jordan.
When Ausra’s acquisition talks emerged in the media, Katherine Potter, its VP of communications, told us: "As our recent string of announcements have shown, our business strategy of focusing on being a solar steam systems provider is working and producing results."
Without knowing the price of the acquisition or the valuation, it’s hard to tell how well Ausra investors will make out in the deal. Ausra's investors include Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, Al Gore's Generation Investment, Alberta, Canada-based KERN Partners and Melbourne, Australia-based Starfish Ventures. The 4-year-old company has raised around $130 million to date. I’ll do more digging, but I think this is the first (or one of the first) exits for Kleiner Perkins.
Areva will have to compete in an increasingly crowded market including eSolar, BrightSource, Infinia (which is raising $75 million) and Stirling Energy. The acquisition is expected to close in the next couple of months and is subject to regulatory approval.
More on Ausra:
Solar Thermal Startup Ausra Looking to Sell?
First Solar Buys Ausra Solar Project; PG&E Power Purchase Deal Is Off
Ausra Gets a Piece of 100MW Solar Thermal Plant in Jordan
Solar Thermal Startup Ausra Tracks Down $25.5M
Ausra Turns On Solar Thermal Power Plant Ausra: Financial Markets Could Effect Utility Solar Projects
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):
Getting Solar Onto the Smart Grid
Pole Solar: Petra Solar Goes Big With $40M Funding Round
Justin Moresco - clean power
Petra Solar said it will use the new funding to expand its customer base and hire more staff. The South Plainfield, N.J.-based company also said it plans to expand its product line to address new applications and market segments. We're still waiting for comment from Petra Solar, but we’re thinking that those new applications and markets might have to do with commercial and residential customers. The company's website has dedicated sections for commercial and residential products and services.
Update: Petra Solar CEO Shihab Kuran has confirmed for us that the company will use the funding to expand into commercial and residential markets, but always with "utilities in mind as partners," such as those with initiatives to add PV to their customers' roofs. Also, the startup will use the funding to expand its applications for utilities, such as around smart grid, mounting systems and grid reliability.
Last year Petra Solar inked a $200 million deal with New Jersey utility PSE&G to build 40 MW of pole-mounted solar capacity, or about 200,000 installations. Petra Solar CEO Shihab Kuran said in a statement released at the time that the contract, its first deal with a utility, was "transformational" for the company. Petra Solar now says it's shipping its pole-mounted solar systems in volume to PSE&G, and that a growing number of utilities and municipalities are "engaged with the company."
Petra Solar's pole-mounted package, called SunWave and including a solar panel (presumably with an embedded micro-inverter since it cranks out AC power) and a communications system, can be directly tied into a utility's electric grid. The communications piece sends critical operational data, such as energy generation, voltage and temperature, to a utility's back office where it can be viewed through a Web browser. Communications can also go the other way, from the back office to the pole-mounted systems, for firmware upgrades.
Petra Solar says its SunWave product is price-competitive with conventional roof-mounted PV but can be brought online faster because of the relative ease of mounting the systems to a utility's existing distribution and streetlight poles. The startup hopes this will be attractive to utilities rushing to meet government rules that mandate the increased use of renewable energy.
Founded in 2006, Petra Solar previously has received a grant from the Department of Energy worth up to $2.9 million and raised $14 million in venture funding.
Image courtesy of Petra Solar.
AMEE Raises $5.5M for Carbon Accounting Engine
Katie Fehrenbacher - Green IT
AMEE, which originally stood for Avoiding Mass Extinctions Engine, was launched by Starks back in 2007 and has now amassed a customer list including the UK Government's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), SAS, Morgan Stanley, Google, Radiohead and Sun. AMEE’s platform is an open API that aggregates the information needed to monitor carbon emissions and perform carbon calculations for the user. By using a standard methodology and set of data to measure carbon footprints, AMEE can make this nascent practice more reliable, trusted and transparent and perhaps one day lead to the integration of validated carbon information into profiles of everything from goods to actions to people.
Carbon accounting is expected to be a $4 billion market by 2017, driven largely by regulation. However there have been a couple hurdles for this market lately. The bill that could deliver a cap-and-trade system in the U.S., and offer a boost for the carbon accounting market worldwide, seems to be stalled in the Senate this year. And the missed opportunity to provide clarity for the market during Copenhagen led to the biggest drop in European and UN carbon prices over a year-long period.
But a platform like AMEE can help add more stability in carbon prices, Starks explained to me in a phone call last week. Because the engine helps standardize the data and processes and adds transparency, the thought is that it will add a dose of reliability to the market (investors like things like clarity and security). Check out this video of Starks speaking at our Green:Net conference last year, and look for him back at our Green:Net 2010 (April 29 in San Francisco).
The Anxiety of Digital: Cars, Power Grid Up Next
Katie Fehrenbacher - Automotive
The Transformation: Grid, Vehicles
Both vehicles and the power grid are undergoing massive transformations involving IT. The so-called smart grid industry has emerged to sell utilities infrastructure based on communication networks, and companies are building software and services to help utilities manage energy data. The smart grid is projected to generate $210 billion in investment between 2010 and 2015, and President Obama has called for the installation of 40 million smart (digital and connected) meters in the U.S.
Cars are going digital and connected, too. Vehicles are now “packed with up to 100 million lines of computer code,” and have “at least 30 microprocessor-controlled devices,” points out the New York Times this weekend. Many automakers offer services based on network connections, like location-based navigation (enabled by a GPS system) or GM’s OnStar System which is based on a cellular connection.
As electric vehicles emerge in the coming years there will be even more uses of software and communication networks to manage the vehicle’s charge. Utilities will have to manage the collective charging of customers, so that EV charging doesn’t take down their grids. Electric vehicle infrastructure player Better Place will be offering its customers “a comprehensive suite of in-car services designed to provide drivers with the best possible EV driving experience,” when it launches commercially in 2011. Those types of services include directing drivers to available and nearby charge points, and rely heavily on software, computing and communication connections.
The Anxiety
Before electric vehicles even hit the mainstream market, though, consumers are already getting anxiety over computer and software dependent cars. Last week Toyota said that a software glitch is responsible for the braking problem in its Prius hybrid 2010. That’s led to a new round of media headlines taking a hard look at the trend of software and computing in cars (like the New York Time’s this weekend: The Dozens of Computers That Make Modern Cars Go (and Stop)).
I’ve experienced software glitches when driving a Smart Car that’s networked in the car sharing service City Car Share, and believe me it wasn’t fun. The Smart Car has a lot of embedded software, and the City Car Share service has its own software and IT systems, and I’ve had to call customer service several times in order to restart the computing system (kinda like rebooting a computer) to get the car to work properly. As the drivers of the Toyota Prius’ with glitchy software found: beta software just doesn’t cut it at 60 mph.
The smart grid has also had growing pains. “The Bakersfield issue,” emerged when residents in Bakersfield, Calif. filed a suit against utility PG&E for smart meters that they claimed boosted electricity bills. The problem was a combination of unusually hot weather and a lack of proper customer outreach, but at the heart of the issue was anxiety surrounding the introduction of the new digital meter.
When Digital Meets High Impact
Both vehicles and the power grid have different relationships with consumers, compared to entertainment, communications and some types of information. When your wireless network drops or your browser crashes and you’re sitting in front of a computer, it’s annoying but not life threatening. Software problems and dropped communication connections could have much more serious consequences in a vehicle (crashing, being stranded somewhere, not being able to get to work, etc), and for the power grid (outages, surges, etc).
Problems with reliability of software and computing in high-impact areas has been studied for years. For example, health care — last month I read this New York Times article that investigated faulty software that caused a string of medical errors for radiation treatments and lead to several deaths. It’s terrifying to think software that controls radiation shot at someone’s chest, could freeze as easily as my Firefox browser. The aviation and defense industries have long been dealing with the impact of software and communication systems on their high-impact technologies.
There’s also the worry over networks being more susceptible to security concerns. Adding a two-way network connection, means something, or someone, can access the data — that’s the whole point of connecting it to a network. But that also means the connected system can be hacked and used in ways that it wasn’t intended. The smart grid is no different, and computer security firm IOActive has shown a virtual demo of how a worm or virus could infiltrate connected digital smart meters and crash a power grid. The U.S. government is paying particular attention to smart grid security, following warnings from the Internet industry. How long until we see headlines about hacked cars?
The companies building the future of digital, connected vehicles and the power grid will be smart to look at the lessons learned through the digitization of some of these high-impact area, like aviation, defense and health care. These companies will just have to realize how sensitive the transition is to digital, connected systems and remain hyper vigilant. But expect to see a lot more headlines about digital anxiety over vehicles and the power grid in the future.
But ultimately the transformation to digital, connected vehicles and the power grid can’t slow down due to digital anxiety. Digitizing these 2 sectors — which are two of the biggest factors that contribute to the world’s carbon emissions and global warming — is fundamental to fight climate change.
Image courtesy of FlickrJunkie’s photostream Creative Commons.
Better Place Preps for Israel Launch: Partners, Demo Center
Katie Fehrenbacher - Automotive
As you can see from the photos the demo center is pretty swanky. It’s meant to be used as outreach for both potential Israeli customers, as well as international visitors, and features a multi-media center, a driving track, and will eventually have demos of the Renault Fluence.
In terms of the partnerships, Better Place says it plans to install battery swap stations at outlets owned by Dor Alon, one of the biggest gas station operators in Israel with 170 public retail outlets across the region. We’re waiting to hear back on how many of Dor Alon’s outlets will get the battery swap technology (Update: Better Place says they’re still finalizing deal). Better Place also says it’s boosted the number of corporate fleet partners in Israel, like Motorola and Computer Associates, to 92 companies, which have a collective total of 45,000 fleet vehicles. We’re also waiting to hear back on what percentage of that fleet will get swapped out for electric vehicles. (Update: No specifics offered on this either).
All of this prep work is needed to make the Better Place proposal attractive to Israel customers. The big question for 2011 will be, once the first Better Place network is launched commercially in Israel, will customers sign up?
One thing that next year’s launch will need is much more marketing, particularly because the Fluence will have just gone on sale. But Better Place does have that recently-raised whopping $350 million in funding — which was one of the largest rounds raised for cleantech ever — to help with the launch. And Better Place has now raised about $750 million. The funding is massive, but so are the stakes — if Better Place doesn’t work in Israel, it might not work anywhere.
Images courtesy of btrplc’s photostream Flickr.
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