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1. Klamath Falls serves as model for geothermal industry nationwide
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2. Earth2Tech Week in Review
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3. Solyndra's Estimated Market Cap Up to $2B: Report
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4. Get Ready for Trial and Error in the Electric Vehicle Network Buildout
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5. Zenn Ends Vehicle Production, Lays Off Staff in EEStor Bet
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6. Green Data Centers: Does Cisco Have a Plan?
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7. It's Come to This: Citizens Against Smart Meters
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8. Hacking the Car: Cyber Security Risks Hit the Road
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9. Sustainability comes in small steps for Portland mother
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10. Daily Sprout
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11. Cloudy Day for SunPower: Restates Earnings, Profit Drop, Lower Guidance
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12. Tendril to Launch Digital Clock Inspired Home Energy Gadget
Klamath Falls serves as model for geothermal industry nationwide
The Associated Press - 115314
Earth2Tech Week in Review
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
Hacking the Car: Cyber Security Risks Hit the Road: Imagine seeing the damage caused by Internet viruses and worms unleashed on a fleet of vehicles. The results could include vehicle location data used with malicious intent, the prevention of a plug-in vehicle battery from recharging, remote starting of a car, or even — as a disgruntled young former car salesman in Texas has demonstrated this week — stranding drivers with a car that won't start and a horn that won't quit.
California's Smart Meter Battle: Google vs. Utilities: There's a battle looming in California over smart meters and energy prices. Google says the state should require its big utilities to give near real-time pricing information to every smart meter-enabled customer by the end of next year. California's big three utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric — have raised plenty of objections to that deadline.
Tendril to Launch Digital Clock Inspired Home Energy Gadget: Make it familiar and compelling — that's the idea behind the design of energy management startup Tendril's new gadget dubbed the Vision, which the company plans to unveil next week. The dashboard, designed by design firm IDEO, and based on the form of a digital clock, is intended to help consumers really engage with managing their energy consumption by using captivating design elements.
It's Come to This: Citizens Against Smart Meters: The backlash against the smart meters installed in Texas by utility Oncor doesn't seem to be dying down. Actually the protesters are getting more organized and turning to social media. A group called Smart UR Citizens has a new web site, an online petition, an intro video and an online survey, and is inviting community members to submit videos and comments about their experiences.
Get Your Open Source Home Energy Developer Kit, Courtesy of People Power: There's a growing number of options out there for aspiring home energy app makers — wireless energy management startup People Power released its software developer's kit called SuRF (Sensor Ultra Radio Frequency) for OSHAN (Open Source Home Area Network).
Solyndra's Estimated Market Cap Up to $2B: Report
Katie Fehrenbacher - clean power
Market capitalization is the size of a public company equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding, and changes every day for every public company. It’s basically a way to incorporate in public consensus of how much the company is worth. And Next Up! Research clearly thinks that Solyndra will be worth a whole lot.
Next Up! Research’s projected market cap for Solyndra is based on a variety of data, including that Solyndra will have a 50 percent compound annual growth rate for revenues between 2010 and 2015, compared to a more modest 30 percent growth rate for the rest of the solar market. The report says that the installation costs for Solyndra can range between $0.50 and $0.75 per watt, which it says is about half that for other solar panels with a flat geometry, and that cost advantage could translate to better pricing and thus share gains. Next Up! Research also predicts that Solyndra will have a price per share of $6.54 – $7.44 for the common shares.
Solyndra’s estimated market cap of up to $2 billion is definitely aggressive. In comparison thin film solar leader First Solar has a current market cap of $9.66 billion, solar panel maker Sun Power has a market cap of $1.84 billion (bad week for SunPower this week) and Suntech has a market cap of $2.55 billion.
The report is available now on the SharesPost site, an experimental market place that lacks regulatory oversight and launched out of private beta in June. SharesPost valued electric vehicle maker Tesla (which also plans to IPO this year) at over $1 billion with an estimated price per share of $4.21-$4.93.
Read more related research on GigaOM Pro (subscription required):
Cleantech Financing Trends: 2010 and Beyond
Get Ready for Trial and Error in the Electric Vehicle Network Buildout
Josie Garthwaite - Automotive
The British government has already pledged to invest more than $453 million for electric vehicle infrastructure, and to support the installation of at least 11,000 charge points, but the need for these new research initiatives suggest that there will likely be some trial and error in the initial buildout process for electric vehicle infrastructure (see: Startups to Watch as UK Builds Out Roadside Charging). ETI’s research teams have 4.5 million pounds and a little less than two years to figure it out.
More specifically, the projects will delve into three research areas: One, consumer attitudes and behavior when it comes to buying and using plug-in vehicles and charging infrastructure; two, impacts on electricity distribution networks, the need for smart charging systems, and future regulatory challenges related to charging infrastructure; and three, how mass deployment of plug-in vehicles will affect the economy and carbon emissions.
IBM, which will lead the second project, explains in a release that the research initiatives are meant to result in a proposal for “an overall system architecture for integrating plug-in vehicles” that takes into account electricity networks, charging points, and payment systems, and “ensures lead times are put in place for open and interoperable architectures.”
The projects in the UK don’t offer an exact parallel for infrastructure development in the U.S., as ZDNet points out today, given the country’s smaller size and different regulatory structure. But many of the questions also apply to deployment of electric vehicles in the U.S., and as the timeline for ETI’s projects suggests, the clock is ticking.
Pike Research anticipates more than a million charge points will be installed for electric vehicles by 2015. And IBM’s Allan Schurr told us in an interview last spring that he expects the "first wave of problems" for electric vehicles and grid operators to arise as early as 2011, long before plug-in vehicles make up a significant portion of the U.S. fleet, as a result of "clustering" — small numbers of vehicles concentrated in early-adopter communities or places with strong incentives — which could put extra strain on a local power network.
Image credit EVoasis
Related reports on GigaOM Pro (subscription required):
California Rules Show Opportunities in EV Charging
Zenn Ends Vehicle Production, Lays Off Staff in EEStor Bet
Josie Garthwaite - Automotive
The transition for Zenn from manufacturer to a would-be supplier for automakers and specialty vehicle companies has been months in the making. Last fall, CEO Ian Clifford told reporters the company no longer planned to sell its first highway-speed electric car, the cityZenn, and that it would “shift focus away” from its existing product, the Zenn LSV low-speed electric model.
Instead, the company said it planned to pursue Clifford’s vision of an “Intel Inside model” with EEstor, providing an electric drive system (based on the Texas startup’s ultracaps) to other companies the way Intel’s chips are used in PCs from many companies.
The changes that Zenn announced this week, along with the closure of its production facility in Saint Jerome will have an important effect for the company as it awaits the delayed delivery of EEStor’s first commercial product: cutting costs. Zenn says it will now have a “significantly” reduced “rate of spend.”
As Clifford told Toronto Star reporter Tyler Hamilton back in October, “The transformative moment is with the commercial proof.” If and when that proof arrives, then according to Clifford, “the whole tenor of the discussion changes to the excitement about the reality.”
Zenn plans to provide more details on its current status and future plans at its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
Green Data Centers: Does Cisco Have a Plan?
Pedro Hernandez - Green IT
While IBM mounted huge campaigns like Big Green and Smarter Planet, the computer networking giant has kept a comparatively low eco-profile. So far, Cisco’s green efforts boil down to dabbling in energy management, moving into the smart grid, cutting the energy consumption of its network hardware and reducing packaging — an odd state of affairs considering the company’s position as a prime supplier of data center–focused IT equipment.
But in recent weeks, Cisco has been demonstrating that it does indeed have a green data center strategy, even if it isn’t shouting it from the rooftops. This week’s roll out of EnergyWise 2.0 — an upgraded version of its network energy management tool — expanded its reach into a network's nooks and crannies and opened up the platform to developers to help lay the groundwork for energy-aware networks. The company is also making a play for the containerized data-center market, centered around fast and efficient Lego-style data center builds.
I think Cisco’s on the right track, and I’ve laid out my reasoning over at GigaOM Pro (subscription required). What about you? Can Cisco catch up in this market, or are its efforts too little too late?
It's Come to This: Citizens Against Smart Meters
Katie Fehrenbacher - smart grid
The small group is also holding rallies outside of Oncor’s headquarters and using social media to get the word out. Dallas Morning News reporter Elizabeth Souder reported in the newspaper’s blog Texas Energy and Environment yesterday that the group was supposed to hold a rally Thursday afternoon — as she put it: “The protesters will be the ones waving red shop flags.”
Oncor seems to have been making a variety of attempts to address the smart meter backlash. The utility has been releasing information about weekly tests in local areas, including OakCliff, Temple and Killeen.
But utilities are still trying to figure out the best way to communicate to these types of customers about transitioning to smart meters. As this IDC Energy Insight report say, utilities "have not thought through the implications of new technology and products on customer relationships or the business process." In other words, utilities are not at all prepared for the increased amount of communication, education and interactivity that will be required from installing new smart grid technology.
The Internet will actually be the utilities’ best way to communicate with the customer. As Pedro put it on GigaOM Pro (subscription required), online social media can “let utilities steer the conversation in the months leading up to a smart meter rollout and serve as a supplement to other educational and outreach efforts.”
But only 60 percent of the utilities surveyed in the IDC report have a web site designed to serve consumers. Very few are looking at live chat, said the report. More important is email communication, and even social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Regardless of whether or not utilities increase their outreach via the Internet, clearly their customers, and those like the citizens that oppose the smart meters, will be using the Internet to reach out to the utility.
Related research on GigaOM Pro (subscription required):
Smart Meters: Time for a Customer Service Reboot
Image courtesy of juverna’s photostream Flickr Creative Commons.
Hacking the Car: Cyber Security Risks Hit the Road
Josie Garthwaite - Automotive
Here’s what happened in Texas, as Wired and the Austin News report: A terminated employee from a car dealership called the Texas Auto Center logged into the company’s web-based system and was able to remotely wreak havoc on more than 100 vehicles. The dealership’s system is able to disable the starter system and trigger incessant horn honking for customers that have fallen behind on car payments. It’s meant to serve as an alternative to repossessing the vehicle, and the ex-Texas Auto Center employee, arrested Thursday on charges of computer intrusion, was able to set off the horn command at will and make it so drivers couldn’t start their cars.
Cars are growing ever more connected to communication networks, and upcoming generations of electric vehicles will take it a step further with connections to the power grid. Already, electric car makers have unveiled smartphone apps designed to let users to remotely control certain vehicle functions and battery charging. Down the road, we’ll likely see not only electricity flowing to cars from the grid, but also the flow of data between cars, the grid, home energy management systems, utilities and third-party service providers.
As Ford’s director of connected services Doug VanDagens told us recently (GigaOM Pro, subscription required), “For electric vehicles, connectivity to the web and data are "required over and above what gas engines require." Apps can use data — about topography, traffic, battery and vehicle health, infrastructure availability, driving behavior — to help orient drivers in the nascent world of electric mobility, both in and out of their vehicle.
While these tools and technologies could help reduce fuel consumption, make electric vehicles more convenient, and enable utilities to prevent excess strain on the power grid as plug-in cars create new demand, that shift to an increasingly digital transportation system brings with it (as Katie has explained in the context of the smart grid buildout) one of the banes of the Internet: hacking.
The stakes, of course, are very different. Certainly nobody wants a virus on their PC. But the prospect of a hacker seizing control of some aspect of a car — a ton of metal capable of going 60-plus MPH, that costs tens of thousands of dollars, and that maybe has a battery in its belly that requires a sophisticated system of thermal controls – is a far scarier thought.
The potential consequences of cyber attacks on a digital power grid could be similarly frightening. Andy Karsner said back in 2008, when he was with the Department of Energy: “This isn’t the cyber-attacking that you think of just for passwords. This is the capacity to destroy hardware in your home, at airports, at military bases, your car, if its connected through the grid.”
We should note that remote immobilization systems like the one involved in the Austin incident have been in use for a decade or more, and yet we have not seen vehicles crippled en masse by hackers. But companies should realize this could be a sensitive issue among consumers, while both companies and regulators need to recognize risks that go along with the transition to increasingly digital and connected systems for transportation and power.
Image courtesy of Defragged’s photostream Flickr Creative Commons.
Sustainability comes in small steps for Portland mother
Carrie Sturrock, Special to The Oregonian - Climate Change
Daily Sprout
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
Obama Signs $18B Jobs Bill: “President Obama signed an $18 billion jobs bill into law in a Rose Garden ceremony this morning, providing tax breaks for businesses that hire previously unemployed workers and extending funding for infrastructure and transportation projects.” — Washington Post’s 44
EDRs on the Way for Prius Investigation: Toyota currently has only one prototype electronic data recovery (EDR) reader “in use within the entire U.S., making assessment of problematic vehicles both time consuming and difficult.” The automaker plans to have 100-150 EDR readers here by the end of next month, and 400 more “as soon as they become available.” — Autoblog Green
Wrong Kind of Carbon Recycling: “The BlueNext carbon exchange on Wednesday had suspended CER [certified emissions reductions] trading after it found that ‘used’ permits had traded on its exchange, and said on Thursday that it would resume such trade on March 22, having made it ‘impossible to trade recycled CERs.’” — Reuters
Beginning of the End of the Incandescent: After 120 years in the incandescent lightbulb business, Toshiba announced this week that, “it has produced its last major run of…the electricity-guzzling light source.” — CNET’s Green Tech
Four Obstacles for Electric Bikes: Obstacles that have kept electric bikes from taking hold in North America (and in particular the Pacific Northwest) like they have in China include immature technology, bike culture (hardcore cyclists say going electric is “cheating”), closed distribution channels and safety. – Grist
Cloudy Day for SunPower: Restates Earnings, Profit Drop, Lower...
Katie Fehrenbacher - clean power
SunPower says it brought in a net income of $8.67 million for the three months that ended Jan. 3, 2010, which was a drop from $29.5 million from the restated year earlier fourth quarter net income. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 were $547 million, up from $398 million in revenues from the same period a year earlier.
It’s never good when a company has to restate past earnings. I used to cover telecom equipment company Nortel who was the king of restatements for several years. But SunPower says that thanks to accounting errors in its Philippine operations, it had to restate earnings for all of 2008 and three quarters of 2009 and ended up cutting its earnings during those quarters “by $16.9 million as it recorded an additional $33.2 million in expenses,” notes Reuters.
Finally SunPower gave a forecast for 2010 revenue of $2.0 billion to $2.25 billion and net income of $1.25 to $1.65 per share, which was under the $1.78 per share forecast by analysts. Bummer. As a result SunPower’s shares dropped 8.4 percent.
Tendril to Launch Digital Clock Inspired Home Energy Gadget
Katie Fehrenbacher - Green IT
Make it familiar and compelling — that’s the idea behind the design of energy management startup Tendril’s new gadget dubbed the Vision, which the company plans to unveil next week. The dashboard, designed by design firm IDEO, and based on the form of a digital clock, is intended to help consumers really engage with managing their energy consumption by using captivating design elements. Because, let’s face it, managing home energy consumption isn’t exactly the sexiest activity. (Read our interview with IDEO’s CEO Tim Brown, subscription required).
Tendril’s Scott Ballantyne, Vice President of Marketing, told me that IDEO and Tendril spent eight months studying and researching human behavior in order to create the Vision. They found that by adding design elements like the familiarity of the clock design, they could keep users engaged enough to reduce their energy consumption by an average of 10-15 percent. The Vision is also able to provide real time data for pricing fluctuations (energy rates go up during peak demand times) if a utility is providing that to the customer, which helps a customer manage energy consumption.
Ballantyne said the Vision will cost under $200 and will start shipping widely in 2011, around the time that utilities plan to start their home energy management trials. Tendril’s dominant distribution channel is selling its devices and services through utilities, and that will be consistent with the Vision. Tendril also sells a more standard energy dashboard display.
While the Vision will be able to provide data for real-time pricing and demand response events, how “real-time” that information will be totally depends on the utility. As we’ve been reporting this week most utilities won’t be able to provide anything close to real-time pricing information to its customers for quite some time. Despite the fact that Google (a Tendril partner) is pushing for real-time energy pricing and usage data, the big utilities in California (which are some of the most progressive in the U.S.) are pushing back.
I can’t vouch for how engaging the Vision is, but I applaud any company trying to bring innovation into the energy management space — it sorely needs it. And I have been seeing increased attention from companies looking to open up an ecosystem, and offering software developer kits and APIs, for home energy management (see The Developer's Guide to Home Energy Management Apps on GigaOM Pro, subscription required). Microsoft and Google have recently made moves to work with developers for their energy management tools, startup People Power launched its open source based platform earlier this week, and Tendril opened up its API last year.
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