SolFocus takes on $47.5M more in quest to sell concentrating solar

from VentureBeat by Chris Morrison

SolFocus, the most heavily-funded concentrating solar startup around, has just drawn a bit further ahead of the pack with $47.5 million in fresh capital. With the money, the company has edged near $150 million in total funding, and with luck, widespread installation of a currently rare type of solar panel.

In the concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) arrays of SolFocus and similar companies, a tiny, highly-efficient solar cell becomes the focus of sunlight intensified many times over by lenses and mirrors. The technology’s creators claim it’s a better, cheaper way to harvest solar energy than a regular solar panel. But in the eyes of the energy industry, it’s still a young, unproven technology.

SolFocus has stood out by being one of the earliest founded, and most heavily supported, of the CPV outfits. The company was founded in 2005, and spent its early years at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where some of today’s most common technologies were first conceived.

Also of note is a deal the company struck in November of last year, a $103 million purchase of its panels by Spanish company EPME Solar. The agreement was the largest of its type so far, and should help prove whether CPV is a worthwhile technology.

Although $47.5 million is a rather large amount, SolFocus is looking to cap off the round at $60 to $70 million, which may happen later this quarter. This investment was led by Apex Venture Partners, with help from New Enterprise Associates and NGEN Partners. The Mountain View, Calif. company also promoted president Mark Crowley to the role of CEO.

5 Green Announcements on the First Day of CES 2009

from Earth2Tech by Katie Fehrenbacher

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which is making an effort to be greener in 2009, officially kicks off this morning and already the eco-announcements are piling up. Electronics makers are claiming their hardware is more energy efficient than the next, manufacturers are launching recycling programs, and devices that just make your life easier are being painted as green (navigation services).

Here’s 5 green announcements already out by the first morning of CES:

1). Motorola Calls Up Recycled Water Bottles: The largest U.S. cell phone maker has launched a phone — the MOTO W233 “Renew” — that is made partly from recycled water bottles and is fully recyclable. It’ll be available first from T-Mobile USA this quarter. In addition to the more eco-materials in the phone, Motorola says the phone is also “the world’s first carbon neutral phone,” because Motorola is offsetting the carbon emitted for the manufacturing, distribution and operation of the phone with Carbonfund.org (wonder how they calculated that given the complexities).

2). E-Waste Recycling Ramping Up: At CES 2008 the North American divisions of Panasonic and Toshiba, along with Sharp Electronics, joined forces to form Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Co. LLC (MRM), with a plan to manage collection and recycling programs. This year the group says it is expanding its current program to 280 sites in the U.S., with one spot in each state, and hundreds more locations planned for the next couple of year.

3). Toshiba’s Green List: Whoa, Toshiba’s really taking the greener gadgets CES thing seriously. CES spokesperson Jennifer Bemisderfer told us Toshiba was going to be showing off a green product or two, but its display of its environmental goods and efforts is borderline obsessive. The company is showing off: a battery-assisted bicycle that can run 20 to 30 miles on a charge and takes a little over five minutes to recharge; its Portégé laptop, which EPEAT says is the most eco laptop sold in the US, as well as other EPEAT-Gold-rated laptops; an LED downlight, which uses one-seventh of the energy of a traditional incandescent bulb; energy-efficient LCD HDTVs that meet Energy Star 3.0 standards; and additional displays on recycling efforts and environmental tree-planting efforts.

4). Garmin Locates Fuel Efficient Navigation: Satellite navigation company Garmin is launching“ecoRoute,” a free software upgrade that suggests fuel-efficient travel to users. The update supposedly adds “less fuel used” to navigation options in addition to “faster time” and “shorter distance.” Wouldn’t less fuel be used if it was a shorter distance anyway?

5). Energy-Efficient Displays on Display: OLED’s — organic light emitting diodes — are one of the most energy-efficient displays in development for our computers, TVs and cell phones. The trade group the OLED Association is featuring technology from 6 cutting edge firms: Cambridge Display Technology, Idemitsu Kosan, Ignis Innovations, Novaled, Samsung, and Universal Display.

A Smart Meter Map of the World

Michael Kanellos

January 2, 2009 at 11:27 PM

Have you had trouble keeping track of smart metering projects? So have we, which is why we’re glad to see the Smart Metering Projects Map run by the Energy Retail Association in the UK.

The map essentially pinpoints smart metering projects across Europe, North America, Oceania and Asia on a zoom-able Google map. If you click on one of the flags, a few paragraphs pop up explaining the scope and purpose of the project. Distrigaz Sud, for instance, is installing 1.1 gas meters in southern Romania to offset gas network balancing concerns. The meters in the trial utilize snap-on Zigbee devices to permit communication.

In Kyrgyzstan, a utility will test out pre-paid gas meters. (Pre-paid gas meters used to be a common fixture in the U.K. after World War II and are going to be trialed in parts of the U.S. for lower-income housing developments.)

And my personal favorite, Bosnia Herzegovina’s Elektroprivreda HZ HB Mostar is installing meters that communicate through power-line networking provided by Echelon. Echelon has also landed deals, and installed, power line-enabled meters and street lights in Italy, Norway and Texas. Italy already has 30 million smart meters, according to the map, which makes the country one of the more popular nations for smart meters. Elektroprivreda will initially only put in 200 meters but wants to boost the number to 200,000.

There are no projects yet, according to the map, in South America or Africa, but there are proposals in the works for South Africa.

At the risk of sounding redundant, smart metering will be one of the major issues and market for greentech in 2009 and beyond. Proponents say that smart meters and demand response programs can substantially curb greenhouse gases and energy consumption by more finely controlling the distribution and consumption of electricity, water and natural gas. Electrical grids, water utilities and gas pipelines, however, weren’t designed with two-way communication and control in mind so bringing intelligence to these systems will require investments in networking, hardware and software.

Contact Simon Harrison if you want to collaborate or have questions.