The common thread in greentech is: China. The country, which has been the world’s key growth engine for clean energy and green technology over the past few years, has begun to see some weakness, and that’s causing ripple effects through the global green economy. Read more »
What does Silver Spring Network’s potential IPO mean for the smart grid sector as a whole? Read more »
Last week saw California’s big three utilities release in-depth smart grid deployment roadmaps, giving smart grid companies about the closest thing to a detailed plan of attack that they could ask for. Read more »
U.S. startup Nuvve is setting its sights on the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) market with a 30-car project in Denmark that it says will sell plug-in car battery power to help stabilize the grid. Can the model scale? Read more »
Who needs smart meters when you’ve got broadband? Two announcements last week — EcoFactor’s energy-saving data and Comcast’s Xfinity Home Security launch — raise that question. If the broadband channel to home energy takes off, it could leave smart meter–dependent home energy startups in the dust. Read more »
California’s groundbreaking set of rules on utility customer energy data are facing comment from the smart grid industry this week, and there’s still plenty of confusion over the fine print. In short, CPUC’s rules will need to change to avoid stifling the smart grid-home energy marketplace. Read more »
Will utility customers across the U.S. be legally entitled to their own energy usage data? We’ve already seen how California is planning to tackle that tricky subject, and a Senate bill announced last week would bring the same issues to a national stage. Read more »
Sensus is the only one of the big five smart meter giants using a licensed star network, rather than an unlicensed mesh network, to connect smart meters. Now it has $675 million in debt financing to expand that technology. Read more »
The California Public Utility Commission is the first major regulator to issue such sweeping guidance on how data privacy should shape the smart grid. Here is how the ruling will affect the three big California utilities, as well as tech companies, startups and telcos. Read more »
Maui is set to become a smart grid showcase, courtesy of Japanese giants like Hitachi, Sharp and Hewlett-Packard Japan. These companies are among the partners that signed on to a long-range project announced Tuesday, aimed at integrating the Hawaiian Island’s renewable power and plug-in vehicles to come. Read more »
Landis+Gyr is on the auction block, and big smart grid suitors like General Electric, Toshiba and Honeywell ABB are rumored to be interested in paying $2 billlion-plus for the smart meter giant. Strategic buyers could find value by integrating into their own lines of business. Read more »
A new report says the U.S. needs to spend $12 billion to $16 billion a year on new transmission lines, which could support 130,000 to 250,000 jobs annually. But how to cut through all the red tape? Read more »
Itron and Tropos Networks say they can roll smart meter neighborhood networks and backhaul networks into one system, and they’ve landed Michigan utility DTE to try it out. Read more »
Tendril Networks is finally seeing some of its dozens of utility pilots blossom into full-scale commercial deployments numbering in the millions of homes. But where does Tendril’s classic model of in-home devices linked to smart meters fit into today’s brave new world of home energy management? Read more »
Biofuel and biochemical startup Verdezyne lands investment from British oil giant BP and Dutch biochemicals company DSM — yet another biotech startup teaming up with big boys to bring green fuels and chemicals to bigger scale. Read more »
Startup Power Assure has new software to align data center cooling and servers power use — along with a new metric for measuring server energy needs that could become a new standard for the industry. Underwriters Laboratories is on board with the metric as are industry players. Read more »
California’s utility regulator has proposed rules on how home energy devices should protect smart meter data privacy — and whether the device is “locked” into one company’s platform or technology or not will be a big deal. Read more »
EnerNOC spent a lot of money on acquiring companies in the first quarter, and it showed in the U.S. demand response leader increased revenues and growing losses for the first quarter. Read more »
KiOR, the biofuel startup that’s planning a $100 million IPO this year and seeking a $1 billion federal loan guarantee, has just landed a second sizable potential customer: Catchlight Energy, a JV between subsidiaries of oil giant Chevron and forest products giant Weyerhaeuser. Read more »
Green buildings, meet demand response. The U.S. Green Building Council wants to find ways to count buildings’ ability to turn down power to help utilities shave peak demand in its LEED rating system. Read more »
Amyris has opened its first industrial scale facility to turn sugarcane syrup into Biofene, a form of the industrial chemical farnesene, which is a fragrant hydrocarbon that’s used to make cosmetics and lubricants. It’s a big step, though not quite yet to commercial-scale biofuel production. Read more »
The Utilities Telecom Council trade group says plug-in cars will need 16 times the power they now need in the next decade. Utilities are under the gun to handle car charging as quickly as possible. Read more »
Electric vehicle battery-switching evangelist Better Place is digging deeper into the world’s biggest electric car market to come — China. Read more »
Greenpeace’s got a lot of press last week for its A-to-F grades for the green data center efforts of Facebook, Google, IBM and other IT giants of the world. But what’s behind the grades? Read more »
Tech giants are noting Earth Day this year in different ways, from Facebook’s “Billion Acts of Green” app and Microsoft’s green data center progress to e-cycling and energy efficiency efforts underway by telcos and gadget makers. Read more »
Greentech investment trends in the first quarter of 2011 either signal a record-setting expansion for the industry in 2011, or retrenchment in the face of economic and political headwinds — depending on how you look at the numbers. Read more »
Is the greentech industry headed for a breakout year or is it retrenching for hard times to come? The first three months of 2011 provided evidence that could support both assertions, with a big rise in venture capital investment and a big drop-off in global energy financing. Solar power remained the largest green technology sector in terms of venture capital investment, while in the world of electric vehicles, GM’s Chevy Volt hybrid and Nissan’s all-electric Leaf — the first two mainstream plug-in vehicles — hit the showroom floors in significant numbers. Meanwhile the smart grid sector’s relative dearth of VC investment was more than made up for by the massive round of acquisitions. Companies mentioned in this report include NRG Energy, Microsoft, Silver Spring Networks, Tesla and BrightSource Energy. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Viridity Energy is competing for a Defense Department contract to control power use at federal and military facilities, and has already signed up one military base customer. That’s a big prize for a startup, if it can scale to match its demands. Read more »
There’s a significant opportunity for companies that are looking to connect the often siloed systems that manage the energy used to run servers as well as the gear used to cool, ventilate, back up and convert power for data centers. Read more »
A new report describes the idea of the “Smart Grid 3.0,” which will connect mobile devices and location-based services in real time, and critically, an ecosystem of applications that can run across multiple utility networks. Read more »
Global clean energy investment fell to $31.1 billion in the first three months of this year, its lowest quarterly total in two years, Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported Friday. That contrasts with an uptick in greentech venture capital investing in Q1. Read more »
Can solar power inverters talk to the smart grid, to help make them a benefit rather than a burden to utilities? Here’s a new standard that could help solar and smart grid get along. Read more »
Battery startup Xtreme Power just landed its biggest grid energy storage deal yet, a 36-megawatt battery for Duke Energy. Could its secretive, solid-state energy storage technology challenge sodium sulfur and lithium ion for reigning grid champion? Read more »
KiOR, the Khosla-backed startup that says it can make low-carbon bio-crude at rock-bottom prices, plans to raise up to $100 million in an IPO. But what does it plan to do with the money? Read more »
Last week, Facebook opened to the world the details of its energy efficient data center in Prineville, Ore., complete with custom-built servers, power delivery and backup, and cooling system. What’s the mix-and-match potential? Read more »
Biocrude startup KiOR filed for a $100 million IPO on Monday, laying out just how it hopes its process for turning wood chips into a crude oil substitute could compete against the oil industry on price per gallon. Read more »
Can Opower fix utilities smart meter customer relation woes? The startup, which uses data about energy consumption to modify consumer behavior, has two new clients — Pacific Gas & Electric and Baltimore Gas & Electric — that have faced issues with smart meters and consumers. Read more »
