Now that solar startup BrightSource Energy has ditched its IPO plans, some might think the company has dropped off the radar. But there’s actually some interesting things — some positive, some not so positive — going on with the company this week. Check out this latest news: Read more »
Advanced Equities, an investment and brokerage firm that has helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for cleantech firms in recent years, could see its CEO and co-founder resign as early as this week, according to a report in DowJones VentureWire. Read more »
There’s been a series of Cleanweb Hackathons in recent months, where developers spend a weekend building web and mobile apps out of energy, water and sustainability data. But here’s a new one with a twist: a solar-focused Cleanweb Hackathon, coordinated by solar web startup Sungevity. Read more »
Fuel cell maker Bloom Energy is raising another $150 million at a pre-money valuation of $2.7 billion, according to DowJones VentureWire. If closed, Bloom Energy will have raised $800 million over its 11-year lifetime. Read more »
Following the news that startup Nest began selling its smart thermostat through Apple’s online store, the company announced on Thursday that its device is now available via Amazon, too. Read more »
Solar startup Konarka’s bankruptcy, announced last week, wasn’t just the latest case of the solar industry being hit by the dropping cost of silicon, and cheap modules and panels from China. The company’s technology just “could not compete on cost, efficiency, or lifetime,” says Lux Research. Read more »
Tesla investor Steve Jurvetson — a partner with Draper Fisher Jurvetson — drove off in the very first Model S electric car recently and just published this video and photo to prove it on his Flickr feed. Read more »
Tesla revealed in a blog post on Tuesday that its electric car the Model S is finally street legal and ready for customer test drives starting on June 23, the day after the first customer deliveries. Who wants to drive a Model S! Read more »
What most people don’t realize is that a chunk of the crude oil that goes into an oil refinery doesn’t end up anywhere near a car’s fuel tank. It ends up making chemicals. Read more »
Venture capital firm Khosla Ventures looks to be raising a second seed fund, according to a filing. The filing doesn’t disclose a fund size, but the fund follows behind the first Khosla Ventures Seed fund, which raised $300 million and closed in 2010. Read more »
Venture capitalist Matthew Nordan, from Venrock Capital, breaks down everything you need to know about finding funding for energy-related startups in this video. Read more »
There is no mistaking that SCADA (traditional control networks for utilities) is under assault. Over the past several years, wireless IP-based communication networks have proven to be worthy for distribution automation applications. Read more »
Entrepreneur Russ Wilcox, who is the former CEO and co-founder of display-maker E Ink, has just joined next-gen nuclear startup Transatomic Power as its CEO. There’s only a handful of web and computing entrepreneurs that go nuclear. Read more »
With its booming economy, growing middle class and investments in city infrastructure, Brazil is looking to be the next hot market for smart grid development. Read more »
Fenix, a startup that makes a plug-n-play, portable, lead-acid battery for off-grid use has shipped about 2,000 of its batteries to African telecom MTN, the company’s CEO Michael Lin tells me. Read more »
There’s definitely a generational shift going on as young folks care about fuel efficiency and environmental impacts, which makes them question the absolute need to own a car in the first place. Read more »
Thin film solar company Nanosolar announced on Friday that it has raised $70 million, a round which includes the previously announced $20 million. Overall Nanosolar has taken in at least $450 million since its start in 2002. Read more »
If battery makers could enhance just the basic electrolyte — the guts of the battery — it could provide a major breakthrough for batteries. That’s what a year-and-a-half-old startup called Boulder Ionics is trying to do. Read more »
Swiss power giant ABB plans to acquire wireless mesh networking company Tropos Networks, the companies announced on Friday. Read more »
Use data, analytics and mapping to help more solar panels get installed on more rooftops — that’s the idea behind startup Geostellar, which this week closed on almost $14 million in equity funding and options. Read more »
It’s not a good time to be an electric car battery maker. On Thursday lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems issued a going concern warning and saw its shares drop by close to 8 percent in trading. Read more »
For power company ABB, DC — or direct current — is the future of the data center. This week ABB and IT firm Green opened up a new DC-powered expansion at Green’s data center, which the companies say is the most powerful use of DC for a data center. Read more »
Through his startup Synthetic Genomics, Craig Venter and his team have reached a milestone: they’ve engineered their first algae strain that includes a portion of synthetic DNA. And it’s bright yellow. Read more »
Many of India’s solar projects are being connected to the grid to generate power for cities. But some companies are looking to build businesses off of solar for off-grid rural India, including solar developer SunEdison, which announced a new rural solar project in India on Wednesday. Read more »
Quite a few greentech companies closed sizable funding rounds this week, and Battery Ventures is involved in three of them. Is cleantech support holding on in the venture world? Read more »
In a huge win for startup Nest, which makes a connected learning thermostat, Apple has now started selling the Nest thermostat through its online store. It could end up being the most important move ever for a next-generation digital thermostat. Read more »
The five natural resources that will significantly impact the future development of renewable energy. Read more »
In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan’s brought the world the Geigergram, the open source Geiger counter gadget, and now the world’s first radiation-sensing cell phone, according to local media reports. Read more »
Kurion, a startup that has developed technology that cleans up nuclear waste and is one of the most successful cleantech firms you haven’t heard of, has been acquiring more cleanup tech. Read more »
A lithium ion battery that can charge in five minutes and last for five times longer than the standard — that’s the goal for startup Prieto Battery, which just raised $5.5 million of a planned $6.8 million round. Read more »
Electric car charging company Ecotality has filed a lawsuit against California regulators to attempt to halt a deal that includes power company NRG investing $120 million into building an electric car charging network in California, reports the San Jose Mercury News, and we’ve confirmed with Ecotality. Read more »
Amidst the exodus of generalist venture capitalists from cleantech investing, a new planned billion dollar cleantech fund has emerged: Inerjys. Read more »
The idea behind the V-Pole — a concept utility pole and art project from the brain of Vancouver-based writer Douglas Coupland — is basically: make it transparent, design it well and it put it all in one place. Read more »
As the world we live in continues to develop better technologies and new and exciting ways of communicating, our demand for energy grows. Read more »
You may have noticed there’s a growing amount of alternative, tech-focused, ways to get around San Francisco these days. Why is San Francisco so chock-full of these services? Read more »
Pike Research predicts that the market for building energy management systems will grow from $1.9 billion in 2011 to $6 billion in 2020 and there will be 10 trends that shape this growing market over the next decade, Read more »
Behind the doors of Catmandu studios, on a quiet street in Buenos Aires, Argentina, dozens of young animators stare intently at their computer screens in low lit rooms, obsessing over the way a grass of blade bends or a character’s hair swishes as he moves. Read more »
Liquid Metal Battery, a startup developing a battery for the power grid that already counted Bill Gates and oil giant Total as an investor, has now brought on another high profile backer: Khosla Ventures. Read more »
The venture capital old boys club is just that: old school. And like many things that aren’t working for the traditional VC’s, a failure to evolve is just a competitive disadvantage. Read more »
Amonix, which makes concentrating solar photovoltaic tech that uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto solar cells, will cut 76 workers across its offices in California, according to a Dow Jones Venture Wire report. Read more »
