Promising young startup Enlighted is powering up with new funds and new customers for its sensor, big data and lighting control tech that can reduce the lighting energy in buildings by 50 to 70 percent. Read more »
We bring you the behind the scenes story of how electric car startup Fisker Automotive spent over a billion dollars, took down a government loan and ultimately delivered about 2,000 cars, a small fraction of what it originally promised. Read more »
There’s more than one way to the top of the elite blogging ladder. Here’s lessons from four bloggerati that made it there. Read more at paidContent »
New media incubator and venture firm Betaworks is increasingly morphing into an operating company and it’s got a new rapid development launch approach that will deliver five social media products in five weeks. What’ll stick? Read more at paidContent »
Power grid operators and utilities are increasingly turning to big data analytics and tools. This week European power giant E.ON said it plans to work with Ericsson for a smart meter data project in Sweden. Read more »
China’s cities are macro-laboratories that the government has been using to test out various roll-out strategies from industrial partnerships, to fast charging stations to rental systems. So why have the early numbers fallen short? Read more »
Utilities are increasingly embracing the tools needed to manage big data, and on Monday data warehouse software firm Teradata said it’s teamed up with power grid giant Siemens for a better way to manage the massive data flowing off the smart grid. Read more »
The lawsuits are piling up for electric car startup Fisker Automotive — here’s the third this month, this time from design and communication firm Ignited over an alleged unpaid bill of $535K. Read more »
Fisker’s landlord has filed a suit that says the electric car company has to pay its April rent or evacuate its headquarters. The company seems to be getting ever closer to bankruptcy. Read more »
Tesla is battling Texas over selling its electric cars directly to customers. CEO Elon Musk spoke at the Texas Capital Wednesday morning calling for support of a new bill. Read more »
First Solar’s stock is smoking hot on Tuesday, soaring almost 50 percent to reach almost $40 per share. That’s quite a turn around for the solar thin film leader who had such a difficult year in 2012. Read more »
Five-year-old, Bill Gates and Khosla-backed, EcoMotors is finally commercializing its efficient engine technology. And it’s got a killer deal to do it: a $200 million plant being built by Chinese auto giant Zhongding Power. Read more »
A Swedish startup has developed a new technology that it says can boost the efficiency of standard solar panels at a minimal cost using nanowires. Is this the great bright hope for solar manufacturers who have been crippled by the difficult solar market in 2013? Read more »
Solar financier Clean Power Finance has raised a large round of $37 million from Valley investors Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures and Claremont Creek. Solar financing and installations are one of the bright spots in the solar sector. Read more »
A second generation of wearable computing is emerging that focuses on design and a so-called glanceable UI. Valley startup Misfit Wearables is leading the charge, and trying to create a new type of user experience. Read more »
Following Fisker’s decision to layoff 160 employees, or 75 percent of its staff, last week, the company has been hit with a class action lawsuit for allegedly violating the WARN Act, which says large companies need to give employees 60 days notice for mass layoffs. Read more »
According to sources electric car startup Fisker Automotive is laying off most of its staff and is announcing that to employees today. Read more »
Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Charles and Ray Eames, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — the under cover influences of breakout web star Airbnb. Read more »
Even while some of the huge solar thermal plants being built in the deserts are hitting their milestones, others are facing hurdles due to transmission line delays and cost concerns. Meanwhile solar panel farms, particularly of utility scale, reached a record in 2012. Read more »
Solar panels are growing strong for residential rooftops, commercial buildings and utility installations. Despite the widespread bankruptcies erupting in the solar module maker market. Read more »
Cathy Zoi has joined C3 as its Chief Strategy Officer following her work with Silver Lake clean energy fund Kraftwerk. She was formerly the acting under secretary for the Obama Administration. Read more »
Downtown Vegas is going personal car free (or hoping to) with the launch of Project 100, the out-there transportation service for the Downtown Project, from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. Read more »
It’s the non-sexy stuff like financing and business model innovation that will drive forward the next-generation of energy technologies. Read more »
Tesla is offering a new financing option that will provide a lease for potential Model S customers. Leasing electric cars could help bring the technology to more mainstream car buyers. Read more »
Tesla is successfully morphing into a profitable electric car maker, while Fisker is coming ever closer to stumbling, has lost its founder and hasn’t made a car since last Summer. How did these two end up in such different places? Read more »
Battery startup Aquion Energy is raising another round of $35 million from Bill Gates and other new and existing investors. The company has been planning to build a factory in Pennsylvania that can produce its low cost power grid batteries. Read more »
Tesla’s stock hit over $46 per share on Monday on news that the company would be profitable on a GAAP basis, and ship 250 more Model S cars than expected. That’s the highest Tesla’s been since its IPO in the Summer of 2010. Read more »
Tesla Motors is cancelling its basic Model S car with the smallest battery pack due to lack of demand. Only 4 percent of Tesla customers wanted to version of the Model S with a 160 mile range. Turns out the early customers care about range. Read more »
The era of constrained resources is just beginning, so right now access to resources acts as sort of dark matter, quietly putting pressure in complex ways on how the virtual world operates. Read more »
Fisker doesn’t seem to have nailed an investment partner or acquirer after months of discussions, so is now cutting costs and has placed its U.S. workers on temporary unpaid leave. Read more »
A startup hoping to make cellulosic ethanol finally pulls its IPO plans after a year and a half. The real question is why did it ever file to go public? Read more »
Remember eSolar, the solar thermal startup incubated by Idealab, and backed by Google.org, GE, and others? It’s still here and trying to raise a $30 million round, of which it’s close almost half. Read more »
Silver Spring Networks has scored a deal with a Singapore utility as its first win in Asia. The company hopes other utilities in Asia will follow, given the region is supposed to have significant growth coming. Read more »
Cleantech VC is receding because of poor short-term performance – no surprise in a post-bubble field with outsized time and money requirements. The category is about to go on a walk in the woods, where innovators will blaze a new trail. Read more »
A new solar inverter has been developed by a quiet startup called Empower Micro Systems, which could land on the market by the end of the year. The company’s CCO says the tech could disrupt the landscape. Read more »
A startup called Choose Energy is offering consumers a comparison shopping site for electricity in deregulated markets, and is building tools to help retail energy providers acquire customers. The company raised a series A round from Kleiner and Stephens Capital. Read more »
If NRG Energy starts offering solar leasing options to home owners and small businesses, it would represent the mainstreaming of solar roofs and also likely disrupt the current sector filled with a variety of smaller players. Read more »
China’s growing number of power plants are putting pressure on the country’s water resources like never before. Read more »
Many of the first apps for Google Glass will be about consuming and sharing content on the go. But what if Google Glass could unlock control over the world of the Internet of Things both inside and outside the home? Read more »
GigaOM Pro analyst Adam Lesser’s latest report on the opportunities for big data and the smart grid. Read more »
