Global clean energy investing dropped by 22 percent in the first quarter of 2013 says Bloomberg New Energy Finance CEO Michael Liebreich. In his keynote address for Bloomberg’s energy conference this week, he unpacked some trends in the global financing of next generation energy technology. Read more »
President Obama starts to show his hand for how he’ll keep support going for clean energy and greener vehicles, and also fight climate change, at a time when Congress won’t likely approval major budget increases or aggressive policies. Read more »
eBay has released a trove of information about the efficiency of its data centers, and plans to do so quarterly as part of a mission to continuously track computing resources and tie them to bigger business goals. Read more »
Coal giant Peabody turns to a tactic that has long been used to cling to old school technology: the manipulative press release. Read more »
Boom — the numbers for cleantech VC investing in 2012 are out and they ain’t pretty. A cleantech cliff of sorts has arrived and represents an end of an era. If you still want to be in the space in 2013, here’s 5 things you should avoid. Read more »
While it’s unclear why SolarCity delayed pricing and going public tomorrow, it could be because it wasn’t able to price its shares in the expected range of $13 to $15 that it wanted. Read more »
If SolarCity does manage to debut in its expected range, it would represent one of the rare venture-backed cleantech IPOs that have emerged over the years. Read more »
For the first time Google has purchased wind power to directly power a data center in Oklahoma. Previously Google has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into clean power projects, but had yet to power its data centers directly with clean power. Read more »
Fresh off of visiting the Ivanpah solar plant this morning, Bill Clinton sings the praise of energy efficiency, solar, waste to energy and overall clean power at Harry Reid’s 5th annual National Clean Energy Summit. Read more »
Carter Bales, the co-founder and Chairman of private equity firm NewWorld Capital Group, is driven by dire pessimism and over-whelming optimism that converge through his livelihood: environmental investing. Read more »
There is still not a solar panel capable of displacing electricity from fossil fuels. Disruption calls for smart innovation; several companies are ready for the challenge. The clear winner will be the solar-energy player that breaks new records in solar efficiency without the breaking the bank. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Buried in last week’s catfight between Apple and Greenpeace over the energy sourcing for Apple’s new North Carolina data center and how clean it would be, was a surprising fact — that the conversation between Apple and Greenpeace was happening at all. Read more »
The solar industry has begun 2012 with some trepidation, with many on the warpath to cut costs and reduce output. These moves give the market a chance to reduce inventories and get production more in sync with demand. But recovery will likely come slowly. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Did the Warren Buffett investment machine see some seriously undervalued assets in solar, even as most investors have recently viewed the solar industry as a train wreck? Read more »
Facebook officially announced the data center that it’s building in the chilly climate of Lulea, Sweden, and it’s going to be powered “primarily from renewables.” No, not solar or wind but hydropower (water and dams), which is still the cheapest kind of clean power. Read more »
Google is investing millions of dollars into its second fund that will go toward installing solar panels on rooftops. On Tuesday Rick Needham, Google’s Director of Green Business Operations, announced that Google will invest $75 million into a solar fund for startup Clean Power Finance Read more »
A new Y Combinator–style incubator that will focus solely on the intersection of energy and information technology is launching in Houston, the founder of the group, Kirk Brand Coburn, told me in an exclusive interview. Read more »
While Senator Harry Reid indicated that President Obama would likely discuss clean energy jobs in his jobs speech, Obama’s speech contained only the very briefest mentions of anything green related. Is the President cooling on talk of clean energy jobs in the wake of Solyndra’s scandal? Read more »
Google has just revealed its total electricity use for the first time and says it plans to have about a third of the electricity it consumes be sourced directly from clean power by 2012. Read more »
This week Solyndra announced plans to file for bankruptcy and said it will lay off 1,100 employees. How will the event impact the larger cleantech industry, greentech startup funding and the solar sector as a whole? We ask you to weigh in. Read more »
The latest idea from Facebook on how to revolutionize the data center is elegant in its simplicity: put a switch on hard-disk drives that slows their speed when their data is no longer hot. I wonder if Facebook will take up the cause and build it. Read more »
Achieving the ultimate in green building badges — the LEED platinum certification — is pretty rare and is particularly unusual for data centers. But on Thursday GE showed off its new LEED platinum-certified data center in Louisville, Ky. Here are some photos from the green facility. Read more »
Federal regulators canceled three ocean power project permits in California because the permit holder, located in Sonoma County, couldn’t come up with the money to carry out the projects. Read more »
The California Energy Commission on Wednesday filed a complaint against a wind turbine maker, contending that the company has exaggerated the performance of its equipment and caused the commission to overpay in rebates. Read more »
The second quarter brought a slew of greentech developments: We saw near-record investment in utility-scale clean energy projects but falling valuations for clean-energy stocks; big investments in solar thermal projects but struggling markets for solar photovoltaic systems; and rising private equity green investment while green VC took ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
On Friday afternoon Bloom Energy touted its growth, announcing that it has quadrupled the size of its factory in Sunnyvale, Calif. to 210,000 square feet, has grown its workforce by over 70 percent in 2010, and grown by 525 percent over the past four years. Read more »
Global investments in renewable energy have risen dramatically over the last decade, but governments need to step up support for clean energy innovation. That’s one of the findings in a report out this morning from the International Energy Agency. Read more »
HP researchers this week put forth an intriguing idea for powering data centers: harvesting and processing cow waste. Under their setup, dairy farmers get an additional revenue stream and data center operators get a clean and cost-effective source of energy. Sounds like a solid win all ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
When private investment in cleantech fell last year, government stimulus programs more than made up the difference, according to estimates that the Cleantech Group released at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco this week. And no government is doing more to fill the gap than China’s. […] Read more »
Ocean power is managing to float forward during the recession, thanks in large part to government programs and to a lesser extent, private funding. The latest example is 10-year-old wave power company Wavebob, with CEO Andrew Parish telling us this week that it’s raised €3 million […] Read more »
