For the past four years I’ve been covering solar company Solyndra’s events, including its ground-breaking ceremony, and a more recent factory tour. Here are some of my photos from the past few years. Read more »
Solyndra just became a high-profile casualty of the youthful solar industry as Solyndra failed to compete successfully against larger solar rivals in a global market that depends heavily on government subsidies. Here’s what went wrong. Read more »
Despite the lack of results, next-gen biofuel companies continue to receive a significant amount of both government and VC support. At what point will the funding transform into advanced biofuels being produced at scale? Read more »
There will be no loan guarantee for recently public biofuel company KiOR, at least this year. According to correspondence with the SEC, KiOR put its application for 2011 on hold in May, with plans to roll it over to 2012 — assuming the program gets funded for 2012. Read more »
First Solar posts a huge slide in earnings Tuesday but promises to do better for the remainder of the year. The solar panel maker and project developer is counting on India and North America to become its main markets. Read more »
DuPont announced on Monday that it has bought Innovalight, a Silicon Valley startup that makes silicon ink that solar-cell makers can use to improve the amount of electricity that the cells can squeeze out of sunlight. DuPont declined to disclose the purchase price. Read more »
The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a resolution on Thursday to move forward with a subpoena for the Office of Management and Budget to get access to documents about the Department of Energy’s $535 million loan guarantee to solar maker Solyndra. Read more »
Three-wheeled electric-car startup Aptera has already delayed the launch of its car and has discussed restructuring and moving its manufacturing out of California. But it looks like the company is not completely down for the count: According to a filing, Aptera has raised $2.5 million in debt. Read more »
The cries declaring a cleantech armageddon are coming keep on getting louder. But I don’t think cleantech is headed for a sharp crash. It’s been going through consolidation for some time now, and the cleantech sector is inherently cyclical and is heading into a down cycle. Read more »
Here are our five topics to watch for at one of the largest U.S. solar conferences, Intersolar, in San Francisco this week. Policy — how to survive with more mandates and less money — along with new technology and markets will dominate the discussions. Read more »
SoloPower, which has gotten a federal loan guarantee offer to build a solar panel factory in Oregon, is now aiming for a close to $44 million equity round and has so far lined up about $15 million, according to a filing Wednesday. Read more »
Startup EnerVault is getting closer to commercializing its flow battery, which uses large liquid tanks of chemicals to store energy. The Silicon Valley company will be building a demonstration project next year to help launch the technology into the market in 2013. Read more »
Federal lawmakers held a hearing Friday to examine a federal agency’s role in approving renewable energy loan guarantees, particularly the $535 guarantee that went to solar panel maker Solyndra. Read more »
Biofuel startup KiOR has priced its IPO at $15 per share, below its estimated price per share of between $19 to $21. Read more »
On Thursday morning, GE will host a day-long event where it plans to announce the latest winners of its $200 million smart grid challenge that are specifically focused on energy use in the home. Read more »
There are hundreds of thousands of commercial buildings in the U.S. that are responsible for almost 20 percent of the nation’s annual energy consumption. Changes to our electric infrastructure could have a big impact on the cost to operate these facilities. Read more »
The Department of Energy has awarded so many loan guarantees to solar companies this week, it’s getting difficult to keep track. The latest, announced Friday, is a $150 million loan guarantee to 1366 Technologies, a startup that innovates around silicon wafer production. Read more »
The DOE has been getting the remainder of its loan guarantees out the door at record speed in time to beat the program’s sunset on Sept. 30 of this year. On Tuesday the DOE announced almost $2 billion in loan guarantees for two solar thermal projects. Read more »
A next-gen, lithium-ion battery startup — backed by Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures — called Seeo has raised another $15 million from investors, according to a filing. Khosla Partner Pierre Lamond is listed on this latest filing, and Seeo previously raised at least $10.6 million. Read more »
Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has already raised over $1 billion in equity, loans and grants. And yet, the company, which will be launching its first inaugural electric car this summer, has raised another $100 million. That’s on top of the $190 million which recently closed. Read more »
Here’s 10 questions with former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham — who led the DOE 2001 to 2005 and was nominated by George W Bush — on his thoughts on the future of energy innovation, nuclear power in the U.S., the energy moves of the current administration: Read more »
Changes in solar incentives in key markets such as Germany and Italy are making life difficult for major players such as First Solar, which reported a flat first-quarter revenue and lower earnings on Tuesday afternoon. Read more »
There was some concern that the Department of Energy’s loan program would fall victim to budget cuts. But at GigaOM’s Green:Net conference Thursday, DOE Loan Chief Jonathan Silver said that despite those fears, changes in the new budget have actually been somewhat favorable to the program. Read more »
Today, at our third-annual Green:Net event, we’re looking at digital energy: how technology can reduce energy consumption and help the environment. The livestream begins at 8:25 PT, and we’ll update this post throughout the day with the liveblogs from the event. Read more »
It’s a double-whopper: The federal government is offering the largest loan guarantee commitment yet to what will be the world’s largest proposed solar farm. Blythe Solar is set to get $2.1 billion in loan guarantees to build part of a 1,000MW plant in California. Read more »
Want to see history in the making? I shot this 30-second video of California Governor Jerry Brown signing a bill into law that requires utilities to source 33 percent of their electricity from clean power by 2020. Read more »
It was a union of sorts between federal, state and industry initiatives, culminating in a day that will be remembered in solar power history. DOE Chief Steven Chu, California Governor Jerry Brown and SunPower executives announced a series of key solar projects. Here’s my photos: Read more »
At a packed room at a solar factory, Department of Energy Chief Steven Chu announced that the DOE has awarded a conditional commitment for a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to a solar farm that will be built by SunPower and owned by power company NRG Energy. 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 the U.S. government do for clean power, what it did for airplane technology almost a century ago? That’s the plan that nerd-rockstar Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu detailed at the Berkeley Stanford Cleantech Conference this weekend. Read more »
It’s a cliché you inevitably hear in any discussion about building energy efficiency retrofits: It’s the “low-hanging fruit” of cleantech. But the market hasn’t taken off quickly, and good money to be made will come from the commercial, rather than the residential, market. Read more »
What would lead a company to walk away from negotiations for a coveted federal loan guarantee, as solar company Suniva did recently? It has to do with the terms of the government deals, the time it takes to obtain one, and the recovery of private markets. Read more »
Donald Sadoway, a professor of materials chemistry at MIT, aims to deliver a “lifesaver” for renewable energy in the form of a stable, low-cost, large-scale battery. Here are 15 questions with Sadoway on the future of liquid metal batteries. Read more »
Next-generation nuclear technology could come to a screeching halt in the short term due to the backlash against nuclear in the wake of the Japanese nuclear incident, predicts Ray Rothrock, a partner at venture firm Venrock and a former nuclear engineer. Read more »
The DOE’s Loan Program will seek guidance from relevant nuclear agencies on lessons learned from the Japanese nuclear incident, but at this point remains committed to nuclear power, said Jonathan Silver, DOE Loan Chief at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco on Wednesday. Read more »
A startup building the next-generation of compressed air energy storage, SustainX, has raised a new round of funding from investors including GE. The funds will help the company start construction on a 1 MW compressed air energy storage project with its first customer AES. Read more »
Khosla-backed startup KiOR has a new customer for the biocrude it hopes to start producing in 2012 — Hunt Refining Co. It’s an important step for a startup seeking $1 billion in federal loan guarantees. Hunt has agreed to buy an unspecified amount of product. Read more »
When it comes to green stimulus, the world is halfway done — and China and Japan lead in the race, according to a Tuesday report. But the United States is catching up, though not without some hiccups along the way. Read more »
Here’s a handful of photos of the most photogenic, early-stage green technology that was being displayed at the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E Summit this week. Read more »
After the Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu spoke on stage at the ARPA-E Summit on Tuesday, he joined a group of reporters and answered questions candidly about the budget cuts, the high-risk early stage tech that was funded by ARPA-E and oil prices. Read more »
