Looks like Groupon will go public on Friday morning at $20 per share, giving it a valuation of $12.6 billion for its online coupon business. Let’s compare it to some of the greentech startups and big energy firms and try not to get disturbed. Read more »
Solar power and electric cars are an ideal match. Both are tied to the grid, and disruptive technologies, which are in an early market stage and which are trying to reduce costs. Partnerships just make sense. Read more »
General Electric has been plotting a solar empire for several years now, and it has settled on a place for the crown jewel of the plan: a 400 MW factory in Colorado to produce solar panels and compete with the likes of First Solar. Read more »
It’s been over a month since the Solyndra news came out, but it’s still dominating. Because it just won’t go away, here’s my top five list of projects that the DOE also backed with loan guarantees and that are showing some early signs of success. Read more »
A Department of Energy loan guarantee program that has attracted unwanted attention through its Solyndra deal is ending today, and the DOE is marking the occasion by finalizing billions of dollars of loan guarantees to First Solar, SunPower and Prologis. Read more »
The sale season is on for solar. SpectraWatt, which filed for bankruptcy last month, plans to hold a live auction of its silicon solar factory equipment on Sept. 28. Others will follow. Read more »
Despite the seemingly downward short-term trend for cleantech investing, corporations and investors continue to back the green building sector. On Wednesday San Francisco–based energy-efficient building company Project Frog announced that it has raised $22 million from GE and a group of investors. Read more »
When all was said and done, solar panel maker Solyndra raised over a billion dollars, making it No. 2 on the list of companies that have raised the most equity, according to a 2010 list from Dow Jones VentureWire. But unlike Facebook or MetroPCS, two other names on ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It’s refreshing to see a little innovation going into the wind industry. On Tuesday, Danotek, a startup that builds a technology called permanent magnetic generators for wind turbines, announced that it has raised $15 million from high-profile investors GE, Khosla Ventures, CMEA Capital, and Statoil Technology. Read more »
An LED light bulb that can fit into a standard socket, will cost less than $15, and will last 8 years — that’s what Lighting Science Group and Dixon Technologies India are promising for the Indian market this year and global markets next year. Read more »
Corporate venture capital plays a key role in the startup world, including the cleantech sector. In his Today in Green IT post, the curator of our research service, Adam Lesser, highlighted the role of corporate venture capital and pointed to an article in the Detroit Free Press […] Read more »
Peddling home energy management gear and software successfully is harder than it seems, and big companies such as Microsoft and Cisco are ditching this market. EnergyHub is staying and on Thursday announced a $14.5 million round to help it sell products and services to consumers. Read more »
The rare uber-green LEED Platinum certification for data centers is becoming a bit more common. On Monday, Vantage Data Centers announced that one of its data centers in Santa Clara, Calif., has been awarded the LEED Platinum certification. Read more »
Throughout 2009 and 2010, Internet companies like Microsoft, Google and even router giant Cisco launched experimental software and hardware to help building managers and home owners monitor and control their energy consumption. But now these firms are abandoning those plans. Why? Read more »
There’s a big problem with natural gas fracking, which has been making headlines lately: the potential issues with water pollution. However, the problem has not gone unnoticed as a major opportunity for cleantech investors and startups. Read more »
GE continues to see a bright spot in LED technology. On the heels of its investment in LED cooling startup Nuventix, GE announced on Monday afternoon that its lighting division, GE Lighting, plans to buy Israeli LED power supply company Lightech. Read more »
Earlier this week figures from the latest MoneyTree report found that VC funding for web startups has reached a 10-year high. Contrast that with the funding figures from Dow Jones, which found that venture investment in the energy sector dropped by more than half. Read more »
GE backs startup Nuventix, which has developed a cooling technology for LEDs and electronics. The tech can help LED-makers cool lights without using a larger fixture size. Read more »
GPS can provide an important function for the emerging electric car industry: battling so-called range anxiety. On Monday, electric car charging company Coulomb Technologies announced that it has partnered with navigation company TomTom to offer charging locator, reservation and information services for plug-in car drivers. Read more »
Fusing solar technology with buildings is an area that tends to invite creative ideas. An intriguing design caught our attention at Intersolar in San Francisco this week: It’s a solar panel with a honeycomb structure that replaces the glass facades of a building. Read more »
Four-year-old OPX Biotechnologies, which uses genomics to make biofuel production more efficient and economic, is in the process of raising a $45 million round, and has closed on $37 million of that funding, according to a filing. Read more »
Turning wastewater – from cities or food processing plants – into electricity has always attracted investors fancy. Now an investor consortium of GE, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips is making its first bet on an Israeli technology developer via its new fund called Energy Technology Ventures, the companies said Tuesday. Read more »
Is combining solar cells and windows a case of chocolate and peanut butter (perfect combo) or one of those unions which equals less than the sum of its parts? Startup Pythagoras Solar has designed — and is selling — a double-pane window embedded with solar cells. Read more »
GE has unveiled the second winners of its smart grid challenge, this time focused on home energy. GE says along with its VC partners, it’s investing another $63 million — of its $200 million fund — into 10 companies and giving $100,000 awards to 5 more. 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 »
Alta Devices has garnered high-profile investors, but it’s been fairly quiet about the tech it’s developed to bring in those investors. But after chatting with Alta’s CEO, Christopher Norris, we have a lot better idea on its innovation. Here’s the story behind Alta Devices. Read more »
General Electric is a major wind turbine maker and has announced big plans in the past year to tackle the solar market. But it may be the company’s strategy to expand its natural gas power plant equipment business that could be a significant driver of renewable energy. Read more »
Cable operator Comcast has turned to a Silicon Valley startup for the software behind its home security and energy management product unveiled on Wednesday: iControl, a Palo Alto, Calif-based company backed by Comcast itself, as well as Kleiner Perkins, Intel Capital, Cisco and Charles River Ventures. Read more »
GE has YouTube star ShayCarl doing a road trip all around the country to highlight green technology as part of its Ecomagination campaign. The campaign was produced by Howcast, which last year was able to drive 15 million YouTube video views to GE-sponsored videos. Read more »
GE has made a strategic investment in solar thermal startup eSolar and has entered into a deal for an exclusive license to deploy eSolar’s technology in combination with natural gas power plants. Read more »
Power gear giants continue their smart grid shopping spree. Schneider Electric is bidding to buy software maker Telvent for about $2 billion. The acquisition would give Schneider, which is a massive power equipment maker, more software and IT capabilities for the power grid. Read more »
Natural gas power plants aren’t usually all that efficient. On Wednesday, GE announced a power plant design that’s more efficient than the standard and also allows plant operators to better manage supply and demand and integrate clean power with natural gas. Read more »
One benefit of GE launching its smart grid challenge last year is that it has created a decent potential shopping list. This morning, GE said it has acquired one of its 12 grid challenge winners: Irish powerline monitoring company FMC-Tech. Read more »
It’s official. On Thursday, Japanese electronics giant Toshiba said it plans to acquire Swiss smart meter company Landis+Gyr. The deal will turn Toshiba, already a huge player in power and grid systems, into a sizable smart grid contender. Read more »
On Wednesday morning energy software startup Hara plans to announce that it’s raised another $25 million from new strategic investors, including the collaboration of GE, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips (called Energy Technology Ventures), as well as the investing arm of Japanese conglomerate Itochu. 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 »
Philips has unveiled a 17-watt energy-efficient LED bulb that can replace a 75-watt incandescent bulb, the standard widely used today. However, the bulb will still be expensive, at around $40 to $45 a pop. Read more »
Utility PG&E has hit another snag with its smart meter roll-out. This afternoon, the company announced it will replace 1,600 of its smart meters, which were manufactured by Landis+Gyr, because of a defect that causes the miscalculation of customer energy bills. 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 »
Smart building startup Scientific Conservation has brought on GE as an investor. While the company announced a Series B round of $15.65 million earlier this year, this morning Scientific Conservation said it has boosted that round to $19 million from GE and Triangle Peak Partners. Read more »
