The heat and rays of the sun aren’t just being harnessed for electricity. An early stage startup called Thermata, backed by Bill Gross’ Idealab, is looking to build a business around solar-powered boilers that produce steam for industrial processes. Read more »
Solar water heater market may not be brand new, but it’s attracting a lot of new comers in recent years as more state and local incentives crop up. Sunnovations, which launched its first water heating system last year has raised an A round funding. Read more »
President Obama unveiled his proposed budget Monday that calls for boosting funding to the Department of Energy by nearly 12 percent. The spending plan would focus on research and deployment of technologies he’s championed repeatedly: renewable energy, electric cars, biofuel, energy efficiency and nuclear. Read more »
Energy Secretary Steve Chu laid out near- to long-term research and deployment plans to meeting goals set by President Obama in his state of the union speech. Aside from solar, electric cars and energy efficiency measures, Chu also is bullish about nuclear power. Read more »
Greentech marked its best year ever in 2010, and part of that is thanks to the wealth of activity across sectors during the fourth quarter. Global investment in clean energy surged, and while wind power remained the biggest greentech area, solar power saw the fastest growth. The energy efficiency sector appears to have more room for smaller players to make their mark amidst a rapidly maturing market. Meanwhile, China’s stance as a growing greentech giant continued to complicate its relationship with the United States. Companies mentioned in this report include General Electric, Intel, ZigBee, iControl, People Power and EnerNOC. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Consumers love credit cards, so why not start a program to reward them for spending money on eco-friendly goods and services? That’s the idea behind a proposed government program in South Korea in which users can earn points, and cash, for buying greener products. Read more »
The greentech industry’s 2010 showing wasn’t so bad, especially for a year that saw the world recovering from a once-in-a-generation economic meltdown. But despite this, venture capitalists won’t be investing in the sector like they used to, solar startups won’t see a great growth year in ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
California’s new Renewable Auction Mechanism (RAM) represents an important new move for the state into a feed-in tariff model for solar, wind and other renewable power — but with some critical twists. What are the advantages, and the potential drawbacks, of this reverse auction FiT model? ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
An op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal is calling Republicans to get rid of “green pork” — a grant program that covers nearly a third of the cost of installing renewable energy generation projects. Read more »
The U.S. could attract $342 billion in clean power project investments over the next decade if it adopts aggressive energy policies, said a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Meanwhile, solar and wind advocates are fighting to keep a popular federal grant program. Read more »
The UK government unveiled major spending cuts today, taking bites out of welfare benefits and other public programs while pledging to provide £2.2 billion pounds (about $3.5 billion USD) for renewable energy and carbon capture projects and preserving a feed-in tariff for solar power. Read more »
Nielsen is adding its voice to the chorus of research firms confirming the ascension of Android. Nielsen said among recent acquirers of smartphones in the last six months through August, Android was the top platform with 32 percent of purchases, followed by the iPhone and RIM. Read more »
No one actively cheers for climate change, air pollution, and extreme weather events, which are all caused, in part, by generating energy from fossil fuels. But no one really wants to another key piece of the solution: the invoice. Read more »
I’ve used Safari as my default browser since 2008, but lately I’ve decided to give Google Chrome a shot at becoming my new standby. I made the switch owing to Chrome’s reported performance advantages. Would they prove convincing enough to make the change permanent? Read more »
At this morning’s Apple press event, CEO Steve Jobs announced a new Apple TV that’s a quarter of the size of the original box, with all-HD content, cloud storage and Netflix and YouTube access. The $229 price is dropping to $99, with pre-orders available today. Read more »
Panasonic Corp. plans to spend up to about $9.5 billion buying out two of its subsidiaries in an effort to go greener, faster. The company announced today that it aims to take total control of Sanyo and Panasonic Electric Works. Read more »
“Revolutionary.” That’s how the Department of Energy describes the methods for generating fuels directly from sunlight that the agency hopes will emerge from a new project in California. An energy research “hub” just been awarded $122 million to work on the tech. Read more »
In the second quarter of 2010, greentech startups scored record venture capital and increased spending despite a weak economy. Solar power retained its lead in greentech venture financing, while global investment for clean energy asset financing fell. China, meanwhile, underscored its rising might in the greentech industry, raising billions of dollars in green energy financing. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Alta Devices, a secretive thin-film solar startup backed by venture firms including Kleiner Perkins, Technology Partners and Crosslink Capital, has begun to expand its staff and rack up a pile of patent applications. Read more »
Applied Materials is leaving the thin film solar equipment business and plans to focus more on crystalline silicon solar, LED lighting and other “advanced energy” technologies, the chip equipment giant announced on Wednesday. Read more »
Tigo Energy, a startup that sells software and hardware to make solar photovoltaic systems more efficient, has raised $10 million in new funding and plans to channel it into a rapid ramp-up in production of Tigo’s products. Read more »
The venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins has thrown its greentech weight behind Enphase Energy, an early mover in the realm of microinverters for solar panels. Enphase announced today it has closed a $63 million round joined by Kleiner and other investors. Read more »
The drumbeat of consolidation in the solar industry continues this morning, as silicon wafer maker and solar project developer MEMC Electronic Materials has just announced plans to acquire Solaicx, an 8-year-old maker of silicon wafers for solar cells. Read more »
BrightSource Energy, a developer of utility-scale solar thermal power plants, has raised $150 million in a fourth-round of equity financing. The massive new investment announced this morning puts it in a growing group of greentech startups that have raised more than $300 million. Read more »
Cloud encoding service provider Zencoder wants to support VP8 as soon as absolutely possible, and the company is excited about Google’s plans to open source the video codec at this week’s Google i/O developer conference in San Francisco. However, don’t count H.264 out just yet. Read more »
Roku is boosting the amount of sports content it carries through a multiyear deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) that adds live pay-per-view events and archived matches to its broadband set-top box. It’s the third major sports deal for the set-top box maker. Read more »
C3Nano, working on a low-cost coating for more efficient solar panels, won attention from investors, greentech insiders and the Department of Energy this week by winning the $200,000 grand prize in the MIT Clean Energy Prize contest. Read more »
Where’s the innovation in solar these days? Here’s three young and stealthy solar startups that have been turning heads this week. Read more »
Because I was lame as a teenager, I didn’t watch a lot of MTV. (Or is it the other way around: Was I lame as a teenager because I didn’t watch a lot of MTV? A deeper question for a deeper time.) Anyways, the point is […] Read more »
An Open Letter to Ban Ki Moon on Climate Change: Neal Dikeman calls for Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica to become the next UNFCCC Secretariat. Interesting idea — Cleantech Blog. Read more »
