As a boom of solar panels continues to be installed on buildings throughout the U.S., companies, groups and even every day people can make money off of funding this clean energy transition. Read more »
SunPower plans to sell lithium ion batteries — or other energy storage technology — bundled with solar panels. The move follows other solar companies into the energy storage space. Read more »
SolarCity is one of the leaders when it comes to installing solar panels on home owner’s rooftops. But the company’s $31 million loss, in its latest quarter, shows the growing pains for the retail solar players. 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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
In a wide ranging interview at the SXSW festival in Austin on Saturday, entrepreneur Elon Musk talked about his crazy life bringing the world life on Mars, electric cars, and solar rooftops. Read more »
Now that SolarCity is publicly-traded it’s got the quarterly numbers game to play. In its first earnings report post-IPO SolarCity’s shares drop on quarter loss. Read more »
Solar-as-a-service is dominating the market for home solar panel systems and the companies that pioneered these financing models are now seeing the pay back for those early moves. Read more »
SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive says the company’s IPO was so touch and go in the 11th hour that at one point the team had actually booked tickets to fly back to San Francisco from New York. Read more »
Financing the emerging boom of solar rooftops is an area where startups increasingly are doing well. OneRoof Energy, a startup launched just in 2011, has raised another round of equity from Korean giant Hanwha to grow its solar panel financing and sales business. Read more »
The fourth quarter in cleantech saw attention paid to two prominent, publicly traded companies: EV maker Tesla and newly minted public listing SolarCity. It remains a transitional period for the sector as investment declines, with a shift toward those companies able to scale with little additional capital. Read more »
Following one of the only successful cleantech IPOs of the year, solar installer and financier SolarCity says it will grow its solar rooftops next year to 250 MW, up from 156 MW in 2012. Can it achieve profitability at the same time? Read more »
Tesla’s solar-powered super chargers — which can charge Model S cars in 30 minutes — have officially hit the east coast. Last week Tesla announced it had installed two fast chargers, one in Connecticut and one in Delaware. Read more »
From low silicon and solar module prices to a rising amount of solar panels installed on rooftops, these five charts show that the future of solar is brighter than ever, despite the difficult times for solar manufacturers in 2012. Read more »
Clean Power Finance is releasing a federally-funded survey to quantify the challenges solar installers face when they try to get all the necessary permits to construct solar electric systems and connect them to the local grid. Read more »
Despite a lot of hand wringing this year, various cleantech sectors are on the difficult path to market maturation, and not necessarily in a “crisis.” Read more »
In 2013 cleantech investing will move toward companies serving unsubsidized markets where software plays a role in reducing power consumption. In many ways this is a return to plays for energy efficiency, and there’s still money to be made from business models built around saving energy. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
At the close of the NASDAQ on Thursday evening, SolarCity ended its first day of trading up close to 50 percent, closing at $11.79. Read more »
You can count GigaOM Pro cleantech analyst Adam Lesser in the category that believes that SolarCity pricing at $8 rather than the $13 to $15 the company wanted was a major blessing. A blessing for all of cleantech. Read more »
While we follow how SolarCity’s stock fares on its opening debut at $8 per share, here’s some photos of the company ringing in the opening of the NASDAQ. Read more »
While the $8 per share debut price for SolarCity is well below the expected range of $13 to $15 per share days ago, the IPO is still moving forward, and was only delayed by a day. SolarCity’s stock is expected to start trading on Thursday. Read more »
By 2017, solar modules could cost below 50 cents to produce, says Lux. They are as low as 70 cents per watt now. The cost will drop partly because of manufacturing efficiencies, but also because of the efficiencies of the modules themselves. Read more »
In a new filing SolarCity says it plans to sell 11.5 million shares at $8 per share, well below its previous range of $13 – $15 per share. However the IPO seems to be still moving, and only slipped past its original deadline to price Tuesday night. 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 »
Silver Lake’s energy fund and venture firm Kleiner Perkins are backing a German recycled plastics processor called Friedola Tech. The company will use the funds partly to open up a new factory in South Carolina. Read more »
Solar installer and financier SolarCity has set the terms for its planned IPO, and plans to sell 10.1 million shares at between $13 and $15 per share. At the midpoint the company would raise $141 million. Read more »
Will solar rooftop installer, and financier, SolarCity hold its IPO before the end of the year? If so, the company could break the dry spell for venture-backed solar and next-gen energy startups, and also deliver Tesla CEO Elon Musk another win. Read more »
SolarCity started off as an installer of small solar electric systems on residential and commercial rooftops. It’s since moved into new lines of businesses, including the construction of solar farms for utilities. Read more »
SolarCity publicly disclosed its documents for its planned IPO on Friday, giving us a look at some of its risk factors. Those include that the company is being investigated by the Inspector General about the Treasury Grant program. Read more »
SolarCity filed to go public in April, but we are only now getting a glimpse of its IPO plan. The company is proposing to raise roughly $201 million and join the NASDAQ family. Read more »
Electric car maker Tesla has quietly built out solar-powered rapid electric car chargers at six locations around California and has plans to install many more next year. The tech, which uses a solar system from SolarCity, will be offered for free for Model S owners. Read more »
According to a new report out on Monday, traditionally Republican and Swing states are showing the most growth in green jobs. That’s pretty surprising if you’ve been listening to all the Solyndra and anti-green job rhetoric of the election cycles. Read more »
Walmart will be getting battery storage combined with its solar panels, courtesy of SolarCity. It’s a big deal because battery grid storage has been prohibitively expensive and is still in an early stage. Read more »
The path to winning over solar customers is through integrating data. San Francisco startup Genability began knitting together a collection of complex electric rates from utilities across the country, and its customers use the data to show how much could be saved by going solar. Read more »
Energy storage companies, like battery makers, and solar firms have been talking about the possible marriage of the two technologies for some time. And the union will likely be a big theme at Intersolar, one of the biggest solar energy trade shows in the U.S. Read more »
The market for solar panels might be booming in the U.S., but it’s still early days for matching battery systems with solar panel installations. But that’s not stopping battery maker Saft from looking to make batteries a natural extension of a solar panel system. Read more »
Software tools are becoming more important –and attracting more investments — with the greater use of clean power gear, from solar and wind devices to batteries for energy storage. Here’s a look at 6 software opportunities, from energy forecasts to performance monitoring to marketing and sales. Read more »
