Companies that make everything from solar panels to renewable-crude oil continue to be big draws for funding from the venture-capital community. But a company that rewards consumers for recycling led The Wall Street Journal’s second-annual ranking of venture-backed clean-tech companies.

Recyclebank, which provides recycling-rewards programs in 29 states and the U.K., has had a growth spurt since its 2004 launch. In October, the New York-based company brought on Jonathan Hsu, former head of onliine ad firm 24/7 Real Media, as its chief executive.

Two solar-power firms, Suniva Inc. of Norcross, Ga., and eSolar Inc. of Burbank, Calif., came in second and third, respectively.

The Top 10 Clean-Tech ranking, announced Wednesday at the Journal’s ECO:nomics Executive Conference in Santa Barbara, Calif., seeks to identify green companies with the greatest potential to succeed in an increasingly competitive sector.

A team from venture-industry tracker VentureSource calculated the rankings based on a strict set of criteria applied to 516 U.S.-based venture-backed businesses in clean technology. On March 10, the Journal plans to publish its 2011 Next Big Thing ranking of the top 50 US venture-backed companies across all industries, drawn from more than 5,700 firms. (VentureSource is owned by News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal.)

Candidates were analyzed on the amount of capital raised in the past three years; the track records of each company’s founders, managers and investors; and the percentage change in its valuation in the 12 months ended Nov. 30.

The list also reflects the difficulties in identifying companies with the best odds for success. Last year, Solyndra Inc. of Fremont, Calif., ranked No. 1, in part because it had secured a $535 million government loan on top of $286 million in venture capital. But amid heavy competition, Solyndra had a difficult 2010 and in June scrapped plans for an initial public offering.

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But another company on last year’s list, Tesla Motors Inc., moved off this year’s ranking after an IPO in June. The electric-car maker had ranked No. 10 in 2010.

Recyclebank, a unit of Recycle Rewards Inc., Suniva and eSolar also appeared on last year’s list. RecycleBank jumped three spots from last year’s No. 4 rank, while Suniva and eSolar remained steady at No. 2 and No. 3.

The remaining companies on the 2011 list are: No. 4 MiaSolé of Santa Clara, Calif., a maker of thin-film solar cells; No. 5 Opower Inc. of Arlington, Va., a developer of software for utility companies that helps consumers boost energy efficiency; No. 6 GreatPoint Energy Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., which makes technology that converts coal, petroleum coke and biomass into natural gas; No. 7 SeaMicro Inc. of Santa Clara, a provider of low-power servers for data centers; No. 8 Boston-Power Inc. of Westborough, Mass., a maker of lithium-ion batteries; No. 9 Luxim Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif., a provider of energy-efficient lighting technology; and No. 10 Sapphire Energy Inc. of San Diego, a producer of “green crude” from algae, sunlight and carbon dioxide.

By Colleen Debaise
Original article click here

A Merry Christmas to all and take care over the festive season. Energy Farm will be taking its own break too a few days before the new year through to the 7th of January. During this time we will still be answering phones and responding to email but it may be a little slower until we are fully back on board on the 10th of January.

I hope you all manage to have at least a few days off and wish you all the best in the New Year.

All the best.

The Energy Farm Team.

If you are on this site then clearly you are interested about solar power. Have you wandered though about how effective it can be? Or have you done the sums for yourself and you are trying to convince your friends that it is the right move to go green as well as generate income?  Well, maybe the below credit from Synergy (which will be converted to a cheque) is enough to convince everyone.

This credit note is from the home of Energy Farm where we have a 3.5kW system on the roof with an Aurora inverter which by todays standards is considered medium size. It will pay itself off in less than 5 years. Granted, if you wanted to see cheques of this size you need to be a low energy user like we are or you need to have a bigger system but it shows just what is possible.

Incase you are wondering, how do we achieve such a low power bill? A part of that is due to monitoring what chews up power throughout your house and how we use power during the day. We sell monitoring systems that allow you to do just that. They are also included free with out larger system installs.
We also use led lighting where possible throughout our building. Led lighting use to mean ugly lighting but current shifts in technology have led to more efficient, better priced and better looking systems. When you are getting a quote for your solar feel free to enquire about your general energy usage and habits.

Become a net energy provider and you too might be seeing cheques rather than bills and believe me, thats a good feeling! There has never been a better time to be considering solar. Contact us today and we can show you how to make solar work for you.

Kind regards,

Energyfarm.

September 2010

Energy Farm this month made an agreement that will see more efficient high quality panels being imported into Perth in 250watt and 290watt sizes.  Designed in America and manufactured in India, the panels are of very high quality/efficiency and include longer warranties than many panels coming out of China.

Energy Farm sees this as a real step forward for the home owner who now has the option to put less panels on their roof due to these highly efficient modules and they make a great addition to our growing list of panel brands and options.  To top it off, they are a great looking module, the image pictured above is a closeup of a panel that is on one of our staffs roof!