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

If Kan really means it, the government will have to abandon the plans for expanding nuclear power it adopted only last year. To make up the energy shortfall, Kan has set the ambitious goal of using renewables.

That is most likely to mean wind, according to a report released last month by the Ministry of the Environment. There is “an extremely large introduction potential of wind power generation”, it says, especially in the tsunami-hit north-east of the country.

“The potential of wind is huge because of the contribution from offshore generation with Japan’s long coastline,” agrees Tetsunari Iida, founder of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies in Tokyo, who advocates a 100 per cent switch to renewable energy by 2050. At present, Japan produces just 3 per cent of its electricity from renewables: solar, wind and geothermal. Nuclear contributes 30 per cent.

Taking into account wind strength, available land and the potential for offshore farms, the report estimates that Japan could install wind turbines with a capacity of up to 1500 gigawatts. More realistic estimates in the report suggest that with appropriate financial incentives, turbines with a capacity of 24 to 140 GW could be installed. Assuming the turbines operate a quarter of the time, this would provide up to 35 GW of electricity on average, matching the combined output of about 40 of Japan’s existing 54 nuclear reactors.

Next in line is solar energy, which the report estimates could provide between 69 and 100 GW without taking up any productive agricultural land.

Perhaps surprisingly, given Japan’s 120 active volcanoes and the 28,000 hot springs associated with them,geothermal energy scarcely figures in the ministry’s report. At best, it says, only 14 GW is available, but much of that is inaccessible because of restrictions on development in national parks. At other sites, exploiting geothermal energy would disrupt springs currently used as spas.

A switch to renewables will require huge amounts of new infrastructure. This will need to be paid for by offering special tariffs as incentives for providers to feed energy from renewable sources into the grid. By coincidence, on the morning of 11 March – the day of the earthquake – the Japanese cabinet approved proposals that would achieve this. “It’s under review by the parliament, and could provide a really big push for renewables if it’s passed,” says Iida.

The contribution from renewables to Japan’s electricity supply is currently almost static, having increased from 3.1 to 3.3 per cent between 2008 and 2009. Iida blames “poor policy support” for this lack of growth. So it is possible that as the shock of Fukushima fades, support for renewables will go the same way. However, polls reported this week suggest that two-thirds of Japanese back a shift away from nuclear power.

by Andy Coghlan

Original source: click here

The output varies depending on an array of factors including climate, shade, direction the panels are facing and the panels themselves, as well as the inverter – the techie part that converts the sun’s power into electricity a house can use.

A typical Australian house consumes about 18 kilowatt hours (kWh) per day.”We recommend most people probably need about a 3-4 kilowatt system to make a serious dent or wipe their bill, depending on the feed-in tariff arrangements,” Edgecombe says.

Chivell says many competitors are either now quoting their July 2011 pricing or are offering a 30-day installation promise with the bait of a  $200 discount if the 30 days is not met. “I’m sure we can all see what the strategy here is,” he says.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator confirms there has been “an increase in installations of solar panels” since the beginning of the year.

How it all works

The whole solar credits thing can be a tad confusing. Basically, when you install solar panels you are eligible for certificates from what is now known as small scale renewable energy scheme (SRES).

These are credits that you can either sell to your panel supplier, or keep and sell yourself through a clearing house. Most people just assign them to their supplier in the form of a discount off their purchase price.

You may also hear the credits being called RECS, or renewable energy certificates, which is what they were known as until the beginning of year.

The reason for the name change was a glut in the market of RECS was pushing their price down, and potentially putting back projects such as wind farms because the companies creating wind farms need the certificates to be worth $45 or more to attract investment. At the end of last year RECS were worth about $30 – $32.

Now the government has split RECS into two – certificates for big installations, and certificates for small installations.

Depending on where you live, installing a 1.5 kilowatt system would normally earn you 26 small-scale technology certificates (in Melbourne and Hobart), or up to 34 small-scale certificates (in sunnier Darwin). These would be worth $1040 – $1360.

For systems up to 1.5 kilowatts, though, the federal government multiplies the number of certificates you get. Until July they will times them by five. On a 1.5 kilowatt system, that makes the certificates worth $5200 – $6800.

After July the multiplier will fall to four, and each successive July after that it will drop by one until no multiplier applies.

July 1 2010 – June 30 2011,    5

July 1 2011 – June 30 2012,    4

July 1 2012 – June 30 2013,    3

July 1 2013 – June 30 2014,    2

July 1 2014 – onwards,            1

After the solar credits scheme ends, you’ll still get energy certificates for putting panels on your roof, but there won’t be any multiplier effect. The government’s argument is that demand should have reached a point to significantly reduce the price of panels.

Original source: Click here

EnviroMission, a solar-energy start-up based in Melbourne, Australia, said today it is moving forward with plans to construct two 200 MW solar-power facilities in Arizona. EnviroMission Limited, the Australian company’s Phoenix-based subsidiary, has apparently initiated the environmental review process for the two mega solar tower facilities by filing documents with the Arizona Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Committee.

Considering the scale of the proposed towers, the environmental review may receive more significant scrutiny than other solar-energy projects. A pilot facility using similar technology operated in Spain during the 1980s, but only produced about 50 kW of power. The scale proposed for the Arizona projects would be a step-change in scale for these types of solar-energy projects. Each of the towers would be roughly the size of a two-car garage standing well-over half a mile high. Collectively, both facilities would occupy more than 10,000 acres of land. In October, EnviroMission received approval to sell electricity from the first of two planned 200 MW solar power facilities to the Southern California Public Power Authority under the terms of a Power Purchase Agreement.

The solar tower would produce electric power through a so-called “solar updraft” technology. The tower harnesses the sun’s radiation to heat a large body of air stored under a large collector zone. This process can raise air temperatures above 150 degrees Fahrenheit. This heat funnels intense drafts of hot air through wind turbines constructed on the inside of the tower’s vertical shaft. The massive scale of the two towers would produce up to 200 MW of electricity respectively.

While the facility would only operate at full capacity for 12 hours a day, the technology is designed to work without water, which is often used in cooling systems for solar thermal plants and is a precious commodity in Arizona. The precise locations of the proposed facilities in Arizon is still confidential.

By William Pentland.
Original source: http://blogs.forbes.com/williampentland/2010/11/10/solar-tower/

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.

This is an older article that appeared in the news in 2008 regarding the building of what would be the largest energy farm in the world. The good news? Well it looks like under the Obama administration it is set to actually go ahead! The old and the new article are included in this post.

Energy Farm Australia.

Original article

The lucky sunny state of Arizona is about to become home to the world’s largest Solar Plant! Thanks to a just-announced contract between Abengoa Solar and Arizona Public Service Company (APS), the enormous solar plant called Solana will power up to 70,000 homes, and will be the first example in the country of a major utility getting the majority of its energy from solar. The 1900 acre plant will be completed by 2011 – IF AND ONLY IF Congress renews the clean energy tax credit that’s set to expire at the end of 2008.

This could be a momentous environmental energy venture for the US, so now is the time to get political — we should not let this amazingly positive opportunity slip through the cracks!

The Arizona solar power plant has been named Solana, which means “a sunny place” in Spanish, and will be located 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, and cover 1,900 acres. The capacity of the power plant has been projected at 280 megawatts — a capacity which could power 70,000 homes and create 1,500 jobs. The electricity generated by the plant will be sold to APS to the tune of around $4 billion for over next 30 years.

Solana will make use of Abengoa Solar‘s Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology, which is based on solar radiation concentration to generate steam or hot air, which is used by an electric plant to run steam turbines.
The CSP technology uses three different approaches to concentrate solar rays: tower technology, parabolic trough technology, and dish Stirling technology. The Solana power plant would primarily employ parabolic trough technology.

Abengoa Solar is presently operating the world’s first commercial CSP solar tower plant in Spain – which we wrote about last year. This new enormoust solar power plant could be a huge boon for renewable energy, the environment, and the local economy with all the new jobs it will create. But there’s one catch- this week the house will be voting on the renewal of a clean energy bill which would shift about $18 billion in tax breaks from oil companies to renewable energy. Essentially, Abengoa’s ambitious solar plan hinges on the passing of this bill. The current clean energy tax credit will expire at the end of 2008, which would effectively make Solana impossible if it did. So while Solana would be a huge step in the right direction for our society, the fate of its realization lies in the hands of policy makers this week.

Original source: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/02/25/world’s-largest-solar-power-plant-coming-to-arizona-in-2011/

Obama approves world’s largest solar plant in Arizona

by Three Sonorans on Jul. 03, 2010

President Barack Obama announced Saturday that the federal government will provide a $1.45 billion loan guarantee through the stimulus act for the Solana Generating Station solar-power plant in Gila Bend.

The plant will be one of the largest solar projects in the country and the first to store heat on a large scale so that it can continue to make electricity after sunset. Its developers have struggled for two years to find a decent loan amid the recession.

Obama discussed the loan guarantee in an advance copy of his Saturday radio address provided to The Arizona Republic. The deal gives the plant the assistance it will need to finally move ahead.

The plant could now open by mid 2013 after originally being scheduled to open in 2011.

The plant will sell its power to Arizona Public Service Co., helping Arizona’s largest electric utility meet a state requirement that it get 15 percent of its energy from renewable power sources by 2025.

“We’re going to keep fighting to advance our recovery,” Obama said. “And we’re going to keep competing aggressively to make sure the jobs and industries of the future are taking root right here in America. That’s one of the reasons why we’re accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy and doubling our use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power – steps that have the potential to create whole new industries and hundreds of thousands of new jobs in America.”

Solana will be built and operated by Abengoa Solar Inc. of Spain.

“After years of watching companies build things and create jobs overseas, it’s good news that we’ve attracted a company to our shores to build a plant and create jobs right here in America,” Obama said.

The 280-megawatt plant will be able to generate enough electricity to serve 70,000 houses at once when running at full capacity, and will be able to make power during the peak hours of demand from about 4-7 p.m. when traditional solar panels generate little electricity the low light of dusk.

The entire cost of designing, building and connecting the plant to the power grid is about $2 billion.

Work could begin by the end of summer, said Kate Maracas, vice president of operations for Abengoa Solar, and that wouldn’t be happening without the loan guarantee that gives the company access to funds from the Federal Finance Bank.

“It would have been a completely viable project without the crash of the markets,” Maracas said. “But lenders became very skittish.”

She said Abengoa has been working more than a year with the Department of Energy on the loan.

“There’s no doubt in this economy the only way to actually finance a large solar project is through the loan guarantee program,” said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association in Washington, D.C.

“Obviously the recession has caused a tremendous amount of pain for individuals, but also for businesses trying to borrow money.”

Resch said the loan guarantees provide a “good return” to the taxpayer because the companies that get them must pay interest to the government.

“The good news is these are very low-risk loans,” he said. “Ultimately it is a good investment with a safe return to taxpayers, but also producing jobs and clean energy.”

He said any other large solar plants likely would need similar guarantees in the current market.

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., helped convince the administration to provide the loan guarantee.

“This historic facility will allow 70,000 Arizona homes to be powered with clean, renewable energy from the sun,” Giffords said. “The plant also will create construction jobs and skilled permanent jobs which will add substantially to the Arizona economy.”

It will take about 1,600 people to build the plant and 85 to run it.

Solana will cover about three square miles of previously farmed land with mirrors that reflect sunlight onto gas-filled tubes. The heat is used to make steam and then electricity.

The plant will use less water than the crops that were grown on the farm.

American companies will earn about $1.1 million in revenue making components for Solana, including two assembly factories to be constructed at the plant. A new mirror manufacturing facility will be sited near Phoenix to supply the plant, employing about 150 people, according to the White House announcement.

About 97,000 receivers will be made for the plant at Schott Solar’s factory in Albuquerque.

Obama also announced a $400 million loan guarantee for Abound Solar, which plans to build solar-panel factories in Colorado and Indiana. The Colorado plant is underway and the other will occupy a vacant Chrysler factory.

“Already, I’ve seen the payoff from these investments,” Obama said. “I’ve seen once-shuttered factories humming with new workers who are building solar panels and wind turbines; rolling up their sleeves to help America win the race for the clean energy economy.”

Original source: http://tucsoncitizen.com/three-sonorans/2010/07/03/obama-approves-worlds-largest-solar-plant-in-arizona/

The UK is determined to get out of the “dunce corner” on renewables, Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said today as he officially opened the world’s largest offshore wind farm off the UK coast.

The 100-turbine Thanet wind farm off the coast of Kent will produce enough electricity to supply the equivalent of more than 200,000 homes a year, and brings the UK’s total power from onshore and offshore wind to more than 5GW – enough to power all the homes in Scotland.

At a ceremony at sea to mark the launch of the new site, Mr Huhne said offshore wind was a key part of meeting the country’s commitments to boost renewables, and the Government was focused on moving from the “frankly atrocious record” on green energy it had inherited. Currently the UK sources just 3% of all its energy from renewables, against a target of 15% by 2020, and is 25th in the league table of 27 EU countries on action on green power. Offshore wind power was part of ensuring secure, cheap energy supplies in the future, as well as providing jobs, Mr Huhne said.

But concerns were raised about the proportion of jobs created by the offshore wind industry going to British workers, and whether incentives such as £60 million promised for ports development to support the supply chain would survive the forthcoming Government spending review.

About 30% of the 3,500 jobs generated by the manufacture, construction and installation of the wind farm owned by Swedish company Vattenfall went to UK employees.

Mr Huhne said the ports funding was subject to the comprehensive spending review but said it would be foolish not to encourage in every way possible investment in the supply chain, to ensure as much as possible of the manufacture and skills for offshore wind were based in the UK.

“We need to make sure we have both the supply chain and the skills, and we will do what we can to make sure we are as attractive as we can be to investors,” he said.

“We do have an awful lot of wind and wave and tidal power and we are determined to have a supply chain to match.”

While he said the opening of the Thanet wind farm and the reaching of the 5GW was a landmark for the UK, Mr Huhne said the country had a long way to go, and could easily encourage the industry to deliver 10 times as much wind energy by 2020.

The Energy Secretary’s comments came as new research published by Vestas, which made the turbines for the Thanet wind farm, suggested that the UK offshore wind industry could directly provide as many as 34,000 permanent skilled jobs, and another 24,000 jobs in the wider economy.

The tens of thousands of jobs would come from operations and maintenance of wind farms and would be in addition to the temporary construction jobs from installing the energy plants.

But Vestas, which was at the centre of controversy when it closed its onshore turbine factory on the Isle of Wight with the loss of 600 jobs last year, said uncertainties over financial support, local skills shortages and inadequate grid and port infrastructure was putting thousands of the potential jobs at risk.

The company called for clarification on financial support, and targets agreed between Government and industry for 2020 and beyond. And there should be decisions over which ports will receive funding from the £60 million pledged for developing harbour areas to accommodate new wind farm construction.

Vestas Offshore president Anders Soe-Jensen said: “We need more qualified people to come into this industry, if this industry is going to take off.”The wind turbines will be there, we can handle that, but we need to get them erected and maintained, so we need people to come into the industry in high level jobs.” And he said: “To build up the entire supply chain will require some assistance from the Government.”

But Oystein Loseth, chief executive of Vattenfall, said the UK was the best country in the world to be installing, building and operating offshore wind. “This project would not have been possible without the British Government’s active support and its commitment to renewable energy,” he added.

And Maria McCaffery, chief executive of wind industry body RenewableUK, said: “Today’s 5GW announcement and the news on September 6 that wind supplied 10% of all electricity to consumers serves to highlight just how mainstream this energy source has become.” She said that each gigawatt of power that was installed was taking less and less time to construct, and with the right Government policies in place, the industry expected to be installing between 3GW and 4GW a year when the next major round of wind farms begin construction.

Original source: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/worlds-largest-wind-farm-opens-off-kent-2087352.html