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

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.