Energy efficiency software may not be the sexiest of businesses but it’s starting to attract the attention of Silicon Valley venture capitalists as "green computing" gains momentum. Case in point: Seattle-based startup Verdiem has scored $8.3 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and six other investors. Verdiem makes power-management software for corporate personal computer networks that lowers energy usage. That allows companies to save money, of course, but also show their green cred by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation. Green Wombat wrote about Verdiem back in December and you can check out this post for more details on the company’s business model.
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Think the electric car is dead? Think again. Norwegian electric car company Think has raised $60 million in its latest round from U.S. and European investors, including Silicon Valley’s DFJ Element and Capricorn Investment Group. Other U.S. investors include RockPort Capital Partners and Wintergreen Advisers. Think now has $85 million in the bank to begin production later this year of the City, a two-seater urban runabout that can go about 112 miles (180 kilometers) on a single charge with a top speed of 62 mph (100 kph) with its current battery. The zippy little EV should get even zippier: Think has cut a $43 million deal with Tesla Motors to buy a version of its lithium-ion battery packs that power the Silicon Valley electric car company’s forthcoming Roadster super car. Think will initially sell the City in Norway before expanding to other European markets in 2008. The company hopes to bring the car to the U.S. sometime in 2009.
The latest funding round marks the rapid resurrection of a company left for dead little more than a year ago. It began life as a startup before being acquired by Ford (F) in 1999 when automakers faced a California mandate to produce a zero-emission vehicles. After investing $150 million in Think, Ford sold the company to a Swiss electronics outfit in 2003 when it looked like Detroit would be able to gut the California regulation. (For its part, General Motors (GM) subsequently scrapped its EV1 electric car.) With Think in bankruptcy by 2006, the three founders of $8 billion Norwegian solar energy company REC bought Think last March, acquiring an electric car factory and Ford’s designs for a next-generation car. Stay tuned to Green Wombat and Business 2.0 for more on Think in the coming weeks.
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Home may be where the hearth is but it’s also where 17 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are generated in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So depending on your perspective, it’s either heartening or appalling that just 12 percent of new single-family homes built in the United States in 2006 qualified for the EPA’s Energy Star high efficiency designation. The 200,000 homes winning the Energy Star rating last year are 20 percent to 30 percent more efficient than standard dwellings. That brings the total Energy Star homes in the U.S. to about 750,000. The states with the most Energy Star homes are Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Utah and Vermont. The EPA’s report does not indicate the average size of an Energy Star house but as the 3,000-square-foot McMansion becomes the tract home of the 21st century, the housing obsesity crisis will continue to blunt efforts at energy efficiency. After all, installing a high-efficiency air conditioner tends to lose its impact if you need two of them to cool your abode.
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Toronto is launching a campaign to replace conventional lighting with high-efficiency, long-lasting LEDs across the city. In a program promoted by Durham, North Carolina, LED company Cree (CREE), Toronto will install solar-powered LED lighting in parks and switch to LEDs in parking garages, among other things. The city is also converting its iconic CN Tower to LED lighting. A similar program is underway in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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The announcement Monday from Ford and Southern California Edison that they will collaborate on commercializing plug-in hybrid cars represents a tentative step toward a replacing the petrol pump with the power outlet. At first glance, the agreement looks rather modest: Ford (F) will provide SoCal Edison (EIX) with a fleet of hybrid Ford Escape SUVs that will be converted to plug-in hybrid vehicles, or PHEVs, by developing a larger battery with a yet-unnamed partner. Ford and the utility will assess the the performance of PHEV Escapes and the potential for charging them with renewable energy like solar or wind. That means the utilility then could potentially tap the cars’ batteries to provide electricity to the grid during peak demand rather than rely so much on greenhouse-gas emitting power plants. Plug-in hybrids sport larger rechargeable batteries that allow the cars
to travel longer distances on electricity and thus use their gasoline engines less,
reducing CO2 emissions while significantly improving fuel efficiency.
But the real potential of the collaboration involves Ford and Southern California Edison’s interest in developing new markets for plug-in car batteries, which could reduce the cost of electric cars while providing new ways to store and use renewable energy. As Green Wombat earlier wrote, utility PG&E (PCG) is also exploring the potential to buy thousands of such batteries once they’ve outlived their usefulness for transportation but still retain capacity that could be used to store electricity produced by solar arrays and wind farms. As these programs progress, we could start to see the century-old axis between the auto and oil industries be supplemented by a new alliance between car makers and utilities.
"The utility industry and the auto industry have to really sit down and understand both sides of the technology equation," Ed Kjaer, an EV veteran who runs Southern California Edison’s electric transportation program, recently told Green Wombat. "The auto planners of the future need to understand the grid of the future. The designers of the grid of the future need to understand what is the technology capability of these cars connecting to the grid." Still, he cautions, there is much work to be done. One big issue: the impact on battery life if electric cars are used as mobile generators to provide electricity to the grid.
A note to readers: Green Wombat is on holiday in Australia so posting may be a bit sporadic over the next week or so.
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Big Blue has signed an $84.4 million deal with Spanish utility Iberdrola, one of the world’s largest producers of renewable energy. IBM (IBM) will open an "Innovation Center" at Iberdrola in Salamanca to develop new information technologies and provide services for the utility. Meanwhile, IBM also is creating a "Global Center of Excellence for Nuclear Power" in France to develop software and consulting services for the design, construction and operation of nuclear power plants. IBM is capitalizing on the global warming-triggered revival of interest in nuclear power as an alternative to coal-fired plants. France obtains 80 percent of electricity from nuclear power. "Nuclear power plant license extensions and new plant construction are driving the need for sophisticated risk modeling and information tools," said Guido Bartels, general Manager for IBM Global Energy and Utilities Industry, in a statement.
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Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies has inked an agreement with a major toymaker to develop a line of hydrogen-powered toys. Horizon makes industrial-strength fuel cells but the Singapore-based company is probably best known for its solar-and-hydrogen-powered toy car called the H-Racer. (The company also has developed a very cool hydrogen-powered jet.) Horizon and Hong Kong’s Wah Shing Toys, which describes itself as one of the world’s largest toy companies, will develop energy storage systems designed to replace some 500 million alkaline batteries used annually in toys. "Building on its fuel cell technology, Horizon is developing a new generation of non-toxic energy storage devices that would feed small fuel cell power systems designed into next-generation toys and that could be re-used hundreds of times," the company said in a statement. Horizon already makes a hydrogen fuel cell conversion kit designed to replace standard batteries in remote-controlled toy cars.
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Vinod Khosla’s Range Fuels has been given the green light from the state of Georgia to build the first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in the United States. The Colorado company founded by the Silicon Valley venture capitalist will begin construction of the plant this summer in Treutlen County, Georgia, with production set to start in 2008. Unlike corn-based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol can be made from a variety of biomass matter – from wood chips to grass to cornstalks. It’s the great green hope for ramping up production of ethanol while avoiding the greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural impact of corn ethanol. The catch is the cellulosic approach has been expensive and experimental. Range, however, says it has developed a process that reduces production costs and can make the fuel from wood chips, agricultural wastes, grasses, and cornstalks, hog manure, municipal garbage, sawdust and paper pulp. The first phase of the project, which will make ethanol from "wood waste" from Georgia forests, will produce 20 million gallons of ethanol annually, ramping up to 100 million gallons a year, according to Range.
Meanwhile, late last week E3 BioFuels flipped the switch on what it calls the first "closed loop" corn ethanol plant in Mead, Nebraska. The plant uses biogas produced from cow manure to power the boilers that distill the ethanol. Left over "wet grain" from the ethanol production process is feed to the cattle, which then convert it into…you get the picture.
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A coalition of western
utilities is studying the feasibility of constructing a solar power
plant in New Mexico that could generate up to 500 megawatts of green
electricity. The project is being managed by the Electric Power
Research Institute, a Palo Alto-based non-profit, and is being
supported by New Mexico utility PNM (PNM), Southern California Edison
(EIX), San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE), Xcel Energy (XEL) and
Tri-State Generation and Transmission. El Paso Electric (EE) may also
join the effort. The EPRI-led group will complete a study by the end of
2007 of various solar thermal technologies – which use the sun’s heat
to produce electricity – and then decide whether to proceed with the
design, permitting and construction of a solar power station.
Representatives from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and
Sandia National Laboratory Will participate as well as consultants from
energy company Nexant and engineering firm Black & Veatch. A few
large-scale solar thermal power station projects are already underway.
Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric have deals
with Stirling Energy Systems
to generate up to 1.75 gigawatts of electricity from its Stirling dish
system. Northern California utility PG&E (PCG), meanwhile, is
negotiating with BrightSource Energy to provide 500 megawatts from solar power tower stations.
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photo: greenwombat
A coalition of western utilities is studying the feasibility of constructing a solar power plant in New Mexico that could generate up to 500 megawatts of green electricity. The project is being managed by the Electric Power Research Institute, a Palo Alto-based non-profit, and is being supported by New Mexico utility PNM (PNM), Southern California Edison (EIX), San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE), Xcel Energy (XEL) and Tri-State Generation and Transmission. El Paso Electric (EE) may also join the effort. The EPRI-led group will complete a study by the end of 2007 of various solar thermal technologies – which use the sun’s heat to produce electricity – and then decide whether to proceed with the design, permitting and construction of a solar power station. Representatives from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory Will participate as well as consultants from energy company Nexant and engineering firm Black & Veatch. A few large-scale solar thermal power station projects are already underway. Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric have deals with Stirling Energy Systems to generate up to 1.75 gigawatts of electricity from its Stirling dish system. Northern California utility PG&E, meanwhile, is negotiating with BrightSource Energy to provide 500 megawatts from solar power tower stations.
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