A string of executive suite departures this week rocked the renewable energy industry. Perhaps the most high-profile exit was the sudden resignation of Andreas Nauen, head of Siemens’ growing wind power business, who left to take the reins as CEO of REpower Systems, the German wind turbine maker owned by India’s Suzlon. The hire is widely perceived as a coup for the beleaguered Indian company, which is working hard to rebuild its credibility after numerous reports of busted turbines.
Nauen’s departure was surprising considering the good performance of Siemens’ wind business. Just a few weeks before, in a bullish interview with Reuters Nauen said Siemens would overtake Suzlon to become one of the world’s top three makers of wind turbines by 2012. He’s now jumped ship and will work hard to help REpower’s parent company maintain its top three slot.
Siemens quickly named a replacement to oversee its wind turbine business, appointing Jens-Peter Saul who was previously the director of Siemens Energy UK subsidiary.
Solar Millennium also lost its CEO this week when Utz Claassen abruptly left the company without providing any explanation. Claassen had joined the company in December from German utility EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg. He had been hired to oversee, among other things, the company’s growth in North America. No word yet on a replacement.
The week prior, Mauricio Quintana replaced Doug Pertz as CEO of Southern California wind turbine maker Clipper Windpower. The corporate reshuffle, some speculated, could pave the way for UTC to take a majority stake in the turbine company, of which it already controls a 49.5 percent stake. German solar cell maker Q-Cells also showed CEO Anton Milner the door because of the company’s poor financial results.
The game of musical chairs at the c-level suite of renewable energy companies is a relatively new phenomenon for an industry where until recently many of its major actors worked in garages and hustled for investors. Now that they have these investors, they have to please them.
The UK, this week, continued to develop its coastline, awarding leases to develop what could be some of the world’s largest tidal and wave power projects. The leases were administered by the Crown Corporation and could lead to the development of 1,200 megawatts of electricity over the next decade, half to be generated by wave technology and the balance by tidal energy.
One of the big winners was SSE Renewables, the renewable energy unit of Scottish and Southern Energy, which was awarded exclusive rights to develop up to 400 megawatts of wave and tidal-powered electricity in and around the Scottish coast. To develop some of the projects SSE Renewables will work with Edinburgh-based Aquamarine Power, a developer of wave-powered technology and tidal energy systems installer OpenHydro, which is based in Dublin.
There are no Mojave deserts or Texas wind corridors in the UK, however the island country does have a long, tenuous coast with lots of wind and powerful waves. To harness that potential energy, the British government has launched an ambitious marine energy program that will also build large offshore wind farms. On paper, the projects are impressive, however, far little has been built thus far, and there are lingering concerns that the country doesn’t even have the manufacturing capacity to build these potential power plants.
Back in the U.S., Terra-Gen Power, the wind developer, owned by Boston-based ArcLight Capital Partners, scored a $394 million financing to support the development of the 150-megawatt Alta Wind I power project in California. The project is the first phase of the planned 3,000 megawatt Alta Wind Energy Center. Last fall, the Global Infrastructure Fund (GIF), headed by former Credit Suisse I-banker Adebayo Ogunlesi, entered the renewable energy business with its acquisition of 40 percent of Terra-Gen Power.
In Texas, Pattern Energy Group acquired the 283-megawatt Gulf Wind project from bankrupt Babcock & Brown, which has been offloading (click here) assets to pay back its creditors.
First Solar, the world’s largest maker of thin-film photovoltaic panels, has a new competitor and it’s called General Electric. GE this week made a bet that when it comes to solar generation thin-film made from cadmium telluride solar cells could produce cost effective solar power. Specifically, it announced that it would ramp up its research and development with Colorado-based PrimeStar Solar, of which it owns the majority. GE is betting that in terms of cost and efficiency, the PrimeStar thin-film cells can compete with the cheaper polysilicon cells. PrimeStar is expected to release its first panel in 2011.
Confirming that the renewable energy arena has anchored itself for the duration in the U.S. industrial landscape, aluminum maker Alcoa announced Thursday that it would work with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to test a unique concentrating solar power (CSP) parabolic made out of aluminum. Alcoa says it wants to build a full-blown green business — much like GE did a decade ago — around its solar energy captor, a company spokesman tells us.
VC Watch
We learned that Emerald Technology Ventures, a Zurich-based cleantech venture capital fund expects to hold a first close for a €150 million ($204 million) for its third cleantech-focused fund.
Medford, Ore.-based UpWind Solutions raised $28.8 million in a Series B financing led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. MissionPoint Capital Partners also participated in the financing as a returning investor. UpWind provides operations and maintenance (O&M) services for North American-based wind farms.
Solar Junction, a developer of high efficiency solar cells for the concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) market, closed a $13.33 million third round of funding led by New Enterprise Associates.
Aurora Biofuels, an Alameda, Calif. developer of biofuels produced from open-pond algae, raised $15 million in a third round of financing led by Oak Investment Partners.
Agile Energy raised $13.2 million in a first round of financing led by Good Energies.
Rambling
On Wednesday, as part of a conference call organized by the Department of Energy to showcase how stimulus cash is helping small, cleantech businesses, Secretary Steven Chu again urged Congress to pass a climate and energy legislation, saying that the law would give the renewable energy industry long-term certainty.
He said failure to get a comprehensive energy and climate change law into the books could cost the country the leadership slot in the cleantech industry (it covets) at the expense of China. Chu couldn’t have been more blunt when he told reporters that on China’s emergence as a green superpower, the “U.S. should sit up and take notice.”
Underscoring China’s green leap was data released earlier this week by Bloomberg New Energy Finance showing that in 2009 China replaced the U.S. as the world’s largest investor in renewable energy.
What’s often forgotten in the whole debate surrounding the energy and climate change bill is that cap-and-trade is just one of a number of provisions that combined will bring long-term certainty to the U.S. renewable energy sector and help put it on par with other dominant renewable energy markets in Europe and yes, China.
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