Author: Terrence Murray

Week of May 24 – to – May 28, 2010

Eager to place a containment dome over a media cycle, that more and more was drawing uncomfortable parallels with the Bush White House’s botched Katrina response, yesterday President Obama held his first press conference in 10 months. During the hour-long media grilling the President defended his administration’s and the federal government’s handling of the 6-week old oil spill. He again vowed that BP would be held accountable for causing what — as of yesterday – is officially the worst oil spill in U.S. history and announced a six months moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling.  Shortly before the press conference, word came out that Elizabeth Birnbaum, the head of the embedded Mineral Management Service (MMS), was fired. Since the start of the spill MMS had been under fire for its cozy relationship with the oil and gas companies its regulates.

It was just a few weeks ago that the White House was toying with the idea of pushing through comprehensive immigration reform at the expense of climate change and energy. At the time Arizona had enacted a controversial immigration law that Obama said was “misguided.”  But the BP oil spill is turning out to be a big problem for Obama and his administration.  Upon learning about the extent of the spill, he is reported to have told aides to “plug the damn hole! Because of the events in the Gulf alternative energy and green policies in general have once again become top priorities. Earlier this week, in a speech at a solar module plant, Obama (finally) pushed for immediate action on the Kerry – Lieberman climate change legislation. He said: “We’ve got to have a long-term energy strategy in this country.” And added: “We’ve got to start cultivating solar and wind and biodiesel. And we’ve got to increase energy efficiency across our economy in our buildings and our automobiles.”

But despite renewed interest by the While House, the question remains: Does Kerry-Lieberman have the votes to pass? Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he won’t release the bill for a full floor debate if it doesn’t have 60 votes coming in. Besides the expected “nay” votes from entrenched climate change deniers, Senators Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Kerry (D-Mass.) a legislation that supports offshore oil and gas drilling. The provisions were included before the BP spill to sway Senators, with relatively little interest in actual climate change issues, to back their legislation. But given what’s happening in the Gulf, these could end-up torpedoing the legislation. Senators from key coastal states (New Jersey, Florida) have said they would vote against the legislation if it expanded offshore drilling. In a recent podcast Michael Levi at the Council on Foreign Relations, has a “hard time” believing Senators Kerry and Lieberman could line the 60 votes the bill needs to pass given what’s happening in the Gulf.

Reverberations from the global financial crisis, which has sent the euro south, is seriously testing China’s green aspirations.  This week photovoltaic panel maker Yingli Green Energy said it would shelve its North American expansion because of the global financial instability. The news is a blow for Phoenix and Austin, which had been lobbying for the plant and the jobs and tax revenues that came with it. Yingli’s decision underscores a more general concern with Chinese green energy companies which can produce cheap PV panels or wind turbines but do not have the deep IP knowledge-base that over the long-term can make their products competitive, in good or bad times.

After a record-breaking 2009, thanks to unprecedented stimulus funding, the U.S. wind sector is set to experience a soft-landing in 2010, according to a forecast released Wednesday by IHS Emerging Energy Research, which predicted a 40- to -60 percent drop in new wind installations in 2010, compared to last year. IHS blames the slowdown on the ongoing global financial crisis; record-low natural gas prices, and ongoing regulatory uncertainty. “2010 marks the first time since 2004 that the U.S. wind industry will not surpass the previous year’s growth level,” said IHS Senior Analyst Matthew Kaplan, one of the study’s authors.

VC and PE Watch

This week we learned that Energate, a Canadian developer of home energy management solutions, is looking to raise as much as  $14 million from current and new investors as part of a Series C that could happen in the next 12 months. On Thursday the company announced a $7.2 million Series B funding co-led by Montreal-based Cycle Capital’s Fund I and the Ontario Emerging Technology Fund (OETF).

Innova Dynamics, a developer of advanced materials that can be used in cleantech applications, raised $5.5 million in an inaugural financing led by Rho Ventures. MentorTech Ventures also participated in this Series A round.

Solar power plant developer SunEdison and energy-focused private equity fund First Reserve formed a venture to finance solar projects developed by SunEdison. The two companies will first invest an initial $165 million in the venture, which could eventually hold up to $1.5 billion in investment capital.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair joined cleantech-focused venture capital fund Khosla Ventures as a senior adviser.

Rambling

Could the tens – of – thousands of barrels spewing out every day out of the Deep Horizon well be a boon for cleantech? Yes, a controversial question but one worth posing. In the wake of the BP spill what’s for sure is that it will take a longer and it will be more expensive to develop offshore well. Analysts predict that the six months moratorium on deep water drilling announced yesterday could shave off 200,000 – to – 300,000 barrels per day from U.S. production by 2014.  This will help tighten oil supply and increase prices. The reality though is exports from Canada or even the Middle East will easily make up for any decline in U.S. production.  So, no the BP spill alone won’t be a game changer favoring cleantech. It is, however, one more rock-solid argument supporting renewable energies over hard-to – access fossil fuels.

Image: PicApp

Earlier this week Google announced the purchase of carbon offsets, for an undisclosed amount, that will support the deployment of a biogas power generation facility in South Carolina.

Google spokeswoman Emily Wood emails G.E.R. that it has committed to “pay millions of dollars… for the offsets,” through 2013, but she declined to disclose further financial details. Earlier this month, Google announced a $38.8 million investment in a North Dakota wind farm being developed by NextEra Energy.

Holladay, Utah-based Blue Source is developing the power project for Santee Cooper and Berkeley County Water & Sanitation, a state-owned utility.  Once operational, the facility will capture methane gas from decomposing waste at the Moncks Corner  landfill and convert the biogas into electricity.

Wood tells us that Google won’t be using the credits from the Blue Source project to offset emissions from its Berkeley, S.C. data center.

“This project helps us reach our goal of company-wide carbon neutrality,” writes Wood –for more on that, see here. “We have also committed to future streams from landfill gas projects in Caldwell County, NC and in Steuben County, NY,” she adds.

Image: iStockphoto

Energate, a Canadian developer of home energy management solutions, is looking to raise as much as  $14 million from current and new investors as  part of a Series C that could happen in the next 12 months, Marketing Director Karen McNaughton, tells G.E.R.

The Ottawa. Ont.,-based company announced today that  it had secured $7.2 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Montreal-based Cycle Capital’s Fund I and the Ontario Emerging Technology Fund (OETF), a  fund launched last year by the Province of Ontario’s Ontario Capital Growth Corporation’s (OCGC) . Energate will use the Series B cash to grow sales and fund ongoing R&D projects — see full release.

Before the Series B Energate, which was launched in 2004, raised an undisclosed amount of  capital from a group of angel investors.

Innova Dynamics, the advanced materials spinout from the University of Pennsylvania, will likely tap investors for a Series B sometimes in coming year, company CEO and co-founder Alexander Mittal tells G.E.R.

Mittal said the amount is still not settled but would likely be more than the $5.5 million raised as par of the Series A financing round announced yesterday and led by Rho Ventures. MentorTech Ventures also participated in the financing. Innova plans to use the proceeds from the Series A to hire new employees to scale and commercialize its flagship Innlay technology.

Innova’s Innlay technology can be used across various industries, including cleantech. Specifically, it can improve the efficiency of solar photovoltaic panels as well as fuel cells membranes.

2009 was great, 2010 won’t be as good, that’s the key take away of a study (U.S. Wind Power Markets and Strategies: 2010-2025) released today by IHS Emerging Energy Research, a Boston-based market research firm.

IHS forecasts between 6.3 and 7.1 gigawatts of new wind installations in 2010, a 40- to -60 percent drop compared to the 9.8 gigawatts installed last year.

“2010 marks the first time since 2004 that the U.S. wind industry will not surpass the previous year’s growth level,” says IHS Senior Analyst Matthew Kaplan, one of the study’s authors, in a prepared statement.

Why the slowdown? Kaplan, in no particular order, cites the ongoing effects of the global financial crisis, which continue to make access to funding difficult and regulatory uncertainty. The closest thing the U.S. has to a long-term renewable energy policy are the temporary, stimulus-funded 1603 direct cash grants as well as the investment and production tax credits. Last summer the House passed the American Clean Energy and Security act and the Senate is set to debate its own version of a climate change and energy bill, however prospects for passage aren’t good.

Also to blame for the expected slow down are historically low natural gas prices. As huge shale gas reserves are starting to hit the market electric utilities will likely favor cheaper natural gas power plants over more expensive wind farms.

Overall, over the next 15 years, the IHS forecasts robust investments averaging more than $330 billion in new wind investments, of which 90 percent will support onshore wind projects. The Midwest, Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states will act as major wind export hubs. Offshore wind is expected to account for only 5 percent of total U.S. wind build by 2025.

Map: IHS Emerging Energy Research

Innova Dynamics, a developer of advanced materials that can be used in the cleantech industry, has raised $5.5 million as part of an inaugural financing led by Rho Ventures. MentorTech Ventures also participated in this Series A round.

Innova, a spinout of the University of Pennsylvania, says it will use the cash to scale and commercialize its flagship Innlay technology.

The company launched in 2007 as a developer of water purification technologies but is now looking to deploy its IP across various industries, including greentech. We’ve called Innova in Philadelphia for more details on what the Innlay technology does and its potential applications. We will post with any update.

In a prepared statement Innova Dynamics CEO Alexander Mittal, said:

Innova Dynamics’ initial business priority is to focus the commercialization efforts of the company’s flagship Innlay(tm) technology.

BP and its armada of flacks are being outdone by a lone Twitter account: BPGlobalPR, launched shortly after the start of the massive BP oil spill. The Twitter account has garnered about six times more followers than BP America’s real twitter account. When a lone Twitter account  outflanks your in-house flacks and armada of highly paid, self-styled “crisis managers,”  that’s a good indication that your PR strategy isn’t working.

Check out some of our favorite Tweets:

See here, for more tweets from BPGlobalPR

Solar power plant developer SunEdison and energy-focused private equity fund First Reserve have formed a venture that will finance solar projects developed by SunEdison.

The two companies will  first invest an initial $165 million in the venture. However, eventually the fund could hold up to $1.5 billion in investment capital.

As part of the venture SunEdison, a unit of MEMC Electronic Materials, will identify and develop projects and First Reserve will handle all financing efforts.

Regarding the venture SunEdison CEO Carlos Domenech said:

The industry needs efficient and scalable financing models to meet demand. We expect the joint venture to help facilitate the development of our existing backlog of project opportunities and prospective projects that meet our development criteria.

The venture is a catalyst that will help ensure that SunEdison’s project-pipeline gets funded.

This is not First Reserve first cleantech investment. Spanish solar developer 9ren Group, formerly Gamesa Solar, is a portfolio company.

Image: iStockphoto

Lu Yeung, a Hong Kong-based analyst covering solar power companies at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, made two crucial calls last year that helped land him the top spot  as the best equity analyst covering alternative energy stocks in the Wall Street Journal’s latest ranking, out today.

At the depth of the financial crisis, when credit had all but evaporated and project developers and banks were hunkering down, Yeung issued a “light at the end of the tunnel” report. It was actually titled “It’s Always Darkest Before Dawn,” and it predicted that an avalanche of government stimulus money would make-up for the lack of credit and fuel global demand for solar panels.

Also, Yeung’s decision to upgrade PV panel maker Trina Solar from “hold” to “buy” and maintain a “buy” rating on Yingli Green Energy were “spot on”, writes the Wall Street Journal. By the end of the year Trina returned 600 percent to its investors and the share price of Yingli more than doubled, mission accomplished for Yeung.

Now, will Trina and Yingli outperform their 2009 performance? The Chinese alternative energy sector is facing some challenges, including a fairly thin intellectual property portfolio. The price advantage that’s allowed them flood foreign markets with discounted PVs is also eroding. Yeung points out that over the long-term wining solar PV companies won’t win on price alone and will also have to develop technologies that will make panels more efficient in turning sun energy into electricity. Chinese PV makers are definitely wining the price war but they’re lagging behind when it comes to developing homegrown technologies.

Runner-ups to Yeung are Canaccord Adams’s Jonathan Dorsheimer and Daniel Ries at Collins Stewart, see here for the full ranking.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has made it easier for green inventors to protect their intellectual property. On Friday the government agency announced that it had changed the application process for its Green Technology Pilot program in a bid to boost the number of green technologies filing for IP protection.

The program was launched at the end of last year as part of the Obama administrations larger goal of having the U.S. lead the global green economy.

The Green Technology Pilot program initially set out to review up to 3,000 applications in its first year. So far though, the patent office has only received 950 requests for accelerated review, and only granted 342, reports Cnet News’s Martin LaMonica.

“This will permit more applications to qualify for the pilot program, thereby allowing more inventions related to green technologies to be advanced out of turn for examination and reviewed earlier,” David Kappos, director of the patent office, said in a filing in the Federal Register, as reported by LaMonica.

Renewable energy technologies eligible for the express review process have to support inventions relating to electricity generation from hydroelectric, solar, wind, renewable biomass, or landfill gas. The program also takes in applications supporting power transmission and distribution technologies.

Protecting one’s IP capital is a crucial step that can help greentech entrepreneurs find financing.

According to Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti’s Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI) in 2009 the patent office granted 1,125 patents, the highest level since the CEPGI index was launched eight years ago — see chart here.

MEMC Electronic Materials has agreed to buy Solaicx, a  Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of silicon wafers for photovoltaic panels for $66 million. MEMC could pay an aditional $10 million if Solaicx gets additional investments from current shareholders.

MEMC owns solar power plant developer SunEdison.

Solaicx has raised over $50 million in VC funding from D.E. Shaw, Applied Ventures, Big Sky Ventures, Firsthand Capital Management, Labrador Ventures and Greenhouse Capital Partners, according to PeHUB.

The monocrystalline wafers developed by Solaicx  can capture more sun energy over a smaller area and produce more electricity.

Commenting on the acquisition Ken Hannah, president of MEMC Solar Materials, said:

Solaicx’s innovative and advanced manufacturing technology should enable us to reduce costs and improve efficiency, while enhancing our ability to drive the solar industry toward grid parity.

The acquisition is expected to close by the end of June 2010. Solaicx has approximately 80 employees and a large-scale production facility in Portland, Oregon.

Following in Al Gore’s footsteps, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is looking to cash-in on cleantech opportunities and as has signed-on as a senior adviser with Khosla Ventures, one of silicon Valley’s most ambitious green venture capital fund. On his appointment the former British Prime Minister said:

I’m neither a tech expert nor a financial expert, but I find the conversation I had to contemplate the vast expanses of my own ignorance. The answers to climate change and energy security lies in the technological innovations. I am thrilled to play whatever small part I can.

Al Gore has been a trail blaizer in translating his climate change advocacy into serious dollars. In 2007 he joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner. He’s also helped launched Generation Investment Management, a London-based, green-focused asset management firm. Last year at a hearing Gore passionately defended his business practice, saying he saw nothing wrong in investing in ways that are consistent with his beliefs — see this video.

So what will Blair and his self-processed lack of technology and financial experience do? He’ll likely open doors, be a deluxe flack that ensures that the right people and opportunities connect. In short monetize the contracts he’s accumulated while at 10 Downing Street.

Shortly after leaving office, almost two years ago, Blair signed on a part-time senior adviser with New York investment bank JP Morgan Chase, a gig that reportedly pays him more than $987,000.

It’s unclear how much Blair will pocket at Khosla. On the appointment Khosla founder, Vinod Khosla said the fund would rely on Blair’s deep policy expertise to grow its cleantech investment portfolio. “What has surprised me is the diversity of the technology. That’s why we need people like Tony. The effects of policy on innovation and innovation on policy is invaluable,” Khosla said, as reported by Earth2Tech.

We’ve reached out to Khosla Ventures and will post any updates.

Images: PicApp

This post by Mark Muro, fellow and policy director, Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, was first published on the Brookings’s Up Front Blog.

As the spin cycles speculate on whether the Kerry-Lieberman Senate climate bill has a chance to pass this year, I’ve been looking at its clean energy innovation provisions and am underwhelmed. I’ll defer to our colleagues at the National Commission on Energy Policy for a good side-by-side comparison of Kerry-Lieberman with the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House last year. But suffice it to say Kerry-Lieberman looks surprisingly similar to the only so-so House bill on innovation matters.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which is beginning to support “disruptive” efforts to develop transformational clean energy breakthroughs, is slated to receive cap-trade allowances.

Allowance sale revenue is also reserved for support of state-level renewable energy and efficiency programs to help accelerate market uptake and deployment of low-carbon products and services, like building retrofits and solar panel installations.

And beyond that there’s the usual grab-bag of technology-specific and fragmented research and deployment efforts (with the feel of interest-group pandering) around nuclear power, clean coal, advanced batteries, natural gas vehicles, plug-in hybrids, the steel industry, and so on.

The problem, though, is that while all of these items are well and good, nothing here answers to the urgency and scale of the nation’s energy innovation needs.

All told, the Kerry-Lieberman outline would, like Waxman-Markey, apply about 2 percent (or $1 billion to 2 billion a year) of its allowance revenue to clean energy R&D in the bill’s early years, and about 5 to 7 percent ($3 billion to 7 billion) to clean-tech research and deployment in various sectors over time—a little less than the House bill did. (Check here for my Brookings colleague Ted Gayer’s helpful tabulation of the year-to-year allowance distributions in the bill). So that’s real money.

However, while solid-sounding by itself, that’s paltry in the real scheme of things. All told, by our calculations, the U.S. needs to be spending $15 to $25 billion a year on federal clean energy R&D alone just to attain a research intensity on a par with other innovation driven sectors as health, or IT, or for that matter agriculture. Since that number is currently running to only $4 billion or 5 billion a year, the stark fact is that the nation needs to come up with another $10 or 20 billion in clean energy research investment each and every year for the foreseeable future—and starting now.

From that perspective, that Kerry-Lieberman would only manage to reserve for energy R&D pursuits $1 billion to 2 billion a year—or maybe $4 to 8 billion to be generous—must be counted a major disappointment. Once again, it’s extremely disappointing to see that the basic congressional dynamic continues to require massive allowance giveaways that “give away the store” in order to obtain the political support of interest groups. And its disappointing to see once again the failure in this process to serve the nation’s clear interest.

In the end, the American Power Act—like its House predecessor—underscores that Congress and the country are simply not yet serious about de-carbonizing the nation’s energy system, catalyzing a clean new economy, and limiting global warming to acceptable levels. Here’s hoping further negotiations will bear down more thoughtfully on those critical imperatives.

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Week of May 17 – to – May 21, 2010

Could the House help siphon off the venture capital dollars, which over the past few years have helped sustain cutting-edge renewable energy companies?  As Congress pushed this week to pass legislation that would tax the gains partners at private equity and venture capital funds earn for their investors, also known as carried interest, the private capital industry was fighting back. Lobbyists in Washington warned that the tax hike would swamp growth of startups developing much-needed technologies.  As is carried interests are taxed at the low, 15 percent capital gains rate. Congress wants to change that (and it’s looking more and more like it will) and tax these profits at the higher 35 percent income tax rate.

On the specifics of the legislation being debated in Congress, PeHUB Editor Dan Primack notes that under the House bill 25 percent of carried interest would be taxed as capital gains and the remaining 75 percent as ordinary income. The new tax regime would not go into effect until the beginning of 2013.

Primack says the tax hike could push PE and VC firms to  “accelerate their attempts to exit existing portfolio companies.” That would not be good for cleantech companies, which are largely dependent on venture capital these days to support their R&D. A recent PeHUB Top 10 ranking, where five of the 10 largest VC investments were cleantech companies, underscored that reality. Cleantech companies are a long ways from being commercially viable and if anything requires more private financing rounds to turn their technologies from R&D wonders into viable businesses.

In terms of exit, a look at the performance of cleantech companies that have recently exited via IPOs is far from glowing. Shares of Battery maker A123 systems (NASDAQ: AONE), which issued shares last fall, are currently trading far below their introductory price. Shares of second-generation biofuel maker Codexis (NASDAQ: CDXS) have flatlined since the company’s IPO a month ago. Jinko Solar (NYSE: JKS), the Chinese PV maker that did an IPO last week, is also trading below its $11 introductory price. There is a lot of buzz around cleantech but that’s not enough to convince investors to buy the shares.

The steep capital-dependence of renewable energy companies was again highlighted this week with solar power plant developer BrightSource Energy’s Series D $150 million raise. Stepping in, as equity holders were a couple of heavy weight investors, including the California State Teachers Retirement System and Alstom, the French power and transportation company. BrightSource says it will use the cash as equity to structure the  financing to support the development of up 14 solar power plants in the U.S. Southwest. Earlier this year, BrightSource also received a $1.37 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. With the Series D the company has accumulated $300 million in equity financing.

BrightSource shareholder Google shared some more insight this week on its ever-evolving clean energy strategy. Besides North America, the company will also consider making investments in European renewable energy projects, said Google head of green business Ben Kott at a conference in London. The comments came a couple of weeks after the Mountain View, Calif., company announced a $39 million investment in a NextEra Energy Resources wind farm in North Dakota.

As we report on Google’s cleantech developments we keep asking ourselves: “Is there a business strategy there?” It’s hard to say. The company has definitely become a pivotal player in the industry. Put a Google executive on the dais at an industry conferences and you can bet you’ll have a packed room. But what is the company trying to do? Is it looking to repeat in clean energy what it did selling sponsored links? Or is Google just a renewable energy do-gooder that’s less concerned about generating profits and more focused on raising awareness about climate change issues. As is, right now, it seems that for the time being, it’s a little of both.

VC and PE Watch

Half of the deals listed in a Top 10 ranking of the year’s largest venture capital deals involved cleantech companies. Better Place, the battery service provider, lead with $150 million raised.

Infinis, the clean energy company backed by London private equity firm Terra Firma, announced its acquisition of Scottish and Southern Energy’s (SSE) wholly-owned 30-megawatt Ardrossan Wind farm for £28.1m ($40.5 million) in cash and outstanding debt of £25.7m.

Solar power plant developer BrightSource Energy tapped the deep pockets of the California State Teachers Retirement System and French transport and power company Alstom, among others, for $150 million in equity financing.

Cleantech-focused PE firm Arborview Capital has completed a recapitalization of Paragon Airheater Technologies, a provider of solutions that reduce fuel consumption and emissions of fossil fuel-fired power plants. No financial terms were disclosed.

Mid Europa Partners, a London-based private equity and buyout firm focused on Central and Eastern Europe, invested €60 million ($76.19 million) for an undisclosed stake in Energy 21 a Czech developer and operator of PV-solar power plants. The investment marks Mid Europa’s entry into the cleantech business.

Pattern Energy Group secured more than $800 million in equity funding. It expects to use some of that cash to fund acquisitions of wind projects. Of the $800 million, about $400 million come from investment funds controlled by New York-based private equity firm Riverstone Holdings.

Rambling

The United Nations has a new climate change negotiator. She is Costa Rican and her name is Christiana Figueres. She’s a well-tested international beaurocrat who has been a member of her country’s climate change negotiating team since 1995.  The appointment by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was a surprise. The betting money was on South African Tourism Minister Marthinus Van Schalkwyk. Figueres takes over as the head of the Bonn, Germany-based United Nations’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) less than a year away from the next major climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico. There is growing skepticism — especially amongst developing nations — that the UN system is the appropriate body to roll out a comprehensive climate change agreement. The international body is too rigid, centralized and is not able to provide the sort of flexibility nations like China or India are asking for in dealing with their Co2 and green house gas cuts. It will be up to Figueres to come up with a strategy that’s able to bring back some credibility to the UN as the PLACE able to forge a comprehensive, global climate change agreement.

Image: Charlie Rose

We learn that a New York-based project finance banker has exited the energy financing group at German bank HSH Nordbank. He’s joining anoter European project finance bank.

Gregory Hutton, a v.p. with HSH Nordbank’s energy project finance group, is leaving the bank to join the another Euopean bank, an industry source tells us, who declined to name the bank. He’s expected to start in his new position next month.

Hutton joined HSH Nordbank two years ago from French bank Dexia, where he was an assistant  v.p. for origination. We’ve reached out to HSH Nordbank in New York and will post with any updates.

Japanese auto maker  Toyota announced today that it’s investing $50 million in electric-car maker Tesla Motors. As part of the deal Tesla  gets its hands on a factory in California, where it will build its Model S car and other vehicles.

With Tesla, Toyota gets a platform that will allow it to compete head on with General Motors and Nissan selling electric cars in North America — see full press release.

Besides a fresh batch of capital, for Tesla the transaction brings a substantive distribution network to sell its cars.

Tesla has 2,000 reservations for the Model S sedan and intends to scale production in 2012 when it expects to produce as much as 20,000 a year, reports Bloomberg.

Since its inception in 2004 Tesla has not posted a profit, loosing more than $230 million. The car company plans to use proceeds from an upcoming $100 million share sale and a $465 million government loan-guarantee and the Toyota investment, to finance construction of a manufacturing line for its Model S.

PeHUB, today released a Top 10 ranking of this year’s largest venture capital deals, so far. And, not surprisingly, half of the 10 deals listed involved cleantech companies. Better Place, the battery service provider, leads the ranking with $150 million raised. Electric automobile maker Codax Automotive takes third place with $158 million raised in equity funding. Solar developer BrightSource Energy took in $150 million, enough to put the California solar developer in fourth place (we reported on the raise this morning). Number five is PV panel maker Amonix raised $129.4 million in a second round of funding. In eighth position is electric car maker Fisker Automotive with $115.3 million in new VC funding this year — see here for the full ranking.

Will VC continue to be as generous if Congress passes legislation that would effectively double the taxes on the profits from their investments  — also known as carried interests. In a press statement The National Venture Capital Association said the House legislation could  push VCs to take fewer risks and curtail “incentive for venture investors to work with entrepreneurs.”  Despite hard lobbying by the venture and private equity industry, which obviously wants to be to be excluded from the tax increase, the House could vote on the bill as early as tomorrow, reports DealBreaker.

Mid Europa Partners is considering other investments in east European solar and wind companies, Stefan Tzvetkov, a  London-based director with the private equity fund, tells G.E.R.

With the European Union seeking to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent over the next decade from 1990 levels, (there’s even talk to cut emissions by 30 percent), demand for green power in eastern Europe is poised for growth.

Tzvetkov declined to say how much his firm could invest in greentech over the next three – to – five years,  but highlights that Mid Europa investments typically average  €100 – to – €120 million, ($127 million – to – $152.3 million),  slightly higher than what it put into Czech solar power developer Energy 21. There are no plans to raise a dedicated green fund, adds Tzvetkov.

Earlier this week Mid Europa invested €60 million in Czech solar power developer Energy 21. Tzvetkov says its equity stake in the company is “substantive enough for us to have a say in the company’s short, medium and long-term strategy.” Given certain project development deadlines are met, Mid Europa could increase its equity stake in the company.

NTE Energy, which last month entered into a joint venture last month with Energy Investors Funds (EIF) to develop hybrid gas/solar power plants, has hired Mark Daley, director of strategic origination at Independent Power Producer Calpine, as executive vice president, power marketing. Prior to Calpine Daley worked for Florida Power Corporation, which is now known as Progress Energy Florida.

Tim Eves has also joined NTE Energy as executive vice president in charge of project development. Eves joins NTE Energy from Vercipia, a developer of cellulosic ethanol production technology. Eve also worked at Calpine where he was a project developer.

Michael Rice and Cameron Dix are joining NTE Energy as project developers.

Siemens, the German industrial conglomerate, said earlier this week that it was increasing its equity stake in Archimede Solar to 45 percent from 28 percent. Archimede is a joint venture with Angelantoni Industries that develops receivers for Italian CSP solar power plants. Financial terms of the transactions were not disclosed.

The J.V. plans to use the fresh bath of capital to accelerate the setup of a solar receiver production line in Massa Martana, in central Italy’s Umbria region. Early next year the plant is expected to produce 75,000 solar receivers annually and 140,000 annually by 2012.

The Archimede plant has a commercial contract to supply up to 1,500 solar receivers to the Priolo Garallo Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), which is currently under construction in Sicily.

CSP produces electricity by capturing solar heat to drive steam turbines or reciprocating engines that spin electric generators. Because of its large wind business, Siemens controls a portfolio of turbine technology that it wants to expand into solar applications.

The Munich-based company is betting on greentech to generate a growing share of its overall revenues. According to industry Web site Alarm: Clock, Siemens, whose green investments focus on the wind sector, estimates that the solar thermal power plant market will experience double digit annual growth up over the next five years and could reach $12.3 billion by 2015.