Author: Terrence Murray

Michael J. Zimmer is Of Counsel with Thompson Hine LLP in Washington DC. He serves on the American Bar Association’s Renewable Energy and Carbon Trading Committee and the Environmental Finance Committee. He is  also vice chair of the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) biomass coordinating council and also serves as executive in Residence at Ohio University’s Voinovich School.

After a tough 2009 when cleantech investments all but dried up, the first quarter of this year saw a significant pickup, in part thanks to the government’s unprecedented financial commitment to the sector. Of the $865 billion in stimulus funds, some $90 billion has been allocated to cleantech companies. A little more than a year since the stimulus was signed into law, investors have come to depend on the government as an investor of first and last resort, at least up until 2012. But at best, this funding is only a band-aid solution. What’s still missing is a long-term policy that over the next decade could help uncap new investments that would make our country’s renewable energy industry even more competitive with countries like China.

While Congress endlessly debates Senators Kerry – Lieberman – Graham energy and climate change legislation, the U.S.’s window of opportunity to lead the cleantech revolution narrows. I submit that renewable energy industry players have no more than a decade to prove that they have moved beyond the cutting edge to be viable businesses that develop reliable sources of energy. Getting there will require significant government support and the implementation of a comprehensive, long-term energy policy. The Kerry – Leiberman – Grahm bill is a start when unveiled this coming week.

What should a better policy look like? Many in the renewable industry point to a European model with its combination of strong-government subsidy programs such as feed-in tariffs in addition to the market friendly cap-and-trade system.

A U.S. energy policy should definitely include a pricing system for carbon and a nationwide feed-in tariffs. Listed below are 10 additional items that I feel should be included in a comprehensive clean energy policy. Some of the measures already exist but need to be extended for at least another decade, while others are being debated in Congress. Others aren’t, but should be.

10 Ideas For a US clean Energy policy

1. Make Treasury direct cash grants (Section 1603) available to pension funds, foundations and non-profits and extend the grants until 2020. This would grow the cleantech  investment pool by including capital that largely remains untapped.

2. Extend the production tax credit until 2020, supporting renewables (wind, solar, biomass, hydropower, waste heat, biofuels and waste to energy) and nuclear generation power projects.

3. Establish a national Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) mandating all states to generate 25 percent of their electricity from renewables.

4. Ease access to capital by establishing a federally-funded clean energy bank, as provided under the Senate model with sufficient appropriations to leverage government into private sector.

5. Make permanent the 20 percent tax credit supporting cleantech research and development, and extend the manufacturing tax credit for clean tech investments to 2020.

6. To ensure a smooth and inevitable transition to an economy where carbon is priced, starting in 2012, internalize the price of carbon at $15 ton with a market phase-in where by 2025 carbon reaches $30 a ton.

7. Extend biofuels tax incentives to 2020.

8. To open the sector to more investors, expand master-limited partnership taxation benefits to investments supporting renewable energy infrastructure projects, including transmission projects.

9. Implement a five-year tax holiday for energy storage, transmission and distribution companies and developers of electric vehicles. Lower corporate, capital gains and payroll taxes of cleantech companies with a capex of $100 million or less.

10. Extend cleantech patents’ life from 18 to 28 years in recognition of the long term capital cost horizon associated with the investments required to commercialize the technologies they represent.

Image: iStockphoto

Week of April 5 – to – April 9, 2010

This week, Ontario issued some $8 billion in new renewable energy contracts as part of the province’s year-old feed-in tariff program. Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, has pioneered the use of cleantech as a catalyst to create a “green collar economy.” Besides the feed-in tariff program, the province has also implemented the Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP), which backs renewable energy projects with long-term power purchase agreements with the Ontario Power Authority. These days, a bulk of the North American renewable energy projects securing financing is backed by RESOP power purchase contracts.

Back to the feed-in tariffs, in this latest round, the Ontario Power Authority announced 184 long-term power purchase contracts with wind, solar, hydro and landfill gas projects. Combined, these will generate about 2,500 megawatts of green power. Ontario claims its feed-in tariff has helped attract 694 green-energy projects since 2007, writes Techpulse360.

While the Ontario regime is, for the most part, lauded for being investor-friendly, one concern is its “local content” obligation requiring that some 60 percent of the equipment used to develop renewable energy projects be sourced in the province. Investors obviously frown at this limitation, but for the provincial government that’s the key provision that will help ensure that these new clean power generation projects actually create the well-paid green collar jobs the province is banking on for its long-term prosperity.

The closest thing the U.S. has to a clean energy policy thus far is the $80 billion allocated from the stimulus law to cleantech.  Those stimulus dollars have helped unleash a steady flow of investments and have even convinced some companies to take the next step by going to the public markets to raise cash. Electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors, battery maker A123 Systems, and biofuel maker Codexis, have all issued – or are in the process of issuing – shares. Add to that list Spanish renewable energy developer Renovalia Energy which this week confirmed it was prepping a €250 million (USD $334 million) IPO for 25 percent of the company.  U.S. geothermal developer Raser Technologies is also reaching out to investors, as it is planning a $25 million stock issuance managed by Cantor Fitzgerald.

The American Wind Energy Association further confirmed hat the U.S. renewable energy sector is growing in its annual report released this week.  The report revealed that the U.S. added more wind capacity in 2009 — some 10,000 megawatts — than in any other year.

Key to this surge in new capacity has been the stimulus program. But with many of its programs reaching their halfway life, as we’ve said before, the industry is aching for clarity and is pushing for a comprehensive clean energy law.

We also learned this week of a possible  “casino for wind” deal. An industry source told us that the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe in Massachusetts might lift its opposition to the Cape Wind offshore wind project in exchange federal authorities would let the tribe develop a casino. So far no one is talking on the record, at least to us, but we will keep you posted.

VC Watch

Yahoo! Europe former Managing Director Toby Coppel is joining Richard Branson’s cleantech-focused private equity fund Virgin Green Fund as a partner in London.

San Jose, Calif. Chromasun has raised $3 million in a Series A Round of funding led by Danish investor VKR Holding.

Sakti3, the discrete battery developer based in Ann Arbor, Mich., raised $7 million in a Series B funding round, led by Beringea and which included Khosla Ventures as a returning investor.

Energy Investors Funds has formed a joint venture with Saint Augustine, Fla. -based NTE Energy to build and operate hybrid power generation facilities in the U.S.

Rambling

This week Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham are expected to unveil their energy and climate change bill, which, if approved, could finally bring this country the long-term clean energy policy it lacks. Beyond the political debate about whether cap -and-trade is really just another tax, what’s forgotten in the bantering are the benefits of such legislation. One is certainty, the crucial commodity that would help uncap new investments, fund crucial R&D and in doing so, ensure that the U.S. leads the greentech revolution, one of President Obama often stated goals. For an example of how smart regulation can help do that, look at Ontario, which is now reaping the fruits of the pioneering climate change and energy legislation it signed into law a few years back.

Image: iStockphoto

SunPower, the California solar panel maker, announced today that it’s issued another $30 million in debenture notes, an indication of  investor confidence in the medium – to – long-term prospects of  solar companies.

SunPower  initially issued $220 million in debenture notes but had allocated an aditionnal $30 million to meet additional investor demand.

The notes are due in 2015 and can be converted  into Class A SunPower share at the end of 2014.

Deutsche Bank Securities,  Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi and Credit Suisse were the initial buyers of the notes– see full press release.

New York investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald is the lead agent for the $25 million share offering of geothermal developer Raser Technologies.  An official at the Provo, Utah-based company tells G.E.R. that it’s never worked with Cantor before.

Cantor’s pricing was competitive, the executive says. Although, the clincher for Raser might have been the bank’s experience with the type of offering Raser is doing, known as a controlled equity offering whereby companies agree to sell a specified number of common shares in at-the-market transactions. Cantor Managing Director Jeff Lumby, who is listed in Raser’s 8K, launched Cantor’s dedicated controlled equity group in 2001.

Raser, one of the country’s largest geothermal developer, will use proceeds from the share issuance to support development and construction of  the 15-megawatt Lightning Dock project in New Mexico. We’re told that the company has secured a driller and expects to start construction in the next few weeks.

Lightning Dock is slated to start operating in 2011 and is backed by a 20-year power purchase agreement with the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District (SRP), a utility district in neighboring Arizona.

For long-term financing, besides the equity issuance, Raser is also considering applying for a loan guarantee, the company executive says, declining to provide specifics on the dollar amount it would seek.

Earlier this year, Raser secured additional development capital from Evergreen Clean Energy, a newly-formed Utah-based investment fund in exchange for equity stakes in some of the projects that make up the company’s 100-megawatt project pipeline. It also recently scored a $32.9 million U.S. Treasury direct cash grant for its five megawatts Thermo Number 1, project.

Image: iStockphoto

One of the obstacles standing in the way of Cape Wind’s 420-megawatt wind farm off Cape Cod is the Mashpee Wampanoag, whose tribal leaders say the $1 billion offshore facility and its 130 turbines would desecrate tribal burial sites.

But is a deal in the works? G.E.R. has learned that federal authorities could approve the Cape Wind project but in a consilatory move would also support the Mashpee Wampanoag’s plan to develop a casino. A spokeswoman for the Tribal Council declined to comment.

Just last week the Interior Department’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation report, released a negative report that said the Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound would be “pervasive, destructive and… permanent.” Shortly after the release of that report, Cape Wind announced a supply deal with Siemens for 130 offshore wind turbines.

These days, gaming is a hot topic in Massachusetts.

The state legislature just introduced a bill that would allow the state to sell casino licenses, potentially generating some $100 million in additional revenues. However, as a Federally-recognized tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag casino permitting process would largely be overseen by federal agencies, including the Interior Department’s Office of of Indian Gaming Management (part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs). The Interior Department is also expected to rule on a federal permit for the Cape Wind project in the next few weeks.

The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe has been wanting a casino for a while. Back in 2007 the council signed an agreement with the town of Middleboro, Mass., to develop a gambling facility on 539 acres of land in exchange for a $7 million annual payment and $250,000 in new infrastructure investments.

Town Manager Charles Cristello tells us that he still expects to get the casino despite local media reports that the tribe was looking elsewhere. Cristello recently wrote to the council inquiring about the status of the project but he has yet to hear back from them.

A spokesman with Governor Deval Patrick’s office and the BIA press office in Washington did not return calls seeking comments and clarifications.

Image: iStockphoto

Power developer AES acquisition of a  UK and Polish wind developer will add 700 megawatts to its European project portfolio.

The company’s wind unit, AES Wind Generation, acquired British developer Your Energy Ltd as well as  a 51 percent stake in a wind portfolio from 3E, a Polish wind developer.

AES is expected to invest about $400 million over the next five years to fully develop the projects. Of that amount, the company will spend  $120 million to launch construction on 200 megawatts by the end of 2011.

Over the past year, AES has come online with 213 megawatts of wind power in France, Scotland and Bulgaria.

Under the 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive, both the U.K. and Poland must meet 15 percent of their gross energy consumption through renewables by 2020.

AES Wind Generation has approximately 1,700 MW of wind capacity in operation globally.

Image: iStockphoto

San Jose, Calif.,  Chromasun has raised $3 million in a Series A Round of funding. Danish investor VKR Holding led the round. GoGreen Capital and two unnamed U.S. investors also participated.

Chromasun develops a solar thermal collectors that use the heat to run air conditioners and the electricity generated by its PV  to offset grid power. It plans to use the financing to build large prototypes for deployment in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.

Former Ausra Chief Executive Peter Le Lievre is Chromasun’s founder and CEO.

Image: Chromasun

Yesterday, Stephen Colbert hosted a debate between climate change scientist Brenda Ekwurzel and Weatherman Joe Bastardi. The two came on the Colbert Report set, to debate the recent findings of a recent poll that showed that 25 percent of television weatherman believe climate change is a hoax (Bastardi’s position).

Watch:

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Science Catfight – Joe Bastardi vs. Brenda Ekwurzel
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Yahoo! Europe former Managing Director Toby Coppel is joining Richard Branson’s cleantech-focused private equity fund Virgin Green Fund as a partner in London. The move is yet another indication of how straight technologists are going green and heading to cleantech ventures.

As chief strategy officer of Yahoo’s European unit Coppel oversaw $5 billion of acquisitions, including the $1 billion investment in Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce site.

On joining Virgin Green, Coppell said:

[Virgin Green] It is the perfect platform for me to leverage my investment and operating experience in technology, media and communications to identify and manage attractive investment opportunities.

Coppel stepped down from Yahoo! in December 2008. Since leaving he’s joined a number of corporate board. Last fall he joined the board of environmental intelligence firm Avoiding Mass Extinctions Engine (AMEE), reports PaidContent.org.

Image: PaidContent.org

Khosla Ventures is putting more money into Sakti3, the discrete battery developer based in Ann Arbor, Mich, as a returning investor in a $7 million Series B funding round, led by Beringea.

Sakti3 was founded in 2007 as a spin out from the University of Michigan by mechanical engineer professor Ann Marie Sastry. Two years ago the company raised $3 million from the Michigan Economic Development Corp., and $2 million from Khosla Ventures.

Sakti3 develops high performance lithium batteries for the automobile sector. The company remains tight-lip about what makes its technology unique compared to other lithium devises.  One thing that’s known is that the company is trying to develop batteries that do not use carbon-based cathodes. Overtime carbon erodes, which can significantly alter performance.

Sastry says Sakti3 is a few years from going commercial.

John Berdner, vice president, technology at GroSolar, the solar panel distributor and installer, has joined PV monitoring solutions company SolarEdge Technologies as general manager for North America.

Prior to GroSolar, Berdner launched the North American subsidiary of SMA, the German manufacturer of solar inverter technology.

Commenting on his appointment, Berdner said:

I am thrilled to join an incredible team at SolarEdge and I look forward to expanding market penetration of this revolutionary power conversion solution in North America.

Energy Investors Funds has formed a joint venture with Saint Augustine, Fla., -based NTE Energy to build and operate hybrid power generation facilities in the U.S.

The plants will use a combination of natural gas-fired a facility and renewable sources like solar or biomass.

According to the joint release, the two companies will announce projects in Florida, South Carolina, and Alabama in the near future. The two companies did not provide financial details.

EIF is veteran energy investors with a diversified portfolio of natural gas power generation and some renewable assets, including solar and biomass power plants. Less is known about NTE Energy. Its barebones Website does not list any projects and Seth Shortlidge, CEO, is the only listed executive.  We’ve called both companies for more details on the venture and the expected project pipeline.

Is hybrid the way to go and in particular is natural gas what the future of green energy looks like? Coal is likely to remain cheap for the foreseeable future. However, it’s also dirty and can be a political liability. That’s why, a few weeks ago, the Blackstone Group opted to convert a coal-fired project in Nevada into an 800 megawatts hybrid natural-gas/ solar power plant.

BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward and others in the “traditional” energy sector maintain that natural gas — over solar or wind generation — is the real game changer that will help turn energy into a greener, cleaner business. The ongoing issues with renewables is consistency or the ability to generate electricity at all times, something that wind or solar farm can hardly do right now.  The hybrid process could be the beginning of a solution.

Over the past year BP and competitors like Total or Exxon Mobil have all purchased natural gas developers with large shale resources. These unconventional reserves, like the Marcellus Shale gas field, could significantly bolster long-term U.S. supply, and ensure that natural gas stays competitive compared to coal.

Natural gas, and in particular how unconventional reserves, like the Marcellus Shale are developed is controversial. They point out that getting to these unconventional reserves using hydraulic fracturing, in which large quantities of water, sand and chemicals are injected into the shale, hurts the environment.  Some oilfield service companies are trying to remedy this by using greener chemicals, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Week of March 29 – to – April 2, 2010

Why did he do it? That was the question many people asked this week after President Obama endorsed offshore oil and gas drilling along the Atlantic Coast, from Delaware to central Florida, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s north coast. The announcement follows 14 months of aggressive pro-green policies by the Obama administration.

President Obama justified his decision as an extension of his ongoing “pan-energy” policy, in which renewable energy is one prong and the development of next-generation nuclear reactors and exploration for new oil reserves is the other.

Politically, after a bruising, yearlong fight in Congress over health care, the Obama administration sees offshore drilling as a bi-partisan issue that could get Republicans to support a comprehensive climate change and energy bill. Will it? That’s hard to predict, as Republicans, saying his move doesn’t go far enough, quickly criticized the president for maintaining the ban on much of the Pacific Coast. His decision, not surprisingly, also angered the environmental community.

“We’re very disappointed to see important areas like the Arctic coast and the Mid and South Atlantic stay open to oil drilling,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said. “What we need is bold, decisive steps toward clean energy, like the new clean cars regulations announced this week—not more dirty, expensive offshore drilling.”

As a political play, the decision seems to have backfired. By trying to please everyone, Obama may have ended up pleasing no one.

As an energy policy, the president’s decision might make sense. It would diversify U.S. oil and gas production “beyond its current Gulf of Mexico heartlands,” Petroleum Intelligence Weekly writes. Although getting to that oil remains decades away.

Michael Levi, an energy fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the new exploration (and production) could generate $900 billion in new revenues, largely benefiting oil companies and their shareholders but with little impact at the pump for end consumers. How these potential revenues are split between the federal government, states and oil and gas companies also remains an open question.

“Depending on the details, [the drilling] could be a significant benefit for Americans,” Levi wrote in a commentary. “That said, the bulk of the revenues would likely go to the companies (and shareholders), and the sums would be spread over several decades, lessening the public benefit of the move.”

Investors, it appears, have an ongoing appetite for the green energy sector. Globally, cleantech start-ups received $1.9 billion the first three months of 2010, an 83 percent boost from the first quarter of 2009, according to a Deloitte report released this week. The biggest beneficiaries were electric carmakers and energy-efficiency companies. Underscoring investors’ cautious approach—and cleantech companies’ steep capital needs—most of the new investments flowed to existing companies instead of start-ups.

BP, the British oil and gas company and one of the sector’s largest investors, announced this week it is shutting down its Frederick, Md., solar power plant, and shifting production to joint ventures in China and India. Chief Executive Tony Hayward said that given the low price of photovoltaic cells, producing in the U.S. didn’t make economic sense. The company, which has been refocusing its investments on its core oil and gas company, said it was not walking away from its green commitments. Having invested $4 billion in the alternative energy space over the past four years, BP is “absolutely committed to solar,” Hayward told The Washington Post.

The Cape Wind saga continued this week, when the Boston company announced a new supply agreement with Siemens Energy Inc. for 130 wind turbines for its controversial proposed offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound. The developer in 2003 inked a first deal with General Electric but was forced to look for a new supplier when GE left the offshore wind turbine business.

Is this just a press release or could the news foreshadow a positive decision by the Interior Department, which is expected to rule on a federal permit for Nantucket project in the next couple of weeks? A negative ruling by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar would be surprising, given his strong commitment to develop the country’s offshore capacity.  The announcement is a milestone for Cape Wind, opening the gate to another crucial requirement for the $1 billion offshore initiative: Securing financing.

VC Watch:

Codexis, the developer of next-generation biofuels backed by Royal Dutch Shell, is prepping for a second try at an initial public offering. The flotation could raise as much as $100 million for the company, the latest cleantech venture to dip its toe into the public markets.

Suniva Inc., the Norcross, Ga.-based solar cell manufacturer backed by Goldman Sachs and New Enterprise Associates and H.I.G. Ventures, announced it’s being considered for a $141 million loan from the Energy Department to build a new 400-megawatt capacity manufacturing plant in Saginaw County, Mich.

Privately held Integrated Photovoltaics has raised $8.5 million in a first round of funding led by Peninsula Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based VC firm.

Glacier Bay Inc., a developer of DC power and thermal management technologies, has raised $15 million as part of a Series C funding led by City Light Capital.

Petaluma, Calif.-based Enphase Energy, maker of solar microinverter systems, has raised $40 million in a private financing, led by Bay Partners.

Rambling

The price of photovoltaic cells over the past year has melted by as much as 50 percent, opening new markets and ensuring increased demand. The declining prices, however, generate other challenges. That was apparent this week with BP’s announcement to shutdown its U.S. PV plant. At PVs’ current prices, BP concluded that it’s better off producing its panels in China and India. Does this short-circuit Obama’s plan to create millions of “green collar” jobs? Possibly. But it’s hard to provide a clear answer. While BP packs up and goes east, several cleantech, mostly Chinese, companies are setting up shop in the U.S. And, they are not merely opening marketing offices but large manufacturing lines. What we’re seeing are two different strategies, both supporting a single goal: capturing market shares.

Image: iStockphoto

Deutsche Bank Securities,  Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi and Credit Suisse are the initial purchasers of $220 million in debenture notes — due 2015, issued this week by SunPower, the California solar panel maker. The company plans to use the proceeds to shore up its liquidity and support the buyout of SunRay Renewable Energy,  the solar power plant developer it acquired earlier this year.

The SunPower notes pay a 4.5 percent annual interest. Depending on investor demand the banks have two weeks to buy an additional $30 million in SunPower debentures — see SEC filing.

Holders can’t convert their debt into Class A SunPower share for another four years at a conversion price of $22.53 per share, a 25 percent premium over SunPower March 25th closing share price.

We called SunPower for confirmation and clarification.

In February SunPower acquired SunRay Renewable Energy for $263 million in cash and $14 million in promissory notes for SunRay. The deal expanded SunPower’s project pipeline by about 1,200 megawatts comprised of projects in Europe and the Middle East.

By Mark Boslet, co-editor, TechPulse360

Venture capitalists returned enthusiastically to clean-tech investing in the first quarter, increasing their spending. But they shun solar companies for electric cars and backed away from the smart grid. To hedge their bets, they spread their money more broadly than in the past, putting smaller sums in more companies.

The number of deals in the quarter – 180 – set a record, edging out the 165 of the fourth quarter, according to a investment survey released by the Cleantech Group and accounting firm Deloitte.

In North America, VCs turned in their largest quarterly investment total in a year and a half. Venture firms in the region accounted for 81 percent of total dollars.

Perhaps the most disappointing news from the quarter was that venture investors continue to feed their portfolios, pouring most of their money into existing companies instead of new start-ups.

The transportation sector, including electric cars, was the quarter’s largest category. The electric car battery-swapping venture, Better Place, took in $350 million and electric carmaker Fisker raised $140 million. Battery maker Coda Automotive added $30 million to its bank account.

The greatest number of deals took place among energy-efficiency start-ups, including LED lighting companies.

Overseas, venture investing in Europe and Israel was down compared with the fourth quarter.

Link to original post

Codexis is prepping its second try at an Initial Public Offering (IPO). This time around the Redwood, Calif., company will try to sell six million shares, priced between $13 and $15 per share, giving the company a potential market valuation of nearly $509 million.

Codexis does not manufacture biofuel but has engineered enzymes to convert organic materials — like wood chips, switchgrass, cornhusks, sugar cane — into ethanol. The company canceled its previous IPO attempt in 2008, which was set to raise $100 million.

According to PeHUB Codexis reported product revenue of $18.55 million in 2009, up from $16.86 million in 2008.

Since 2002 Codexis has raised over $80 million in venture capital. Besides Royal Dutch Shell investors also include CCTV Investments, CMEA Ventures, Pequot Capital, Bio*One Capital and Pfizer.

Cape Wind knows a good news hook. With offshore dominating the news-cycle  (and the Google search terms), the persistent Boston-based offshore wind developer chose today to announce that it has entered into an agreement with Siemens of Germany to purchase up to 130, 3.6-megawatt wind turbines for the  420-megawatt wind farm it wants to build off Cape Cod.

This is the second turbine contract for Cape Wind. When the project was first launched in 2003 General Electric got the turbine contract. However, GE walked out of the offshore wind turbine business, forcing Cape Wind to get a new supplier.

Securing turbines is a key step in any project development as it can pave the way to more substantive discussions on project financing. A project void of a turbine deal will find it difficult to convince bankers to finance the project. The types of turbines used can also impact the overall price of the loan — see full press release. Cape Wind is expected to cost about $1 billion to develop.

Does today’s news foreshadow a positive announcement by the Department of Energy, which in the next few weeks is expected to decide the fate of what probably is the most contentious green energy project in the U.S. We’ve called Cape Wind in Boston for some clarification.

Vestas, the Danish turbine maker with deep offshore experience, was also in the running for the Cape Wind contract, as G.E.R. reported earlier.

Cape Wind President Jim Gordon said the agreement with Siemens was a major “step forward to jump starting the American offshore wind industry.”

Faced with a powerful opposition, Cape Wind has become unparalleled at communicating about its project. Announcing the turbine deal today, when offshore dominated the news cycle, was a bold PR move.

Although officially neutral, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has made no secret about wanting to open the U.S. offshore to wind farms. At the state level Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is also a strong backer of the project.

Image: iStockphoto

President Obama is set to announce an unprecedented expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling on the Atlantic Coast (as far north as Delaware) as well as the Florida Gulf Coast and parts of Alaska. This is a big shift to the right for the Obama administration and major reversal of the country’s energy policy.

The president is expected to make an announcement today at 11:00 AM ET. Obama will specifically lift a long-time moratorium banning oil exploration on the East Coast and will open 167 million acres for oil and gas exploration and eventually, production.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar tells Bloomberg News that oil exploration could start this summer.

The news  will obviously anger Obama’s environmental base, which will point out that on the campaign trail, while his opponents rode the “drill, baby, drill” wave, he argued that expanding domestic oil and gas production would not lower energy costs (at the time a barrel was trading at triple digits).

The Obama administration have spinned the announcement as a natural extension of its “pan-energy policy.” It says that energy of dependence can’t be achieved with renewable energy alone and must include carbon-loaded energies as well nuclear. A few weeks ago the President greenlighted $8 billion in loan guarantees to support the construction of new reactors in Georgia.

Politically the move makes sense. The administration knows that opposition to cap-and-trade in Congress is deep and bipartisan. Expanding oil and gas drilling could actually help gather the votes needed to get a comprehensive climate change and energy bill WITH a cap-and-trade provision onto the president’s desk, hopefully this year.

UPDATE: American Petroleum Institute CEO Jack Gerard was obviously pleased by Obama’s speech, but urged that more areas be opened to exploration.

In a prepared statement, he said:

As we move forward, we hope that consideration can be given to other resource-rich regions, such as the Destin Dome area of the Eastern Gulf and areas off the Pacific Coast and Alaska. We also need to ensure that the permitting processes are handled in an expeditious way. The oil and natural gas industry has a proven track record of safe oil and natural gas development and the majority of the American people recognize this by supporting greater offshore development for the benefit of their communities, their states and their nation.

… and Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune was less pleased.  In a statement, he said:

We’re very disappointed to see important areas like the Arctic coast and the Mid and South Atlantic stay open to oil drilling. What we need is bold, decisive steps towards clean energy, like the new clean cars regulations announced this week–not more dirty, expensive offshore drilling.

The oil industry already has access to drilling on millions of acres of America’s public lands and water. We don’t need to hand over our last protected pristine coastal areas just so oil companies can break more profit records. Drilling areas like the Arctic threatens marine life like whales and polar bears. Where there is offshore drilling, there is a constant danger of oil spills. One oil spill is all it takes to destroy a coastal tourism economy and the jobs that depend on it.

Image: iStockphoto / Map: The New York Times

Coda Automotive, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based electric car company, has secured $394 million in long-term financing, including a $294 million line of credit from China’s Bank of Tianjin Joint-Stock Co. The company also secured a $100 million in equity financing, company CEO Kevin Czinger anounced in a blog entry published this morning.

Coda secured the financing as part of its joint venture with Chinese lithium ion cell maker Lishen Power Battery.

PeHUB, reports that Coda previously raised over $75 million in VC funding from the Angeleno Group, company founder Miles Rubin, Coda co-chair Mac Heller, CEO Kevin Czinger. Other investors include former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulsen, John Bryson (ex-Edison International CEO), Mack McLarty, the former chief of staff for President Clinton, and Thomas Steyer, the founder of Farallon Capital Management.

With Western banks still skittish about lending, Coda is turning to China, whose banks are liquid and eager to lend and back domestic companies, in this case, Lishen Power. The deal also makes sense, considering that Coda plans to manufacturer its low-cost electric cars in China for sale to the North American market.

Paulson’s  notorious close ties with China’s government and business elite, also helps explain Coda’s China-centered financing.

SunEdison and SkyPower are in discussion with banks to finance part of  their $80 million, 18 megawatts Norfolk I and II solar PV projects in Norfolk County, Ontario.

Construction on the two solar farms, which are jointly developed by SunEdison’s Canadian unit and Toronto-based  SkyPower, began last week. The plants are scheduled to begin operating in September.

Because of the short construction period SunEdison and SkyPower could initially finance construction off their balance sheets and then refinance via long-term bank debt, an industry source tells G.E.R.

German bank Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (Nord/LB) financed the 9 megawatts portion of  First Light, SunEdison and SkyPower first joint project in Ontario.

A SunEdison executive says Nord/LB is one of the banks it is is talking to with as well as other lenders he declined to name. The developers expect to have a bank on board in the next four weeks.

A Nord /LB banker declined comment.

Norfolk I and II will sell their output for about $0.42 cents per kilowatt-hour as part of a 20-year power purchase agreements with the Ontario Power Authority under the province’s Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP).

The two power plants will use about about 148,000 thin-film PV panels manufactured by Sharp Solar.

Image: iStockphoto