Author: Terrence Murray

Christian Schade, chief financial officer of Medarex, a biotech company acquired by  Bristol-Myers Squibb last year, was appointed CFO of NRG Energy.

Schade will oversee the integration of the power utility’s growing renewable energy portfolio. Over the past year the company has purchased wind and solar farms in Texas and across the Western U.S. It also acquired New Jersey offshore wind developer Bluewater Wind.

In a prepared statement NRG CEO David Crane said:

Chris has a proven record of creating value at highly entrepreneurial and fast-growing companies, which will be highly valuable as NRG pursues our no- and low-carbon power-generation opportunities.

Schade replaces Gerald Luterman, a director, who will serve in his interim CFO position until May when the company’s first-quarter earnings are released — see full press release .

BP is closing a 40-megawatt photovoltaic manufacturing plant in Frederick, Md., which opened just three years ago amidst fanfare that it would herald a new breed of green collar jobs. Instead, about 320 workers are expected to loose their jobs — see full press release.

With the price of silicon PV panels having fallen by more than 50 percent over the past year, it’s become expensive  to produce in the U.S.

BP Solar says it’s relocating most of the Maryland production to ventures in China and India: BP SunOasis and BP Tata Solar, respectively, a company spokesman tells us.

BP Solar says it’s committed to the U.S. cleantech market, noting that cutting costs, will ensure that more customers can afford their products.

On Friday BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward told the Washington Post that it  “remained absolutely committed to solar.”  He added: “BP was moving to where we can manufacture cheaply.”

A year ago BP laid off 140 workers at its Frederick plant, at the time blaming the job cuts on the poor economy.

Could the BP plant closure short circuit President Obama’s quest for a green collar economy? BP says no and that cutting costs will actually create more jobs downstream, including panel installation and maintenance and marketing.

U.S. cleantech companies says they can’t open and operate solar panel or wind turbine plants without government backing and as such have  been pressing for more financial support, including extending the popular manufacturing cleantech tax credit.

While BP (as well as Massachusetts EverGreen Solar) are relocating to cheaper locales, some companies have opted to open production lines in the U.S., along with China, one of the world’s fastest growing cleantech market. They include: Yingli Solar of China, Germany’s Schott Solar and Kyocera Solar of Japan.

Update: A  BP spokesman says the company is not walking away from its cleantech business, highliting that over the past four years the British oil company has invested $4 billion in its alternative energy business and plans to invest more than $1 billion this year.

Specifically, regarding its solar business BP seeks  to grow solar module sales in the U.S.  by 50 percent this year. “We are positioning BP Solar to be able to meet that growing demand through low cost, high quality, high volume manufacturing agreements,” the BP spokesman tells G.E.R. — scroll down to read the full Q&A.

Q&A

– Why is BP shutting down the Maryland plant, are you planning to shift production to a cheaper locale, Where?

We have worked for some time to reduce cost and create efficiencies that would keep our Frederick plant competitive. However, the competitive environment for solar products is intense, with prices for solar modules dropping 50 percent in the past 18 months Our employees here have worked very hard to improve the plant’s competitive position, but the market is just moving too fast – and we can no longer maintain production here.

Our strategy is to source product from our joint venture companies in India and China, as well as high volume, high quality regional third party suppliers in Europe and Mexico.

– The impression is that BP is refocusing on its core oil and gas business at the expense of cleantech, is that an accurate assessment?

Hardly. BP has invested more than $4 billion in the alternative energy space over the past four years or so, and we intend to invest in excess of $1 billion in 2010. That is a huge investment in the segment. (For BP, these investments include wind, solar, biofuels, and carbon capture & sequestration.) Specifically on solar, we intend to grow solar module sales in the US by 50 percent this year. Solar is moving toward grid parity and prices are clearly dropping rapidly, which should make solar power more attractive for businesses and homeowners. We are positioning BP Solar to be able to meet that growing demand through low cost, high quality, high volume manufacturing agreements.

– In terms of capex how much is going to cleantech for the 2010 -2011 period, how does it compare to the 2009 – 2010 period?

Investment plans for 2010 are similar to last year – a little over $1 billion in our alternative energy businesses.

We recently spoke to R. Andrew de Pass, a senior adviser with Greentech Capital Advisors, the first investment bank focused solely on the alternative energy and clean technology market. Before joining Greentech, de Pass spent 14 years at Citi, where starting in 2005, he headed the bank’s Sustainable Development Investments (SDI) unit. Given the increasing activity in the cleantech and energy sectors, this is an exciting time to be a green banker. After a tough 2009, investments, both public and private are coming back, ensuring that cleantech companies will require a steady flow of advice, which is where de Pass and Greentech Capital step in.

Green Energy Reporter: Why invest in clean energy and sustainable industries?

Andrew de Pass: There is a fundamental need to change how we as a planet use energy, how we manage our water resources or how we manage our waste. The path we’re on is not sustainable. These issues are driving investments by governments and the private sector supporting technologies that can provide solutions to energy-related problems. This heightened awareness of climate change has helped create a market that just a few years ago hardly existed. These days, cleantech investors are not backing solar or wind companies or sustainable technology companies just to be good corporate citizens. Medium to long-term, there are real opportunities to make money by investing in solutions that will have a part in resolving the environmental issues affecting us.

G.E.R.: You’re not your average environmentalist. How did you get started in the sector?

AdP: No, I am not.  I started at Morgan Stanley as a mergers-and-acquisitions banker working on deals across various industries. In 2005 at Citi, where at the time I had been for about 9 years, I was asked to put together a business unit to invest in companies involved in renewable energy or sustainable development. I was at first a little skeptical and said that I didn’t want to do charity work! But then I looked into it, did some research and realized that there were lots of opportunities in a sector that at the time was still a few years away from the boom it’s experiencing now. It became obvious that sustainable development and renewable energy was a potentially huge, largely untapped market. Over the next four years, my team and I, using Citi’s own capital, invested in a number of businesses that we felt offered solutions to the issues I mentioned earlier: global warming, declining water resources.

G.E.R.: Did that thinking motivate the launch of Greentech Capital Advisors?

AdP: Yes, the issues have obviously not changed. I was asked by Jeff McDermott last spring to join the firm. At the time, because of the financial crisis, Citi had shut down SDI. Greentech launched as an advisory boutique investment bank, but all along our plan has been to become a one-stop shop, offering clients M&A and project finance advisory and private placement services. By next year, we’re also planning to launch a private equity fund that would invest alongside our clients as a late-stage investor backing cleantech companies and companies across the whole green/sustainable space.

G.E.R.: Is serving a single industry a sustainable model for Greentech Capital?

AdP: The model on Wall Street is shifting away from the large conglomerates in favor of smaller, tailor-made advice. Specific to Greentech Capital, we strive to become what Allen & Co. has been to the media industry, but for the green sector. We’re entering a relatively new market that could potentially reach $6 trillion, which gives us plenty of room to grow.

G.E.R.: There have been a few notable M&A transactions over the past year, some you’ve been involved in. Is that trend set to continue over the coming year?

AdP: In 2010 and 2011, I expect to see more buyouts of small cleantech ventures by larger companies. Cleantech businesses are very capital intensive, and at a time when funding remains difficult to access, merging with a company with a larger balance sheet makes sense. In terms of government funding, and in particular the cash grants, I expect the Department of Energy and Congress to extend them past their 2010 deadlines.

G.E.R.: Does the U.S. have a long-term energy policy?

AdP: No, this country does not have a long-term energy policy. There have been some key measures implemented by this and previous administrations, like the direct cash grants or the extension of the production and investment tax credits, which have helped untap a flow of investments. But those remain temporary measures. A long-term energy policy would require an energy and climate change law with a cap-and-trade provision. A national Renewable Electricity Standard would also be a big step toward establishing a long-term policy.  Specific to cap-and-trade it would help unlock new capital and more importantly, provide investors more certainty, which would help U.S. [renewable energy] companies become more competitive.

Interview conducted and condensed by G.E.R.

Siemens, the German industrial conglomerate, is reportedly looking to build a wind-turbine manufacturing plant in the United Kingdom. The £75 million ($112 million) facility could create 700 direct jobs.

This is the second such announcement in less than a week.  A few days ago General Electric, Siemens main competitor, said it would invest €340 million ($453 million) to develop and expand its wind turbine operations in the United Kingdom as well as Norway, Sweden and Germany.

These plant announcements, (add California-based Clipper Windpower own initiative to build a turbine plant in Northern England); come as the UK is overseeing the multi-billion dollar development of dozens of wind farms and marine energy projects off its wind-rich coast.

According to the Guardian, which first reported the news, Siemens greenlighted the plant after the UK government tweaked its budget last week so it included public grants to encourage the construction of green manufacturing hubs around port facility.

On the significance of the Siemens announcement, the Guardian writes:

The Siemens factory has particular significance because it shows Britain can beat off competition from Denmark and Germany to house a plant capable of making a new generation of extra-large blades.

The facility will demonstrate, too, that Britain can be at the centre of the German manufacturer’s worldwide wind ambitions, because Siemens already has a wind power-training centre in Newcastle upon Tyne and a global centre for offshore grid connections in Manchester…

Image: iStockphoto

Week of:  March 22, 2010 – March 26, 2010

Solar Millennium is not in trouble, its finances are solid and it only hired an auditing firm to dispel ongoing negative market rumors surrounding the German solar company. In essence, that’s what the company’s flacks told G.E.R. in an email response to questions we sent them several days ago.

A number of questions do, however, surround the company. Obviously, it’s never a good sign when a high-profile CEO resigns 75 days into the job. That’s what happened two weeks ago, when Utz Claassen suddenly stepped down. A few days later, the company hired Deloitte to review its books.  A few days after that announcement, Solar Millennium appointed Chief Financial Officer Thomas Mayer as its CEO.

To recap the past two weeks, Solar Millennium has lost a newly appointed CEO, begun a five-year audit of its financial performance and appointed a new CEO.

So far the market has adopted a “wait-and-see” attitude. Commerzbank analyst Robert Schramm recently told Bloomberg News he would likely wait on the sidelines until the audit findings are released.  On Friday, Solar Millennium closed in Frankfurt at $20.99, down 3.36 percent.

In Berlin, the German parliament continued debating a draft law, which among other actions would cut solar feed-in tariffs for rooftop photovoltaic panels by 16 percent. The largely ceremonial upper house of parliament stepped in the ongoing debate, calling for the cuts to solar power incentives to be no deeper than 10 percent, Reuters reported on Friday. The upper house doesn’t have the power to stop the law, but as the representatives of the regional governments running Germany’s 16 federal states, their call clearly indicates that state governments are against the law because they fear it will negatively impact on local jobs.

Chevron, the California oil and gas company, has rolled out a demonstration solar farm at a test site in Bakersfield, Calif. Over the next three years, Chevron will test six types of thin-film solar photovoltaic panels and a crystalline silicon technology. Chevron eventually plans to ink a supply contract with one, possibly more, of the PV panel makers. The panels are to be deployed across the oil company’s refineries and oil and gas fields. The tests underscore how Chevron’s use of renewable energy differs from its competitors. While Chevron uses renewable energy to improve efficiencies within its core oil and gas business, companies like BP or even Exxon Mobil see green energy as a potentially new untapped revenue stream.

Bill Gates, like Chevron, has been investing in several early stage renewable energy startups. One of his more interesting investments is in TerraPower, a developer of small-scale nuclear reactors. The company, which remains years away from going commercial, last week announced it was talking to Japan’s Toshiba to jointly develop small nuclear generators. Toshiba owns Westinghouse, the U.S. nuclear reactor maker. Like a number of cleantech companies, with great but expensive ideas, TerraPower is cash hungry. An alliance with Toshiba would help resolve that issue and improve its chances of growing into a viable, profit-making business.

With offshore wind development largely stalled in the U.S., General Electric is turning to Europe to market its offshore turbines. The continent is plowing ahead, developing its coastlines. GE wants to be part of that growing market, and this week announced it would invest €340 million ($453 million) to develop and expand its wind turbine operations in the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and Germany. The U.K. this year announced a $119 billion project to build thousands of wind farms off its coastline.

Coal is cheap but politically expensive. That likely was the thinking behind Blackstone Group’s decision to pull the plug on the development of the 750-megawatt Toquop coal-fired power plant in Nevada. Instead, Sithe Global, a Blackstone portfolio company, will convert the project into a 700-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant with a 100-megawatt solar photovoltaic power plant. The decision comes as Congress is set to debate legislation that if implemented could cut the profits of Blackstone and private equity investors. Going green might be a way to encourage lawmakers (including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.) not to support the bill.

VC Watch:

TerraPower, the developer of small-scale nuclear reactors and a portfolio company of Intellectual Ventures, is in talks with Toshiba to develop small nuclear reactors.

PV cell maker SpectraWatt raised $41.4 million in convertible debt to expand its manufacturing capacity. Investors included Goldman Sachs-owned Cogentrix Energy.

Calera, a California developer of technology that turns CO2 into building materials, has received a $15 million private equity investment from coal producer Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company.

Zurich-based Emerald Technology Ventures led a $5.6 million financing for TerraLUX, a Boulder, Colo., company that makes LED solid-state lighting products.

Genomatica, a San Diego-based maker of green chemicals, has raised $15 million in a Series C financing led by TPG Biotech, a unit of Texas Pacific Group.

Rambling

Word came out this week that the long-awaited Senate climate change and energy bill would not have a cap-and-trade provision. For months the Senate has been trying to find a way to include a carbon-pricing provision in any climate change bill. But repeated attempts to bring lawmakers from carbon-dependent states on board, including efforts by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) seem to have largely failed.

Pricing carbon is difficult to implement. Just this week, France shelved its own plan to tax carbon, arguing that it would hurt the competitiveness of French businesses.

In the U.S., cap and trade has been entangled in its own political debate. What seems forgotten is that the market-friendly measure could help the U.S. get the long-term energy policy it currently lacks—and needs.

Image: iStockphoto

German solar thermal developer Solar Millennium says the hiring of Deloitte this week and the abrupt resignation of its newly appointed CEO the week before are not “directly” related.

In an email response to questions sent by G.E.R. earlier this week, spokesman Alexander Jacobsen writes that “there are no direct relations” between former CEO Utz Claassen’s sudden departure and the Deloitte-led audit, which will review the company’s 2009 -2010 financial statements and those going all the way back to the 2004 – 2005 period. He adds: “The plan to propose mandating Deloitte for the audit of the financial statement… had already been considered for some time,”– see below the fold for the full Q&A.

Jacobsen says the company’s is in a solid financial situation, adding that the recent sale of its stakes in the Andasol 1, 2 and 3 solar power plants in Spain, should net it about €100 million ($133 million).

On Wednesday, in a bid to cap what’s been a tumultuous two weeks, Solar Millennium promoted Chief Financial Officer Thomas Mayer as CEO.

Earlier this week Robert Schramm, an analyst at Commerzbank, told BusinessWeek/Bloomberg that investors would be in wait-and-see mode until Deloitte completes the audit.

Claassen resigned after only 75 days on the job. He headed Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW), the German power utility, from 2003 to 2007.

Q&A

Is the recent departure of Utz Claassen and the hiring of Deloitte related?

There is no direct relation. The plan to propose mandating Deloitte for the audit of the financial statement 2009/2010 to Solar Millennium’s AGM has already been considered for some time. The decision for an extraordinary appraisal of the financial statements since 2004 is based on the intent of the Management Board and the Supervisory Board to completely dispel all doubt and any questions regarding the consolidation practices of Solar Millennium, which were especially brought up by a certain magazine several times in last few months.

Did Mr. Claassen resign out of concern for the company’s financial health?

No, the company has a solid financial basis. The successful sale of stakes in the Andasol 1, 2 and 3 solar power plants to external investors and the distribution of the Andasol Fund is expected to lead to (and has already partially lead to) an additional liquidity inflow of more than EUR 100 million across the different reporting periods. For further details please see also our consolidated balance sheet, p.84 in the annual report 2008/2009. Prof. Claassen stated that he will not reveal his reasons to the public. We respect his decision.

Do you expect Deloitte to issue a positive report?

We are open to any results of the accountant´s opinion. However, Solar Millennium has published voluntarily annual reports over the last years, which have been audited by external accountant firms. Deloitte is to furnish an additional external opinion on the company´s consolidation practice.

Governors are pressing President Obama to extend the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit, the fiscal incentive funded by the stimulus to boost cleantech jobs in the U.S., and which is set to expire at the end of the year.

In a letter, 19 state governors — Republicans and Democrats — propose that the tax credits be extended as part of a “jobs bill or another appropriate vehicle,”– see full letter below the fold.

The governors write:

For too long, America has lagged behind our global competitors for the development, production, and deployment of clean energy innovations. Today, only one of the ten leading wind turbine manufacturers and one of the ten leading solar photovoltaic companies in the world are American. In Europe, bold renewable energy requirements and generation incentives, combined with significant subsidies for manufacturing, have given foreign firms a significant head start…. Expanding the 48C Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit will support new waves of domestic production and innovative new jobs and careers.

Of all the stimulus-funded renewable energy incentives, the cleantech manufacturing tax credit is probably the least talked about but one that’s had the most immediate impact.   In their letter to President Obama, governors point out that the $2.3 billion granted so far have leveraged more than $5.4 billion in private investments.

Congress is considering extending legislation that would extend other cleantech funding programs, including the Department of Energy direct cash grant program. The House introduced legislation that would change the cash grants into refundable tax credits.  Renewable energy companies would apply for these credits as part of their standard tax filing. In the Senate, Senators Dianne Feinstein, (D-Calif.), and Jeff Merkley, (D-Ore.) are sponsoring a bill that would extend direct cash grants until 2012.

An ongoing high unemployment rate, a stated goal by the Obama administration to lead the global cleantech industry and in particular beat China, indicate that an expansion of the cleantech tax credit a near certainty.

48c Letter to Obama

German photovoltaic panel maker Q-Cells and partners EverGreen Solar of the U.S. and Norway’s Renewable Energy Corp., have agreed to sell their shares in Sovello, a solar panel maker, to Ventizz Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Düsseldorf.

The parties did not disclose the terms of the deal — see full press release.

The sale is part of an ongoing divestiture program Q-Cells launched last year, during the financial crisis, to strengthen its cash position.

Earlier this month, Q-Cells’s founding Chief Executive Anton Milner resigned shortly after the company reported losses of €1.36 billion ($1.84 billion). Chief Financial Officer Nedim Cen has taken over as CEO.

Things, though, seem to be looking up for the German solar company. On Thursday it announced that it expects sales this year to increase to between €1 billion and €1.2 billion, reports BusinessWeek’s online edition.

Separately, the company said today that it had reached a deal with Canadian silicon supplier Timminco, which plans to issue 15.9 million company shares to repay a majority of the €9.7 million it owes Q-Cells, after it ended a long-term supply contract in 2008.

Image: iStockphoto

Jiddu Tapia, vice president of development at Eurus Energy America, has joined Gamesa Energy as chief development officer of the Spanish company’s North American unit.

Tapia oversaw the development of Eurus’s  60-megawatt Combine Hills 2 wind project in Oregon, which came online last year.

At Gamesa Tapia will oversee the deployment of the company’s new two-megawatt G-90 turbine.

Image: iStockphoto

Genomatica, a San Diego-based maker of green chemicals, has raised $15 million in a Series C financing led by TPG Biotech, a unit of Texas Pacific Group.

Returning investors include Mohr Davidow Ventures, Alloy Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson – see full press release.

Part of the proceeds will support the construction of a demonstration plant. Chief Executive Christophe Schilling expects construction of the $10 million facility  to begin this summer. Some of the cash will also support R&D to expand the company’s product offering.

With this latest funding Genomatica has raised $38.5 million since its inception in 2000.

Genomatica develops a key chemical intermediate known as Butanediol (BDO) from sugar rather than hydrocarbons. BDO are used to make polymers.

Companies like LS9 or Royal Dutch Shell-backed Virent Energy Systems, like Genomatica, have also developed processes that make hydrocarbon-based products from renewable feedstock. LS9, backed by Khosla Ventures, makes diesel from sugar enzymes and Virent converts plant sugars into gasoline.

Genomatica says it plans to go commercial in the next four years.

The back – to – back blizzards that hit the U.S. this past winter led some, mostly at Fox News, to again question the validity of human-made climate change. “It’s just too cold,” they said.

In a recent presentation in Australia, Michael Oppenheimer, a leading climate change scientist and co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate change report, warned that as the planet is getting hotter cold winter snaps are expected. “Not every decade is necessarily going to be warmer than the decade before,” he explains.  He adds that by 2050 the planet will be warmer but there are going to be periods when the earth temperature actually dips.

Watch:

France has abandoned its carbon tax, fearful that it would hurt the competitiveness of French businesses.

The decision underscores how difficult pricing carbon is not just in France but in the U.S. and across the globe. The law was actually one of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s cornerstone campaign promise and it came close to becoming law, before being slammed down by the country’s constitutional court.

France’s Environment Minister Chantal Jouanno greeted the news with anger, saying the government was pandering to eco-skepticism, reports the Guardian.

Jouanno adds:

I am in despair over this step back; in despair that eco-skepticism has defeated it. I am not onside with this decision.

Environmentalists argued all along that the carbon tax was riddled with sweetheart deals for carbon-dependent industries. That’s actually why France’s highest court ruled it was unconstitutional in December, arguing its web of loopholes rendered it ineffective.

Francois Fillon, the French prime minister, says his government would only implement a tax if other nations within the European Union also did it.

French environmentalists say a new law is not likely to see the light of day for a long time.

Image: Flickr

TerraPower, a company that develops reactors powered by depleted uranium, is in talks with Toshiba in view of developing a small nuclear reactor.

TerraPower is a unit of Intellectual Ventures, a patent holding investment firm partially backed by Bill Gates and run out of Bellevue, Wash., by former Microsoft executive, Nathan Myhrvold. Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun first reported the news.

In this recent interview with Cnet News Gates discusses his investments in cleantech and in TerraPower.

A Toshiba spokesman confirmed the discussions, reports the Wall Street Journal. He said the talks were at an early stage.

TerraPower’s reactors initially start operating on a small amount of uranium but then run for decades on the uranium’s waste products.

The Obama administration is eager to have the country build nuclear reactors again, after a thirty-year hiatus. Last month the Department of Energy announced $8 billion in loan guarantee to support the construction of new reactors.

TerraPower is not the sole developer of small, next-generation reactors. NuScale Power, backed by CMEA, and General Atomics are both working on a small nuclear reactor that would also run on spent fuel.

• Calera, a developer of technology that turns CO2 into building materials, has received a $15 million private equity investment from coal producer Peabody Energy. The proprietary technology developed by Los Gatos, Calif.-based Calera converts CO2 released from power facilities, cement plants or refineries into carbon negative building materials. The Calera process also acts as a freshening system able to produce fresh water. The company recently completed a demonstration project near Moss Landing, Calif., which turns the emissions from a natural gas-fired power plant into synthetic limestone.

• HopeWell Junction, NY. SpectraWatt, which manufacturers photovoltaic cells for the solar industry, has raised $41.4 million in convertible debt to expand its manufacturing capacity. Investors included Goldman Sachs’ energy subsidiary Cogentrix Energy, Intel Capital and PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund, the cleantech-focused investment fund of PCG Asset Management. SpectraWatt expects to ship it first batch of PV cells to customers during the second quarter of 2010.

• Boulder, Colo., TerraLUX, which makes LED solid-state lighting products, has raised $5.6 million in a first round of funding from Zurich-based Emerald Technology Ventures. Access Venture Partners was a returning investor.

The Blackstone Group, the New York-based buyout shop,  will not develop a coal-fired power plant in Nevada, weighing that the political fallout, at a time when Congress is considering legislation that could significantly alter its business model, was not worth it.

For nearly seven years Blackstone’s portfolio company, Sithe Global, has been trying to develop the 750-megawatt Toquop energy project, eager to use cheap coal as a feedstock.  And early on the company faced strong oppositions from local politicians and a coalition of environmentalists. In a move that’s likely to please them, yesterday, Blackstone said it would convert the project into a 700-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant with a 100 megawatts solar photovoltaic power plant.

Tony James, president of Blackstone, Majority Leader, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and local officials sat on the conference call announcing that Blackstone was dropping its coal power project.

A Sithe official could have easily sat in instead of James.  But at a time when Congress is considering legislation that would increase the tax rate on carried interest, Blackstone is definitely in need of friends in high places. Carried interest are the profits buyout or private equity funds make on the returns from their investments. Typically, funds like Blackstone take a 20 percent share of any profit and this revenue stream is currently taxed at a low 15 percent capital gains rate. Some on Capitol Hill would like to tax it at a higher bracket, as normal income.

Obviously, Blackstone doesn’t want that to happen. Last week, James actually  threw a party at his house in New York for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), reports The Business Insider, citing the New York Post. The party, according to the Post, was meant to encourage Pelosi to vote against the potential tax hike on carried interest.

Outside of Nevada, Sithe is looking to develop coal-fired power plants in Pennsylvania and New Mexico. A source tells G.E.R. that the company has had a hard time securing regulatory approval to develop these two projects.

Last fall Sithe applied for $450 million in Department of Energy funding to implement carbon capture and storage technology at its coal-fired Desert Rock Energy project in New Mexico.

Image: iStockphoto

Is Chevron, which announced yesterday that it has begun testing solar panels at an old California refinery site, positioning itself to become a “pan-energy” company like its competitor BP?

Not quite, Chevron’s Vice President of Emerging Energy Jerry Lomax tells G.E.R., but “Project Brightfield” does signal an interesting energy strategy nonetheless.

For Chevron, the California oil and gas major, going green is part of a mostly internal process that seeks improve the company’s efficiencies in its oil and gas fields and, downstream, operating its energy-hungry refineries.

Lomax explains:

We are looking for technology that we can integrate into our different operations, refineries or oil and gas fields and support our core oil and gas businesses.

This contrasts with BP, which had sought develop and sell solar and wind powered electricity before gradually pulling back from the strategy after Tony Hayward took over as chief executive.

Now, Hayward has refocussed investments on the company’s core oil and gas business, though BP still has considerable investments in renewables.

Chevron’s Bakersfield facility will host a three-year test of six different thin-film solar photovoltaic panels and a crystalline silicon technology, dubbed Project Brightfield. The company will eventually select one or more of the panels to power  facilities across their energy supply chain.

The tests are being overseen by Chevron Technology Ventures, the unit within the oil and gas company in charge of looking for and evaluating new technologies, including renewable technologies.

Unlike Exxon Mobil or Royal Dutch Shell, which have pegged their renewable energy policy on biofuels, the test, announced yesterday, underscored Chevron’s bent for solar power.

Lomax said the company “is very interested in solar” and sees opportunities at a time when the price of solar technology is becoming competitive.

The company is also testing concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) technology at a mine in New Mexico and solar steam technology in Central California.

Lomax added that while solar is one focus, the company is also invested in wind generation and is the world’s largest operator of geothermal generation.

Image: Courtesy Jeffness, Wikimedia Commons

Nathaniel Robinson, a merger and acquisition banker at Morgan Stanley, has joined Virgo Capital as a vice president in the Austin office of this tech-focused private equity fund.

Morgan Stanley is understood to be in talks with potential replacements, an industry source tells G.E.R.

Robinson was  in Morgan Stanley’s Global Technology M&A group in Menlo Park, Calif. In his five years at the firm  he worked on a number of cleantech deals  with David Chen, the head of West Coast clean technology banking. Robinson declined to comment.

Morgan Stanley’s cleantech practice has been racking in a number of high profile mandates lately. Along with Goldman Sachs it is advising thin-film photovoltaic maker Solyndra on its $300 million IPO. It also got an underwriting gig as part of the $100 million IPO filed by Tesla Motors, the electric sports car maker.

First, last week, Solar Millennium’s newly appointed CEO, Utz Claassen, abruptly resigns without any explanations. He had joined the company last December from German power utility Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW) and was expected, among other things, to secure a substantial amount of financing to deploy the company’s solar thermal power plants in Europe and the Western U.S.

Then, this morning, hitting the G.E.R. email inbox is this press release, announcing an impending audit of the Solar Millennium books by Deloitte. Specifically, the accounting firm will review the company’s 2009 -2010 financial statements and those going all the way back to the 2004 – 2005 period.

In a statement the company said:

To completely dispel all doubt or any questions on the consolidation practices pertaining to the previous fiscal years of 2004/2005, 2005/2006, 2006/2007, 2007/2008 and 2008/2009, the Supervisory Board resolved over the weekend, at the request of the Management Board, to commission the same auditing firm with an extraordinary appraisal… The scope of work of Deloitte is to furnish an accountant’s opinion on the compliance of the Company’s consolidation practice.

Are Claassen’s sudden departure and the hiring of Deloitte related?

We’ve emailed Solar Millennium in Germany and will post with any relevant updates.

The Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit closed on a bullish note last week with attendees predicting that global investments in renewable energy could peak to $500 billion by 2020.

That’s more than double New Energy Finance’s own prediction which estimates that annual global expenditure on renewable energy projects will increase from $90 billion in 2009 to $150 billion in 2020 and $200 billion by 2030.

The market research firm also predicts that over the next decade renewable energy will make up 22 percent of the world’s installed power generation base, up from 13 percent today, and could possibly constitute 31 percent of power by 2030.

Fueling most of that is Asia and in particular China, which according to Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, “is on track to become a clean energy super power.”

What about the U.S.?  It’s also on track for a “green super power belt” but faces more hurdles from a hodgepodge of climate change deniers and carbon-dependent states fighting hard to delay the pricing of carbon.

According to Liebreich real U.S. commitment to the sector “remains uncertain, with the country apparently locked in a period of introversion while its strategic rivals establish leadership positions.

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.

Image: iStockphoto