Author: Terrence Murray

The biofuel sector,  which has been nursing a hangover after the Wall Street money that had poured into the business evaporated, is now a real buyers market, poised for a come back, says a report released today by Pike Research, the Boulder, Colo. -based market research firm.

Pike Research predicts that demand for biodiesel alone could peak to $71billion in 2020, from $18.4 billion currently.

Fuelling this growth are the emergence of new feedstocks such as waste grease, algae, and jatropha as well as government mandates requiring refiners to blend biofuels with the regular pools of fuels they produce.

In a prepared statement, Pike Research Managing Director, Clint Wheelock said:

The biofuels market is currently at a point of discontinuity. The ethanol business has suffered a significant blow over the past few years, yet the prospects remain very bright for renewed growth in ethanol as well as next generation biodiesel technologies.

GER has reported on a number of significant investments, by small and big companies, all eager to take advantage of the bargain prices fetched by ethanol assets.

Noteworthy transaction includes Murphy Oil’s acquisition, last fall, of a brand new refinery of corn-based ethanol in North Dakota, formerly owned by bankrupt VeraSun. Also, over the past year, New York-based biofuel investor EcoSystem has raised $89 million to buy distressed U.S., refineries producing corn-based ethanol.

Earlier this month Royal Dutch Schell announced a $12 billion joint venture with Cosan, one of Brazil’s largest producers of sugar-based ethanol. Like Shell, BP, attracted by the sector’s long-term rationale, has also  been redirecting a significant amount of its green capital expenditure to support biofuel projects, at the expense of solar or wind power developments.

Image: Pike Research

Will U.S. power consumers ever rely on Chinese green power for their electricity? This notion, that just a few years ago seemed far fetched, will likely become a reality.  On Tuesday, Chinese wind turbine maker A-Power Energy Generation Systems received Chinese regulatory approval to proceed with a 600 megawatts, $1.5 billion wind farm to be constructed in Texas. The greenlight by the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission is a crucial hurdle to pass and will allow the project developers to, among other things, start approaching banks for financing.

A-Power announced the project last fall and quickly ran into trouble when Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), learning that the wind farm’s turbines would be made in China, urged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to reject a request by A-Power for $450 million in stimulus funds.

In his letter to Secretary Chu, Senator Schumer wrote:

The idea that stimulus funds would be used to create jobs overseas is quite troubling and, therefore, I urge you to reject any request for stimulus money unless the high-value components, including the wind turbines, are manufactured in the United States.

Shortly after Schumer’s very public letter, A-Power and its partners announced that they would build a turbine plant in Texas and vowed that a minimum of 70 percent of each turbine would be U.S.-made.

In Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hotly contested endangerment finding is facing a pile of law suits (16 at last count), according to GreenBiz.com.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose anti cap-and-trade stand has cost it the membership of various prominent companies, has joined one of these lawsuits. The list of plaintiffs reads like a who’s who of the carbon-dependent industry. Besides the Chamber, they also include the Georgia Motor Trucking Association, Peabody Energy Co., the National Mining Association, Competitive Enterprise Institute, as well as 15 U.S. House of Representatives.

General Electric, a big fan of President Obama’s renewable energy policy, and an unabashed backer of cap-and-trade, is making a noted return in the project finance arena. Its energy financing unit, GE Energy Financial Services, inked a $65 million production tax credit equity deal this week with CPV Renewable Energy Company to support the construction of its  $319 million, 152 megawatts Keenan II wind farm in Oklahoma. That the second equity deal announced by GE in as many months – it underscores the company’s renewed confidence in the U.S. renewable energy market.

Samsung, which a couple of weeks ago inked a huge investment of its own in Ontario, said it would partner with ENCO Utility Services to build five solar photovoltaic power plants with a total of 130 megawatts of electricity that will be bought by Pacific Gas and Electric as part of a long-term power purchase contract.

Other noteworthy Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) announced this week include NextLight Renewable Power securing a 25-year contract with NV Energy for the 50 megawatt output of the NextLight’s Silver State Solar Power PV project in Nevada. Horizon Wind Energy signed a 20-year PPA with the Tennessee Valley Authority, which will buy 115 megawatts generated by Horizon’s Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm in Iowa.

On the earnings front thin-film PV maker First Solar announced strong fourth quarter results of  $141.6 million, slightly down from the $153.3 million registered in the previous quarter, but higher than the  $132.8 million earned over the same time period, a year ago. The company worked hard to assure the markets that an expected fall in demand in Germany brought on by a cut in the country’s solar feed-in tariffs would be offset by its project pipeline in Italy, France and North America. But to no avail, on Friday – just one day after the earnings call, First Solar shares fell by 8 percent.  This was in part due to concerns by investors on the toughening market conditions in Germany, where First Solar generates a majority of its revenues.

VC Alert

Tragedy struck Tesla Motors, the California electric car company, this week when three of its senior executives were killed in a plane crash in Palo Alto, Calif. on Wednesday. VentureBeat reported that the three employees who died in the plane crash were Doug Bourn, Brian Finn and Andrew Ingram. The plane, which was owned by Mr. Bourn and heading to a Los Angeles area airport, crashed in foggy weather, early Wednesday, shortly after take off.

Tesla, which raised over $220 million in venture capital funding, recently filed for an Initial Public Offering.

Chrysalix Energy, a renewable energy-focused venture capital fund based in Vancouver, B.C., plans to close on a $150 million for its third fund by the end of next month.

Canadian biofuel company Enerkem brought on a new CFO, former Lazard M&A banker Patrice Ouimet. He replaces Pierre Richard, who left the company last month. Enerkem, scored $50 million in stimulus funding from the Department of Energy to support construction of a waste-to-biofuels power facility in Pontotoc, Miss. The company has also raised venture capital from Rho Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures and BDR Capital.

eSolar, the developer of concentrated solar thermal power backed by Bill Gross’s Idealab, forged a strategic partnership with Germany’s Ferrostaal to develop power plants in Europe and the Middle East.

Rambling

This week Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the man who spearheaded the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (and the negotiations that preceded the event) said he would step down from the UN body this summer to work for global consultancy KPMG.

The former Dutch civil servant will stay on to help organize the next climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico in November.

His departure comes as confidence that the bureaucratic UN system can foster a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol is at an all time low. In a statement announcing his departure, de Boer alluded to the Copenhagen disappointment and reaffirmed his confidence in the UN system, saying it provided a sense of direction toward a low-emissions world.

Support for a CO2 and green house gas emissions cut is overwhelming, but actually implementing the political process to get to a low-emission reality, as de Boer experienced first-hand in Copenhagen, remains stalled both at the global level and in the U.S.

Yesterday, during its fourth quarter earnings call, thin-film PV maker First Solar blamed the $39.3 million spike in its operating costs to a string of one time expenses incurred in part with the hiring of new CEO Rob Gillette and the departure of an unnamed senior executive.

First Solar CFO Jens Meyerhoff, who spoke for most the call, said the company had $22.9 million in none reoccurring expenses during the fourth quarter. Of that amount about $9.1 million funded compensation expenses related to Gillette’s hiring and the departure of the unnamed executive.

First off, who is the unnamed executive?

Likely John Carrington, First Solar’s former head of global business and marketing, who abruptly left the company this summer. In announcing his departure First Solar filed a (discreet) Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, rather than issuing a standard press release.

Shortly after, this time  issuing a press release, First Solar announced that former Honeywell International CEO Rob Gillette would join the company as its new chief executive.

Last December TK Kallenbac, who worked at Honeywell International with Gillette, was hired to replace Carrington as head of marketing.

According to an SEC filling Carrington left First Solar with nearly 18,000 company shares worth about $2.27 million, based on yesterday’s closing price.

As for Gillette, upon joining First Solar, he received a $5 million cash bonus, half payable on his first day at work and the balance due on the one year anniversary at the company. First Solar has to  pay the remaining $2.5 million to Gillette even if he’s no longer working for them. We will be posting copies of the Gillette and Carrington fillings below.

Gillette was also granted $9.25 million in stock options, including  $3.25 million in unrestricted shares and $6 million in restricted shares.

We’ve emailed and called First Solar’s investor and media relations and will post with any updates.

Horizon Wind Energy, the U.S. wind power unit of Portugal’s EDP Renewables, has signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for the output of its 115-megawatt Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm in Iowa’s Mitchell and Howard Counties.

The electricity generated from the Pioneer Prairie farm will be piped from the Midwest to TVA’s service area across the U.S. Southeast.

TVA has been growing its renewable energy capacity. In December it signed a long-term PPA with the North American unit of Spanish power company Iberdrola to buy 300 megawatts of wind powered electricity from Iberdrola’s Cayuga Ridge project in Illinois. Last fall it signed a PPA with CPV Renewable Energy Company, an affiliate of Competitive Power Ventures, for 200 megawatts generated by the developer’s Ashley Wind Project in McIntosh County, N.D. It also signed a long-term PPA with Chicago-based Invenergy to buy 250 megawatts generated by the Chicago-based developer’s Hurricane Lake Energy Center in Roberts County, S.D.

TVA plans to add 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy to its generation portfolio.

For the Prairie Wind project, earlier Horizon Wind secured a long term PPA with Saint Louis power utility Ameren for about 100 megawatts to be generated once the project is fully developed and generates 300 megawatts of electricity.

eSolar, a developer of concentrated solar thermal power technology, and Germany’s Ferrostaal are planning to jointly develop CSP power plants across the global sunbelt, including Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and South Africa.

Under the terms of the deal eSolar will provide solar field and receiver technology and Ferrostaal will provide the power block as well as project management and manage project financing.

This is not the first time eSolar forms a strategic partnership with an outside company. Last year it inked a deal with NRG Energy, which is  investing $10 million in for the right to use eSolar’s technology to develop and operate three solar power projects that combined are set to generate 500 megawatts of electricity.

In this challenging funding market a number of eSolar’s competitors, also backed by promising technologies but with thin balance sheets, are forging partnerships of their own, even selling themselves outright to bigger companies. That’s what solar thermal power developer Ausra did last week when French nuclear reactor maker Areva acquired it.

In a prepared statement released yesterday eSolar’s newly appointed CEO John Van Scoter said:

This partnership with Ferrostaal is a real coup for eSolar! Ferrostaal’s extensive construction capacity and expertise – particularly in the concentrated solar thermal field – together with eSolar’s award-winning technology, offers us the opportunity to rapidly construct solar power projects across the globe in coming years.

Tempe, Ariz., thin-film PV maker First Solar’s fourth quarter revenues grew to $641.3 million, up from $480.9 million in the previous quarter.

For the whole year First Solar revenues were $2.06 billion, up from $1.24 billion in fiscal year 2008.

Net income for the quarter fell to $141.6 million from $153.3 million in the previous quarter but higher than the  $132.8 million registered over the same time period, a year ago.

First Solar’s net income for the whole of 2009 was $640.1 million from $348.3 million registered over the same time period, a year ago.

Looking forward First Solar forecasts net sales of $2.7 billion to $2.9 billion in 2010 and expects to generate between $730 and  $790 million of operating cash flow.

UPDATE: First Solar CFO Jens Meyerhoff says he expects the company’s project pipeline in Italy and North America to offset any drop in sales in Germany brought on by the expected cuts in the country’s solar feed-in tariffs.

In 2010 First Solar says it will ship 50 percent of its PV production to Germany, says Meyerhoff.

UPDATE | VentureBeat reports Tesla Motors employees Doug Bourn (see below the fold), Brian Finn and Andrew Ingram were killed when when the small twin-engine plane, owned by Mr. Bourn, crashed shortly after takingoff from the Palo Alto airport.

According to his Linkedin  profile Mr. Finn’s was a  senior manager – interactive electronics; Mr. Ingram’s Linkedin page states that he was an electrical engineer. Mr. Bourn, we reported earlier, was a senior engineer.

A spokeswoman for the San Mateo County Coroner told GER that the three Tesla Motors employees that died yesterday when their small twin-engine plane crashed would not be identified today.

The spokeswoman said the names of the victims could be released Friday but she declined to be more specific.

The online edition of the San Jose Mercury News reports that the twin-engine Cessna 310 was registered to Doug Bourn, a senior engineer at Tesla.

The spokeswoman at the Coroner’s office declined to tell GER if Mr. Bourn was in the plane that crashed yesterday.

The plane, which was bound for a Los Angeles-area airport, crashed in foggy weather shortly after takeoff from the Palo Alto, Calif., airport.

Tesla has also not publicly identified the three employees.

UPDATE | A spokeswoman for Enerkem in Montreal tells us that Patrice Ouimet replaces CFO  Pierre Richard, who left the company at the end of January. Richard joined Enerkem in early 2008.

Montreal-based Enerkem has appointed Patrice Ouimet, a former M&A investment banker with Lazard, as chief financial officer.

Ouimet was most recently an executive for an international apparel manufacturer.

Ouimet began his career with Ernst & Young. He later worked as a director working on mergers and acquisitions deals at Lazard and at CIBC World Markets.

Last December Enerkem scored $50 million in stimulus funding from the Department of Energy to support construction of a waste-to-biofuels power facility in Pontotoc, Miss.

The biofuel startup has raised venture capital funding from Rho Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures and BDR Capital.

Image: Newswire Canada

Clipper Windpower, the Carpinteria, Calif., wind turbine maker is planning to build a plant in the UK to take advantage of an expected growth in demand for offshore wind turbines — see here for the official press release.

Last January Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government announced an ambitious £75 billion ($119 billion / €87.7 billion) project to build thousands of offshore wind farms. With this factory Clipper intends to become a leading supplier for what is expected to be one of the world’s largest market for offshore wind turbines.

The Clipper factory, located near the town Tyne, in the north of England, will manufacturer large blades and is expected to be operational in the third quarter of this year. At full capacity production could average 1 gigawatt a year and employ up to 500 workers.

The factory will initially supply blades to the 10 megawatts Britannia offshore wind project.

The UK government’s offshore wind policy has been largely praised but some critics have pointed out that the country manufacturing capacity when it comes to renewable energy technology is thin, which will make it difficult for the UK to deploy all of these expected wind turbines.

Construction of the Clipper plant is partly supported by a UK Department of Energy and Climate Change £4.46 million ($7.95 million /€ 5.12 million) grant.

According to the New York Times three Tesla Motors employees were killed in a plane crash in east Palo Alto on Wednesday.

Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk was not in the twin-engine Cessna 310 that crashed at around 8:00 AM in foggy weather, shortly after takeoff from Palo Alto Airport. 

According to the New York Times a Tesla employee was piloting the plane which was bound for a Los Angeles-area airport.

Tesla says the names of the victims will not be released until their families are notified.

Earlier this month Tesla filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) that could raise as much as $100 million.

So far it remains an initiative that’s yet to graduate to full blown project status. However, even in these early days Desertec,  formerly known as the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII), knows a good PR yarn.

On Wednesday DII’s Chief Executive Officer Paul Van Son told a group of foreign reporters (including a Reuters journalist) that over the next month up to five new companies from Morocco, Tunisia, Spain, France and Italy would join DII.

That’s all Van Son said and we’re only left guessing who these new DII members are.

So far project backer are mostly German and Van Son’s remarks might be a way to diffuse lingering criticism that Desertec needs more foreign participants.

Current backers include reinsurance giant Munich Re, Deutsche Bank, E.O, HSH Nordbank, MAN Solar Millennium, M+W Zander, RWE, Schott Solar and Siemens.

So, to recap, including today’s news, this is what we know so far about Desertec. It’s a 40-year initiative set to cost 400 billion euro ($549 billion) to fully develop. The massive Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) power plants it will use could pipe electricity to Europe as early as 2015; The CSP plants will be deployed in the torrid Sahara in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia

Over the next three years Desertec plans to develop demonstration projects and work to establish a legal framework to regulate the import and export of renewable energy, reports Reuters.

Provo, Utah-based  Raser Technologies tells GER that it’s planning to start construction on its $80 million, 15-megawatt Lightning Dock project in New Mexico in the next couple of months.

The facility, which is slated to start operating in 2011, 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.

In December Raser secured drilling capital for Lighting Dock and other projects from Evergreen Clean Energy, a newly-formed Utah-based investment fund.

The Evergreen deal provides Raser development capital for a 100-megawatt project pipeline, which includes the Lightning Dock.

EverGreen could invest up to $30 million in Lightning Dock. That amount includes drilling costs of about $5 million. In exchange the investment fund gets an equity interest of up to 50 percent in the project and any other projects it ends up financing. It’s also planning to apply for a government cash grant to fund part of the project,  the Raser executive tells GER.

Also, earlier today, Raser posted a release announcing that it had scored a $32.9 million U.S. Treasury direct cash grant for its five megawatts Thermo Number 1, project located in Southern Utah’s Beaver County.  The grant comes in lieu of the $25 million production tax credit Raser had secured back in June of 2008 from Merrill Lynch.

Merrill (now Bank of America Merrill Lynch), hammered by the financial crisis, walked away from that project. Raser says it’s in talks with other potential tax equity partners to invest between $15 – to – $20 million in Thermo Number 1.  A Raser executive declined to name potential tax equity partners.

Thermo Number 1 generates 5 megawatts of power but plans are to double that capacity. The facility sells its output to as part of a 20-year PPA to the City of Anaheim, Calif.

Nevada power utility NV Energy has agreed as part of a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) to buy the output of NextLight Renewable Power’s 50-megawatt Silver State Solar Power photovoltaic facility, located near Primm, Nev.

The Silver State solar project is on Bureau of Land Management land and is slated to begin operating in May 2011.

NV Energy currently has more than 1,200 megawatts of geothermal, solar, biomass, waste-heat recovery and wind energy under contract that are either in commercial operation or in the project development stage.

NextLight is backed by Energy Capital Partners, a clean energy-focused private equity fund based in Short Hills, N.J., founded by former Goldman Sachs energy banker Doug Kimmelman.

Back in October we reported that NextLight had signed a long-term PPA with San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) for the output of its 290-megawatt Agua Caliente solar project in Arizona.

Spanish solar company T-Solar is looking to do an initial public offering to raise cash to grow its generation capacity and finance its international expansion, including in the U.S.

Credit Suisse is advising T-Solar on the potential listing and has organized a road show for the company to assess investor interest, reports Dow Jones News.

In the Solar space Solyndra, the California maker of the California maker of thin-film photovoltaic cells, has also filed for an IPO that could be worth up to $300 million. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are underwriting that offering

While some companies — like T-Solar or Solyndra — are confident equity markets can finance their growth, some renewable energy companies are having second thoughts.

Last week Chinese silicon wafer maker JinkoSolar withdrew its IPO plans, citing “poor market conditions,” reports Reuters. Last month, also after failing to ignite investor interest, Daqo New Energy, a Chinese manufacturer of polysilicon for solar panel makers, also canceled its IPO.

Chrysalix Energy, a renewable energy-focused venture capital fund based in Vancouver, BC plans to close on a $150 million for its third fund by the end of next month, reports VentureWire via PeHUB.

The Chrysalix Energy Limited Partnership III has so far raised $100 million, a substantial chunk of that investment capital coming from the Oregon Investment Fund an affiliate of Credit Suisse.

In a prepared statement Chrysalix CEO Wal van Lierop said:

By building partnerships with international leaders like Credit Suisse, Chrysalix continues to build momentum for clean energy technology venture capital, bridging the gap between industry leaders and entrepreneurs.

Other investors in CELP III include Total Energy Ventures, Kuwait Petroleum Corp., Delta Lloyd Private Equity, European utilities Fortum and Essent, Robeco Clean Tech Private Equity, Sitra and FondAction.

Chrysalix’s CELP III fund has already invested some of its capital with various cleantech startups including, Brammo, an Oregon-based electric motorcycles maker and Vancouver-based General Fusion, which is developing a utility-scale fusion engine.

CPV Renewable Energy Company has scored a $65 million equity investment from GE Energy Financial Services to support the construction of the $319 million, 152 megawatts Keenan II wind farm in Oklahoma. The project is scheduled for completion by year’s end and GE’s energy financing unit could invest an additional  $100 million in the project once it goes live.

In exchange for the financing GE Energy Financial Services is getting the wind farm’s production tax credits, the company said in a release issued today.

CPV is funding the rest of the project with equity and a $212 million project finance loan arranged by The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and Union Bank, formerly known as the Union Bank of California. Also funding the project are Key Bank, Helaba, LBBW, Natixis and Rabo Bank.

Keenan II is backed by a 20-year power purchase agreement with Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company.

Wind comprises nearly 80 percent of GE Energy Financial Services’ renewable energy portfolio. The portfolio includes equity investments in 47 wind farms with a total capacity to produce 6 gigawatts of electricity, as well as loans to 36 wind farms totaling 1.3 gigawatts.

Last year GE Energy Financial Services, said it was on track to meet its goal of having $6 billion invested in renewable energy by the end of 2010. Last December it invested $228 million in a string of wind-generated power plants owned and operated by Horizon Wind Energy, the North American unit of Portugal’s EPD Renewables.

In a cash-constrained world, this week’s acquisition of solar developer Ausra by Areva (the French government-backed maker of nuclear reactors) makes sense.  We could see similar deals as small clean energy companies with big ideas and small balance sheets turn to large companies with stronger balance sheets.

Over the past decade, Areva, led by CEO Anne Lauvergeon, evolved from a secretive, tightly controlled government agency to a corporate-like entity. Areva’s alternative energy unit already manufactures wind turbines and is also involved in biomass generation, but the Ausra acquisition marks the company’s first solar investment.

For Ausra, its sale to Areva heralds the company’s return as a builder of large-scale solar power projects, an Areva spokesman told GER. Last year, Ausra CEO Robert Fishman announced that it would walk away from the utility-scale business because it was unable to secure financing. This was quite a reversal for a company that had left its native Australia for Northern California specifically to get into the power plant business. Now, Areva’s large balance sheet, which is backed by the French Government, will ensure that Ausra gets the financing it wasn’t able to secure just a year ago.

Newly launched, cleantech-focused investment bank Greentech Capital Advisors advised Ausra. Areva tapped Deutsche Bank as its advisor.

This week saw a couple of other notable acquisitions. Element Power, a Portland, Ore.-based wind developer bought a 1,400 megawatt project pipeline from EcoEnergy. SunPower bolstered its European presence with its acquisition of SunRay Renewable Energy, a solar power plant developer based on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta. SunPower paid SunRay $277 million for its 1,200 megawatt project pipeline of photovoltaic projects in Italy, France, Israel, Spain, the United Kingdom and Greece.

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about the record amount of wind power added by the U.S. This week, in a lengthy feature for the American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop, investigative journalist Russ Choma tracked where the wind turbines that generated much of that new capacity came from. His conclusion? America’s green economy is being exported to cheaper locales. “Is the stimulus building a clean energy industry, or is it financing offshore industries…?” Choma asked as part of a follow up interview with GER. He concludes: “So far, most of the U.S. jobs created by the stimulus are short-term… the long-term, well-paid jobs are overseas.”

Needless to say the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the wind industry’s Washington representative, which has been very supportive of the Obama administration’s green-focused stimulus, was quick to refute Choma’s findings. In a blog post on their website, the AWEA said the story was “a fictional account,” and highlighted that “100 percent of stimulus dollars going to the wind industry have gone to wind projects constructed and operated in the United States.”

Overseas, Germany says it won’t implement the cuts in its solar feed-in tariffs until June, from an original launch date of April. Also, under this latest proposal, Germany’s conservative government would slash feed-in tariffs by 16 percent compared to the 15 percent that was previously discussed.

VC Alert

Ausra, backed by Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers, KERN Partners, Generation Investment Management and Starfish Ventures, was bought by French nuclear reactor maker Areva for an undisclosed amount.

Hudson Clean Energy Partners-backed Element Power acquired a 1.4 gigawatts-project pipeline from Midwest wind developer EcoEnergy.

London-based Climate Change Capital raised £69 million ($108 million) for its Climate Change Property Fund (CCPF).

Solar power discounter One Block Off the Grid (1BOG) raised $5 million in Series A financing from New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

Los Angeles-based Craton Equity Partners made an $8 million investment in Propel Fuels, a retailer of alternative fuels for motor vehicles.

Infinia, a Kennewick, Wash.-based developer of solar power technology, that includes Paul Allen as an investor, announced that it seeks to raise $75 million of equity financing to scale production to go commercial by June of this year.

David Gelbaum, the discreet owner of cleantech-focused venture fund Quercus Trust, took over as CEO of portfolio company, Entech Solar, a Texas-based developer of concentrating solar modules.

Petra Solar raised $40 million to expand its utility pole mounted-smart grid and solar systems business. New investors included Craton Equity Partners and Espirito Santo Ventures.

Solar cell maker CaliSolar acquired its supplier 6N Silicon, based in Ontario for an undisclosed amount. It also raised $22.5 million from current investors.  They include: Hudson Clean Energy, Advanced Technology Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners. 6N Silicon backers also pitched in. They are: Good Energies, Ventures West Management and Yaletown Venture Partners.

Rambling

This week, as part of our monthly Cornerstone Conversation, we talked to André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé the co-founder and CEO of Soitec, which is the world’s leading supplier of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. Last December, the company purchased German concentrating photovoltaic company Concentrix Solar for €55 million. The strategic acquisition marked a milestone for the Grenoble, France-based Soitec, marking its entry into the renewable energy industry.  The acquisition is an example of two technological worlds converging: semiconductor chips, which fueled much of the tech-boom of the past couple of decades and cleantech, which could fuel the next tech boom.

General Electric (GE), one of the world’s largest wind turbine makers, yesterday filed a new complaint in Dallas federal court against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The complaint alleges that the Japanese industrial conglomerate infringed on two of its wind turbine patents.

The move follows a January 8th ruling   by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which concluded that Mitsubishi had not violated five other GE wind turbine patents.

In this latest suit, which is not related to the ITC case,  what GE seems to be doing is using IP law to block Mitsubishi turbines from entering the US market. GE and Vestas of Denmark control a lion’s share of that market. See a copy of the complaint below the fold.

“GE is doing exactly what I would advise my clients: ‘Patent your technology to help you lock-up the U.S. market,” a partner with the IP practice of a large U.S. law firm tells us. “This is a business strategy to slow down competition,” he says.

Last Fall, Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) wrote a letter to the ITC supporting Mitsubishi. Press reports say that Mitsubishi might build a $100 million turbine plant in western Arkansas, and the American Wind Energy Association ranks Oregon sixth in the U.S. for installed wind capacity. The letter urged the ITC  “to consider the impact” that blocking importation of wind turbines could have “on the economy and the public’s welfare — the public interest.” We’ve posted a copy the letter below.

GE’s complaint claims that Mitsubishi infringed on a patent protecting a component of the turbine that supports the weight of the rotor. The other patent protects a component that keeps the turbine connected to the electricity grid during voltage drops, Bloomberg News reports.

In a prepared statement emailed to GER, GE said:

GE has 148 issued US patents related to wind energy. MHI has substantially less. We believe that there are multiple areas where MHI’s 2.4 MW wind turbines infringe on GE’s existing patents.

According to Bloomberg News, last year GE built 2,633 wind turbines, down from more than 3,323 in 2008. A spokesman for Mitsubishi  tells the online edition of the Wall Street Journal that the company has received the latest complaint and will decide how to respond.

Law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, represents GE. No word yet on Mitsubishi’s legal counsel.

GE Complaint

Senate letter to ITC

Image: General Electric, Flickr

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based CaliSolar, which develops solar cells using “dirty” metallurgical grade silicon, has acquired Vaughan, Ontario-based 6N Silicon, a supplier of solar-grade silicon to the solar PV industry.

Sunnyvale and 6N Silicon did not disclose financial terms.

CaliSolar also announced it had raised $22.5 million in additional funding from its shareholders and 6N Silicon investors to scale its manufacturing line at Sunnyvale, Calif., plant.

PeHUB reports that CaliSolar previously raised over $100 million from Hudson Clean Energy, Advanced Technology Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners. 6N Silicon had raised more than $20 million from Good Energies, Ventures West Management and Yaletown Venture Partners.

Shez Bankdukwala, a Chicago-based partner and co-head of the clean energy group at ThinkEquity has left the bank. Taking over, as sole leader of the clean energy practice is Joe Dews, a partner in San Francisco, GER has learned.

Reached by telephone Dews confirmed his appointment and Bankdukwala departure last December. No word yet on Bankdukwala’s plans or where he might have landed. Calls to a Chicago area telephone number under Bankdukwala’s name were not returned

Bankdukwala’s Linkedin profile states that he joined ThinkEquity in July 2005 from Hilco Trading.

In October we reported that Jonathan Hoopes, a research analyst and managing director left ThinkEquity to take over as President and COO of GreenHunter Energy, the Texas-based developer of clean power projects.