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Week of:\u00a0 March 22, 2010 – March 26, 2010 A number of questions do, however, surround the company. Obviously, it\u2019s never a good sign when a high-profile CEO resigns\u00a075 days into the job. That’s what happened two weeks ago, when Utz Claassen suddenly stepped down<\/a>. A few days later, the company hired Deloitte to review\u00a0its books<\/a>.\u00a0 A few days after that announcement, Solar Millennium appointed Chief Financial Officer Thomas Mayer as its CEO.<\/p>\n To recap the past two weeks, Solar Millennium has\u00a0lost a newly appointed CEO,\u00a0begun a five-year audit of its financial performance and appointed a new CEO.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n So far the market has adopted a \u201cwait-and-see\u201d attitude. Commerzbank analyst Robert Schramm recently told Bloomberg News<\/a> he would likely wait on the sidelines until the audit findings are released.\u00a0 On Friday, Solar Millennium closed in Frankfurt at $20.99,\u00a0down 3.36 percent.<\/p>\n In Berlin,\u00a0the German parliament continued debating a draft law, which among other actions would cut solar feed-in tariffs<\/a> for rooftop photovoltaic panels by 16 percent. The largely ceremonial upper house of parliament stepped in the ongoing debate,\u00a0calling for the cuts to solar power incentives to be no deeper than 10 percent, Reuters reported<\/a> on Friday. The upper house doesn\u2019t have the\u00a0power to stop the law, but as the representatives of the regional governments running Germany\u2019s 16 federal states, their call clearly indicates that state governments are against the law because they fear it will negatively impact on local jobs.<\/p>\n Chevron, the California oil and gas company, has rolled out a demonstration solar farm at a test site\u00a0in Bakersfield, Calif. Over the next three years, Chevron will test six types of thin-film solar photovoltaic panels<\/a> and a crystalline silicon technology. Chevron eventually plans to ink a supply contract with one, possibly more,\u00a0of the PV panel makers. The panels are to be deployed across the oil company\u2019s refineries and oil and gas fields.\u00a0The tests underscore how Chevron\u2019s use of\u00a0renewable 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.<\/p>\n Bill Gates, like Chevron,\u00a0has been investing in several early stage renewable energy startups. One of\u00a0his 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\u2019s Toshiba to jointly develop small nuclear generators<\/a>. 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\u00a0growing into a viable, profit-making business.<\/p>\n With offshore wind development largely stalled in the U.S.<\/a>, 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 \u20ac340 million <\/a>($453 million) to develop and expand its wind turbine operations in the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and Germany. The U.K.\u00a0this year announced <\/a> a $119 billion project to build thousands of wind farms off its coastline.<\/p>\n Coal is cheap but politically expensive. That likely was the\u00a0thinking behind Blackstone Group\u2019s decision to pull the plug on the development of the 750-megawatt Toquop coal-fired power plant<\/a> in Nevada. Instead, Sithe Global, a Blackstone portfolio company,\u00a0will 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\u00a0profits 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.<\/p>\n VC Watch:<\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n PV cell maker SpectraWatt raised $41.4 million in convertible debt<\/a> to expand its manufacturing capacity. Investors included Goldman Sachs-owned Cogentrix\u00a0Energy.<\/p>\n Calera, a California developer of technology that turns CO2 into building materials, has received a $15 million private equity investment<\/a> from coal producer Peabody Energy, the world\u2019s largest private-sector coal company.<\/p>\n Zurich-based Emerald Technology Ventures led a $5.6 million financing<\/a> for TerraLUX,\u00a0a Boulder, Colo., company that makes LED solid-state lighting products.<\/p>\n Genomatica, a San Diego-based maker of green chemicals, has raised $15 million in a Series C financing<\/a> led by TPG Biotech, a unit of Texas Pacific Group.<\/p>\n Rambling<\/strong><\/p>\n Word came out this week that the long-awaited Senate climate change and energy bill would not have a cap-and-trade provision<\/a>. 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<\/a>, including efforts by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) seem to have largely failed.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/span><\/strong>Solar Millennium is not in trouble, its finances are solid and it only hired an auditing firm to dispel ongoing negative\u00a0market rumors surrounding the German solar company. In essence, that\u2019s what the company\u2019s flacks told G.E.R.<\/a> in an email response to questions we sent them several days ago.<\/p>\n