Alternative Energy / Renewable Energy

• VC Fund to Tap China’s Clean-Tech Hub

  Californian clean-tech investor VantagePoint Venture Partners has expanded its reach in China, launching a $100 million fund to invest in the city of Tianjin. VantagePoint this week announced the initial closing of the Tianjin VantagePoint Hi-tech China FIVCE Fund aimed at what the firm has described as the burgeoning clean-tech and financial services sectors in Tianjin and the surrounding Bohai Rim region. “China is one of the key places where the global clean-tech future is being defined,” said Alan Salzman, CEO and managing partner of VantagePoint. “The country is a world leader in terms of investment in clean energy and…

• Green Energy Sector Weekly Update: Investors Attracted to China

  China is the “it” place these days when it comes to everything green. The country is more and more looking like a leader of the global renewable energy sector and less like the emerging contender. The Chinese market has several obvious advantages for investors: the market is huge and protected and production costs — which U.S. unions claims are kept down by illegal state subsidies — are a fraction of Western countries. But enertech investors are also motivated by the easy access to cash and the willingness of banks and companies to spend and lend. China truly is becoming “The…

• Plans in Place to Take Australia Off Fossil Fuels by 2020

  I have just been sent a remarkable document entitled “Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan.” As the title implies, within its pages is a proposal for how Australia might be run without the use of fossil fuels, including for transportation, by 2020. The ambitious plan, from a nonprofit called Beyond Zero Emissions and researchers at Melbourne University, hinges on developing enough concentrating solar thermal power (CST) capacity, using molten salt storage to provide a constant supply of energy, to the tune of 60% of the country’s power. The remaining 40% would come from wind farms, along with a smaller element…

• U.S. Overtaken by China in Renewable Energy Race

  A recent ranking by consultancy Ernst & Young puts China ahead of the  U.S. as the most attractive country to invest and develop renewable energy projects. This is the first time China overtakes its U.S. rival and this comes at a time of growing uncertainty over the fate of key stimulus-funded programs, scheduled to end at the end of the year. The U.S. Senate’s failure to pass a comprehensive climate change bill, earlier this year, is also adding to the uncertainty and benefiting China. “What we’re seeing in the U.S. is a continued resistance to committing to long-term visible and…

• Energy Research and the Development of Renewables

  In 1913, Lord Northcliffe, who owned the Daily Mail, offered £10,000 to the first men to fly the Atlantic from North America to Ireland or England in less than 72 hours. The prize was won by John Alcock and Arthur Brown, who flew non stop from Newfoundland to Ireland in June 1919 on a modified Vickers Vimy bomber. Later on, in 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew non stop from New York to Paris, collecting another prize for the result. Awarding prizes is a good way of stimulating technological development, with the added advantage that you pay for success and not for…

• Green Energy Sector Weekly Update: Traction Building in Renewable Energy M&A

  If the dark cloud that is the Great Recession has a silver lining, it is that companies across America have accumulated huge stockpiles of cash. Now, nearly two years after the implosion of global financial markets, companies may finally be motivated to spend some of that cash in this buyer’s market. This uptick in M&A activity is impacting all industries, including the cleantech and renewable energy sector. On Friday, as we were writing The Week In Green Energy, we learned that IT giant Cisco Systems would pay an undisclosed amount for smartgrid startup Arch Rock. Days earlier, Cisco said it…

• The Growth of Renewable Energy and it’s Top Users

  Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable as opposed to fossil fuels for example which once gone are gone. In 2008, about 19% of global final energy consumption came from renewables, with 13% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.2% from hydroelectricity. The EPA has just named the 50 green power partners (individual purchasing sources or companies) using the most renewable electricity. The Green Power Partnership’s top purchasers use more than 12 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, equivalent to…

• Recovery Act Puts US on Track to Meet Renewables Targets

  Thanks to the stimulus package, the US is on track to meet President Barack Obama’s goal of doubling renewable energy generation and capacity by 2012. More than $23 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more commonly known as the Recovery Act or economic stimulus package, is devoted toward renewable energy investments. The plan is to double capacity from the 28.8GW of solar, wind and geothermal generation installed in the US as of 2008 to 57.6GW by the end of 2011, which would produce enough capacity to power 16.7 million homes, according to a report from the office of…

• Why Bank Profits are Good for Renewable Energy

  Had a long flight home yesterday from South America. Lots of time to read through a pile of news on resource projects and financing. Here's an important development that caught my eye. Wind power developer EDP Renovaveis recently closed a $141 million financing with American bank Wells Fargo. The cash is going toward the development of EDP's Vento III wind portfolio, which holds projects in Oregon, Kansas and Iowa. Wells' investment into Vento is a tax equity financing. Meaning the bank loan will be paid back (at least partly) with tax credits generated by EDP's wind projects. Up until three…

• Export-Import Bank Urged to End Fossil Fuel Binge and Support Renewables

  NGOs have accused the US Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank of “systematic bias towards financing fossil fuel projects”, as the export credit agency prepares to consider backing two giant coal-fired power plants. John Coequyt of the US environment group Sierra Club said: “Instead of financing dirty power projects abroad, the Export-Import Bank should be positioning US companies to lead in a competitive clean-technology market that can create thousands more jobs in the US.” “The Ex-Im Bank’s ongoing fossil fuel binge indicates a clear unwillingness to adhere to Congressional climate change directives and systematic bias towards financing fossil fuel projects,” said Doug Norlen…