I love it when I’m planning to cover a story and then see someone on one of our sister sites already has. In this repost below, Priti Ambani does a great job covering Greenstart, “the first startup accelerator exclusively designed for the cleantech industry.” Check out the post and video below for more:   Cleantech Startup Accelerator ‘Greenstart’ Begins Second Program For Eco-entrepreneurs (via Ecopreneurist) Related posts: Ecopreneurist: Need Advice on Starting (and Funding) Your Cleantech Business? Ecopreneurist: How to Approach a Venture Capital Firm with a Cleantech Business Idea...

Research and analysis of solar PV manufacturing costs and international trade flows shows that Chinese silicon solar PV manufacturers have only a slight cost advantage on their US counterparts, and that excludes transportation costs, the effect of inflation rate differentials, and other factors. Furthermore, the extraordinary rise in Chinese exports of silicon solar PV cells and panels to the US could only be sustained with the support of massive government subsidies, according to a US DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) presentation. The results provide additional evidence in support of SolarWorld America’s and the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing’s (CASM) international trade petitions against Chinese silicon solar PV manufacturers and Chinese government subsidies, asserts SolarWorld America’s president Gordon Brinser. “This analysis from the renewable-energy research arm of the U.S. government corroborates our view that an export drive sponsored by ...

 

The picture shows a test system consisting of 40 high concentrating photovoltaic (HCPV) modules. The latest prototypes of the modules achieved a major milestone with 33.9 percent solar module efficiency. (Press picture: Semprius)

Yep, it’s that time again—a new solar module efficiency record has been set and independently verified. The solar module company is Semprius. The new efficiency record is 33.9%. The modules are actually set to come to market this year. And the efficiency percentage “was externally certified after measurement under standard test conditions at the Instituto de Energia Solar (IES) at the University of Madrid (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid),” a news release notes. This is the first time that a photovoltaic module has converted over one-third of the solar energy hitting the module into usable electricity. The previous record was reportedly ...

The intermittent, yet often complementary, nature of wind and solar energy has long been observed and increasingly remarked upon of late. Minnesota’s Ecos Energy is looking to take advantage of that by building the state’s largest solar photovoltaic (PV) array on a 13-acre site in southwestern Minnesota, home to more wind farms than any other region state-wide, the StarTribune reports. At 2-megawatts (MW), the solar power array can’t be considered large by any stretch, but it’s expected to provide enough electricity for 340 homes, about as much as a single wind turbine. Yet more significantly, Ecos Energy’s Slayton project will provide some trailblazing data as to whether or not intermittent solar energy and wind turbine arrays can be used in tandem to provide a more consistent supply of power to the grid. More than 70 wind farms are up and ...

  Ceres, director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), “a network of 100 institutional investors with collective assets totaling about $10 trillion,” informed us of the above, yesterday, as 450 global investors controlling tens of trillions of dollars from four continents gathered at the United Nations offices in New York City for the Investor Summit on Climate Risk & Energy Solutions. “Climate change is certain to be a major factor in investments for the foreseeable future—perhaps the biggest investment factor of our lifetimes,” said Kevin Parker, global head of Deutsche Asset Management. Some key news and points made at the NYC summit include: 45 new, carbon-reducing policies were adopted around the world in 2011 reportedly, only 4 negative policy actions were taken (not sure how they qualified such actions) $260 billion was invested in clean energy in 2011, according ...

 

BP and Sempra Energy have joined forces to build two giant wind farms in the U.S. The wind farms will have a combined capacity of a whopping 560 megawatts (MW) and each will be the largest wind farm in their state.

“BP Wind Energy and Sempra U.S. Gas & Power today announced plans to further expand their strategic relationship by jointly developing the Mehoopany Wind Farm in Pennsylvania and the Flat Ridge 2 Wind Farm in Kansas that represent a combined investment of more than $1 billion,” BP & Sempra announced in a press release yesterday. “Both wind farms are fully-contracted under long-term agreements, and are expected to be in commercial operation by year-end 2012. The wind farms will have a combined total output of 560 megawatts (MW) and will each be the largest ever built ...

  For readers who want to delve deeper into geothermal energy or solar, here are 4 upcoming conferences (or conference series) you might want to check out:   Geothermal Energy Finance Forum — January 18, San Francisco On January 18, the Geothermal Energy Association will convene the financial community at San Francisco’s Marriott Marquis for GEA Geothermal Energy Finance Forum 2012. After three years in New York City, GEA’s leading financial renewable program moves for the first time to the Bay Area, home of the world’s top technology leaders and venture capitalists. The event will create a networking dialogue between the finance and investment communities of the East and West Coasts, and offer a tutorial on geothermal energy investment with top experts and major players in geothermal development and finance. Event partners for the event are American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) as well as sponsors GeothermEx and Pratt & Whitney Power Systems. “California is ...

 

BrightSource Energy CSP solar tower. Brightsource raised $201 million in 2011.

This article was originally published on Climate Progress and has been reposted with permission. As emerging clean technology companies reach stages of growth that require enormous amounts of deployment capital, investment figures for 2011 reflect that market dynamic. Last year, global corporate and venture capital investments in cleantech grew 13% over 2010, reaching almost $9 billion, according to preliminary figures released from the Cleantech Group. Most of those investments are going to companies that have already picked up one or more rounds of funding, with 85% of dollars flowing into Series B rounds or later. The most stunning increase in activity last year was in mergers and acquisitions, which grew by 154% in 2011. Because it’s often more attractive for cleantech companies to merge with a ...

 

OK, I’m doing my top 10 list now. Following up on AWEA’s top 10 wind energy stories and SEIA’s top 10 solar energy stories, I decided I may as well give my own opinion on the top 10 clean energy stories and energy efficiency stories of 2011 (plus one bonus story). There will be some overlap, of course.

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1. 40% drop in cost of solar. This tremendous drop in the cost of solar was, to say the least, massively influential. It helped tons of people and businesses to go solar for less, increased work for numerous solar installers, and helped to put some companies out of business who were working on alternatives to traditional solar PV. The full ramifications are still unclear, but recent reports have shown that ...

Graphic credit The Washington Post

Manufacturing solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules in China has been a tremendous success, at least if you’re willing to put off profitability for job creation to help assure social stability. Sustainable over the long term? No, not likely, but in less than a decade, China’s manufacturers have captured 48% of the global marketof silicon PV cells, as the excellent graphic from the Washington Post shows.

During this period, global production of solar PV cells has expanded tenfold. Prices of solar grade polysilicon, the raw material from which solar PV cells are made, have dropped 94% in three years.

Most of China’s market share gain has come at the expense of the world’s other leading solar PV manufacturers, Germany, Taiwan and Japan, though US manufacturers are also being squeezed hard ...