Deals and investments

Despite dropping its internal solar technology development, Google continues to put money into solar power.

Assistant treasurer Axel Martinez said today that Google will invest $94 million into four commercial solar photovoltaic projects alongside private equity firm KKR. Google is investing equity in SunTap Energy, an entity created by KKR for solar investing.

The projects themselves are operated by Recurrent Energy, a company which specializes in commercial and utility solar photovoltaic projects. With a generating capacity of 88 megawatts, they will produce about 160,000 megawatt-hours per year, or enough to power 13,000 homes.

The solar farms will feed … Read more

GreenVolts is blasting the equivalent of 1,300 suns onto a solar cell to survive in the cut-throat solar industry

The Fremont, Calif.-based start-up today announced it has raised an additional $35 million and unveiled a redesigned large-scale solar array. The series D funding brought $20 million from industrial conglomerate ABB which will market GreenVolt's solar system to businesses and utilities.

The solar industry is undergoing a brutal price war driven by the rapidly falling price of conventional silicon solar panels. GreenVolts has designed a concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) system, where powerful Fresnel lenses focus light onto several super-efficient … Read more

After years of delays, biotech company Mascoma appears to have the funding to build a wood chip-to-ethanol plant.

The company today said that fuel refiner and investor Valero Energy will create a joint venture to build a $232 million plant in Kinross, Mich. The plant will convert lumber used for paper into ethanol using Mascoma's streamlined production process.

The companies said that the plant will be able to produce 20 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol a year, which can be expanded to double that. Construction is expected to start in the next six months and be completed by the … Read more

General Electric has a customer for its natural gas power plant that nimbly navigates changes in electricity demand.

The company today announced a deal with French energy provider EDF to supply a FlexEfficiency 50 power plant which will be the first connected to a national grid.

GE is touting both the energy efficiency and the flexibility of this new turnkey power plant which it hopes will replace traditional power generators that, like steering bulky ocean liners, take hours to ramp up and down.

The ability to quickly adjust natural gas power production makes the FlexEfficiency well suited to work in … Read more

MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's investment company, made its first move into solar with the acquisition of First Solar's Topaz Solar Farm, one of the two largest projects in the world.

The more than $2 billion power plant in California's San Luis Obispo County will be able to produce 550 megawatts of energy, enough to power about 160,000 California homes. Construction began last month and is expected to be completed by early 2015.

The purchase for an undisclosed sum complements MidAmerican Energy Holding's current assets in wind farms. "This project also … Read more

Energy heavyweight Siemens is buying some Silicon Valley software savvy to make sense of the smart grid.

Siemens Energy today announced that it has acquired San Mateo, Calif.-based eMeter and that its meter data software will be integrated into Siemens product line. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the deal is expected to close later this month.

eMeter's software is designed to collect data from two-way meters and feed it into utilities' back-end business systems. The venture capital-backed company is headed by former Oracle executive and Veritas CEO Gary Bloom.

By collecting data such as customer power consumption … Read more

By storing solar energy in molten salt, BrightSource Energy can now build one less solar power plant.

The company said today that it is adding energy storage to three planned solar projects that will supply power to utility Southern California Edison.

Instead of building seven power plants to provide about 4 million megawatt-hours per year, BrightSource now expects to be able to meet that with six concentrating solar plants to be built over the next six years, including three that will have storage. It is now constructing its first project, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, which will not have … Read more

SolarStrong, a project to install rooftop solar panels at 120,000 military homes, will see the light of day after nearly being derailed by political infighting in Washington.

Solar installer SolarCity today said it has secured the financing needed to install about 300 megawatts' worth of solar panels at homes on military bases. The company and the project lender, Bank of America's Merrill Lynch, expect this to be the largest distributed solar-energy project to date, requiring $1 billion in financing over the next five years.

The project calls for installing solar panels at the homes of military personnel at … Read more

Morgan Solar has brought on Canadian oil and gas distributor Enbridge as an investor to commercialize its concentrating-photovoltaic panels.

The Toronto-based company today said that Enbridge has invested $9.8 million as part of a $28.8 million round of funding.

Enbridge's primary business is oil and gas distribution but it has invested in a few solar energy projects that use traditional flat photovoltaic panels. Morgan Solar is the first solar technology it has invested in.

The money will be used to expand manufacturing capacity of Morgan Solar's concentrating-photovoltaic modules and trackers.

The company's core technology is … Read more