Green Tech

SolarReserve and Preneal have garnered the necessary permit to build a 50-megawatt thermal-solar plant in Spain that will use molten salt to store and release solar energy, the companies said Wednesday.

The project will be built in Alcazar de San Juan, a town about 110 miles south of Madrid. The environmental permit that will allow the construction of a project using molten salt was issued by the local Castilla-La Mancha government.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based start-up, SolarReserve uses a fairly unique method to offer power from a solar plant even after the sun sets.

While the sun is shining, giant heliostats reflect sunlight into a center pool of hot, liquefied salt that absorbs the heat. The molten salt, which can be kept hot even at night or on cloudy days for up to 24 sunless hours, is used to feed a steam-generated turbine to make electricity. The salt is then redirected out of the generator to be reheated and used again.

SolarReserve's partner on the Spain project, Madrid-based Preneal, is a development and construction company that specializes in wind and solar energy plants.

The Alcazar solar-thermal power project is set to break ground in 2010. It is expected to generate 750 construction jobs and 75 facility operation jobs, according to the companies.

Once fully operational, the plant is expected to generate over 300,000 megawatt-hours of electricity per year, roughly enough to power 70,000 Spanish homes.

BOSTON--Solasta, a quiet Boston-area company, says it's a few steps ahead of the many researchers trying to design flexible solar cells using nanotechnology.

The company is now in the process of seeking a Series B round of venture capital in the range of $20 million with a target of starting production by the end of next year, said chief technology officer and co-founder Michael Naughton here on Friday.

An array of carbon nanotubes that next-generation solar companies plan to use on solar cells.

(Credit: Solasta )

Solasta was spun out of Boston College and raised a $6 million Series A round in 2006 from venture capital company Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in a deal led by famed technologist Bill Joy. It has also received grants from the Department of Energy.

There are a number of researchers developing next-generation photovoltaic materials using nanoscale cylinders called carbon nanotubes. The idea is to create very thin solar cells with these tiny wires in order to lower the manufacturing cost.

Solasta is developing a "platform" for putting these nanowires onto different solar cell materials, said Naughton who presented at the Fifth Annual Conference on Clean Energy. The goal is to create a method where these solar cells can be produced with high-volume processes, such as roll-to-roll manufacturing, to keep the costs down.

The company has done initial testing with amorphous silicon, but also plans to test its process with thin-film materials cadmium telluride and CIGS, a combination of copper, indium, gallium, and selenide, Naughton said.

He said Solasta is developing a process, which it calls "nanocoax," to make nanowires that optimize both light capture and the conductivity of electricity. "It's a little bit like a coaxial cable with semiconductors," he said. For more on Solasta, see here.

General Electric on Tuesday said that it has reached an agreement to deploy its coal gasification technology in China, a move the company says will advance underground storage of carbon dioxide.

The energy giant announced a set of agreements in a ceremony in Beijing, including deals for GE's high-speed rail and hybrid locomotive engines. The activity comes the same day that China and the U.S. announced a number of energy-related research initiatives in coal, electric vehicles, and smart-grid technologies.

(Credit: General Electric)

GE and coal power plant operator Shenhua Group signed a memorandum of understanding to create a joint venture to build plants that use GE's coal gasification products. They projected that a definitive agreement would be done by the first half of next year.

Coal gasification, already used in dozens of facilities, is cleaner than the traditional coal-fired process used in power plants because pollutants can be removed during power generation, according to the Department of Energy. Gasification is a thermo-chemical process where coal or other carbon-based feedstocks are treated under high heat and pressure with steam so that they break down into what's called syngas, which contains hydrogen and carbon monoxide. That syngas is then burned to run an electricity turbine.

In the planned projects in China, GE and Shenhua expect to build integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) facilities in China, including a commercial-scale plant that separates out carbon dioxide for underground storage.

Because the U.S. and China rely heavily on coal for power generation, policy makers say that carbon capture and storage at coal plants is an important technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.

The U.S. Trade Development Agency will said it will fund the "initial steps" toward a plant in China based on GE technology.

The president of GE's Power and Water business, Steve Bolze, said in a statement that additional plants with coal gasification and carbon storage are needed to scale up the industry and lower costs.

LOS ANGELES--Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures-backed solar-thermal start-up Ausra is in talks with three potential buyers to sell itself, two sources familiar with the company told Reuters on Friday.

The buyers could take a majority stake or snag the whole company and the discussions are at a "very aggressive level," said one source familiar with the company, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Both sources said the interested companies were global conglomerates in the power generation business but declined to name them. The companies already have various power products, such as steam and gas turbines, and are committed to renewable energy. One interested party has engaged with Ausra previously, one source said.

Ausra declined to comment.

A sale of the high-profile Silicon Valley start-up that has raised $130 million in venture capital would add to a string of recent deals and growing consolidation in the solar-power industry.

Chinese solar-wafer manufacturer ReneSola plans to buy Dynamic Green Energy while silicon maker MEMC Electronic Materials plans to acquire privately held SunEdison, which installs, maintains, and finances commercial solar systems.

Privately held Ausra, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., launched as a solar-thermal developer in 2006, when solar power and other clean technology were luring venture capitalists.

Two years ago the company landed a power purchasing agreement with California utility PG&E, a unit of PG&E Corp., for a 117-megawatt solar-thermal plant. Solar-thermal plants use the sun's rays to heat liquid to create steam, which drives turbines and generates electricity.

Earlier this year, the company switched tracks, saying it would move away from developing projects and focus on supplying large-scale solar steam generators.

This month Ausra said that it canceled its agreement with PG&E and sold the project's land to the largest U.S. solar-power company, First Solar, maker of thin-film solar cells.

Ausra also has deals in Jordan and Australia and other investors include Starfish Ventures and KERN Partners.

One source familiar with the company said that "extensive work" has been done at various stages of completion with the interested buyers.

"We're talking about meetings with dozens of people involved," said the person, who also was not authorized to speak publicly about the discussions.

Story Copyright (c) 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

BOSTON--Green tech has been a hot venture capital investment category the past few years, but that doesn't mean investors are actually earning money. In fact, some venture capitalists eyeing gold in green may soon be moving on, a panel of investors said here on Friday.

In the third quarter this year, green tech garnered more venture capital than the traditional categories of software and biotech, bouncing back after a sharp drop-off earlier this year. That reflects the high level of confidence that investing in energy-related technologies makes sense in the long run.

But there's a growing understanding that applying the same venture model used for biotech or IT won't always work in energy, said speakers at a panel on venture capital at the Fifth Annual Clean Energy Conference.

"Clean tech is broadly recognized as an area of expansion," said Issam Dairanieh of BP's alternative energy venture capital arm. "But those who went into it because it looked sexy will suffer. Those who went into it without doing their homework will go away."

The two most dramatic differences between IT and energy technology is the amount of time required to build a product and the capital that's needed. A product could take 15 to 18 years to enter into the fuels business and cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, said Dairanieh. The traditional venture model is built around getting sizable returns in five to seven years.

"Venture capital in clean tech as currently practiced will not be successful or last very long," said Matthew Nordan, a vice president at venture-capital company Venrock. Venrock is focusing on very early-stage companies with an eye toward finding one that can have a technology breakthrough over many years, Nordan said.

The panelists said that the best VC investors are patient and invest for the long term. But there are many investors who chase fads, said Bic Stevens of Stevens Capital Partners. "Most VC returns are made by getting ahead of a bubble," he said.

Right now, many venture capitalists in green tech are focusing on the companies they have already invested in to ensure that they succeed, a situation that makes it more difficult for newly formed start-ups to secure funding. IT-heavy areas, such as smart grid, are also getting more attention in part because they can be businesses that IT investors feel comfortable with.

The shift to later-stage venture investments was clear in an analysis of third quarter venture capital done by Ernst & Young. For the first nine months of the year, 62 percent of the companies that received funding were already shipping products, compared to 37 percent for the same period last year.

BP's Dairanieh said that despite some limitations, there is an important role for venture capitalists to play in developing very specific technologies. For example, a biofuel company can develop a process for converting algae to fuel, but a small company should expect to bring it to market by partnering with established companies, such as refiners and distributors.

Another heavy presence in energy investing is Washington, with billions of dollars in stimulus money and research funding being put toward energy. Over the past year, many start-ups have applied to Department of Energy programs with a hope of getting a grant or loan.

BOSTON--While hundreds of other companies are trying to make a better battery, start-up SustainX Energy Solutions is trying to find better ways to compress and store air to help utilities take full advantage of intermittent sources of energy like wind.

Dax Kepshire, president of SustainX, sketched out the company's technology and product plans here Thursday at the Fifth Annual Conference on Clean Energy. SustainX was spun out of Dartmouth College last year and received $4 million in funding from Polaris Venture Partners and Rockport Capital in August of this year. It now has 10 employees.

There are already a few compressed-air facilities in the world where off-peak electricity is used to pump air underground for storage. During peak-demand times, the air is released and pushed through a turbine to make electricity.

It's a method that's getting more attention now as a way to store several hours worth of wind power, for example.

Traditional compressed air storage uses underground formations to store compressed air, which is released when needed to make electricity. Click on the image for a photo gallery of other types of energy storage.

(Credit: PG&E)

The primary difference with SustainX's approach is that it doesn't need an underground salt dome or limestone cavern to store the compressed air. Instead, it proposes storing the compressed air in off-the-shelf tanks. Its technical goal in two years is to cram 4 megawatt-hours worth of stored energy in a 40-foot long container, said Kepshire. The tank-filled container would be able to deliver 1 megawatt of power.

In the near term, it plans to build a 100 kilowatt hour pilot system to test the efficiency and then to validate the larger model in 2011, Kepshire said.

Its technology is also very different from the existing compressed-air storage facilities. With traditional compressed-air energy storage, a machine called a compressor compacts air and pumps it underground. To make electricity, the air is released and run through special turbines and a generator to make electricity.

SustainX is designing a system that uses a hydraulic piston to compress air. When the air is released, it moves a hydraulic motor which is attached to a generator to make electricity, Kepshire explained.

The key to making the overall system is to reduce the energy loss that happens in the compression and decompression of air, he said. He expects the first pilot system to be about 50 percent efficient but the full system to be more around 70 percent efficient overall.

Compressed air energy storage has a lot of potential because it's relatively inexpensive and because utilities can store many hours worth of electricity. Pacific Gas & Electric is investigating locations for compressd-air storage capable of delivering 300 megawatts of electricity for 10 hours, or 3,000 megawatt-hours. By contrast, utility-scale battery storage systems in use now deliver 1 or 2 megawatts for a few hours.

SustainX doesn't have any customers yet, but Kepshire said the company is targeting utilities looking to use more renewable energy. The company's technology, if it proves efficient enough, can be scaled to stored many hours of energy and deliver large amounts of power, he said.

Green Plug's twist port universal charger.

(Credit: Green Plug)

Start-ups Green Plug and WiPower are working together on a universal wireless charger for portable devices, the companies said Thursday.

The partnership makes sense since GreenPlug has developed a protocol to allow power sources and portable devices to communicate, while WiPower has invented technology to transmit power wirelessly over short distances.

Green Plug's universal chargers allow portable electronic devices containing its embedded Greentalk chip to be charged from a universal port. Once a device is plugged in to a Green Plug charger port, the charger's Greentalk protocol reads the chip inside the device to determine the power supply needed to charge it. It then tunes its power output to charge the device accordingly.

WiPower has a developed technology that can transmit power over short distances wirelessly. You can place a device on a WiPower pad in any position, and it automatically begins recharging.

Powermat makes a wireless charging dock that works with cases made for specific devices.

(Credit: Powermat)

Here's the caveat. For this to become a reality, manufacturers must opt to embed Greentalk chips into their products instead of offering individual power adapters for each model they make.

The idea is considered green because millions of chargers are thrown away each year when people buy new devices and discard the old chargers. Embracing the Greentalk chip could theoretically prevent millions of chargers from being manufactured in the first place.

The idea is not entirely unique, though. Powermat makes a pad for wirelessy charging any Powermat-enabled device. In order to work with it, the device must be placed inside a special case that houses a Powermat receiver programmed to work with the charger and a specific device's needs. Users can also buy a cube with eight different types of ports that can sit on the mat and be plugged in to compatible devices.

An M1A1 70-ton tank crosses a bridge made from Axion's thermoplastic composite at Camp Mackall in North Carolina.

(Credit: Photo Courtesy of U.S. Army/Dawn Elizabeth Pandoliano)

Axion International Holdings has won a $957,000 contract to provide the U.S. Army with two bridges made from a thermoplastic composite and recycled plastic, the company announced Wednesday evening.

The two bridges, which are replacing old wooden ones, will be constructed at Fort Eustis in Virginia from a proprietary Recycled Structural Composite (RSC) developed by Axion in conjunction with scientists at Rutgers University.

The railroad cross-ties will be made entirely of a plastic composed of recycled materials from both consumer and industrial plastic waste. Axion asserts that its recycled plastic railroad ties are actually longer-lasting that typical creosote-treated wood railroad ties.

Both the 40-foot and 80-foot bridges to be built will each have a high-loading rating of 130 tons, and be used to transport both locomotives and freight traffic, according to Axion.

The location is significant. Fort Eustis is home to the U.S. Army Transportation Corps, the branch of the Army responsible for coordinating the movement of personnel and cargo. The Fort Eustis motto is Einstein's famous quote "Nothing happens, until something moves." It's also the location of the U.S. Army Transportation Museum.

But this is not the first military bridge to be made out of plastic by Axion for the military. The Army has previously built plastic bridges for Fort Bragg and Camp Mackall in North Carolina using materials and structural design that allowed for a bearing load of 73 tons for tracked vehicles and 88 tons for cars and trucks. To demonstrate its strength a 70-ton M1A1 Abrams tank was driven across the bridge at its official unveiling in September.

The design and engineering of the bridges is being be done by Parsons Brinckerhoff and Centennial Contractors Enterprises.

Updated on November 13 at 1:11 p.m. PT to clarify and correct technical details.

Big levitated spinning disks will provide electricity to the grid in a project set to begin next month.

Flywheel energy storage company Beacon Power on Tuesday said it plans to begin construction of a 20-megawatt storage facility in Stephentown, N.Y. Provided on a continuous basis, twenty megawatts could power thousands of homes. But flywheels are used only for providing power for short periods.

Rather have many hours of stored energy on standby, the flywheels will store and dispatch bursts of electricity for what's called frequency regulation in the utility industry. Because of fluctuations in power demand, power generators need to deliver power to the grid to maintain a steady signal frequency. Beacon Power's flywheels are designed to provide one megawatt of power for 15 minutes.

George King, supervisor of flywheel assembly at Beacon Power, stands next to the company's 100-kilowatt flywheel.

(Credit: Beacon Power)

With flywheels, electrical energy is converted into mechanical energy and stored by the spinning disks. By absorbing electricity and dispatching it for quick bursts of a few minutes, utilities can maintain the frequenc with a system that uses no fossil fuel and responds quickly, according to Beacon Power.

The project will help the utility better use renewable energy that supplies electricity intermittently to the grid, according to the New York State Public Service Commission.

The installation in upstate New York will be the first large-scale use of Beacon Power's technology, according to the company. The Tyngsboro, Mass.-based company secured a Department of Energy loan guarantee in July for $43 million to partially finance the project.

Until now, Beacon Power has operated two smaller 1-megawatt facilities, where 10 flywheels are placed in a shipping container-size structure. The wheels themselves are made of carbon fiber composites, rather than metal, and spin at 16,000 revolutions per minute. To reduce friction, the mechanical components are stored in a vacuum and levitated with a permanent magnet, according to the company.

Another idea that has been pursued by Google for frequency regulation is using networks of electric-vehicle batteries. Rather than dispatch stored energy from batteries, plugged-in cars could have the charge rate throttled back, which a grid management system could use to maintain frequency.