El Paso Solar Energy Association - EPSEA

Trina Solar (TSL) announced its second quarter results this morning.

Trina (market cap of $1.56 billion) builds silicon-based solar products for commercial, residential, industrial, and electric utility applications. Customers include Conergy, Corporación Zigor, SKR Energie, and Schüco International.  The firm has a vertically integrated business model from the production of monocrystalline and multicrystalline silicon ingots, wafers and cells to the assembly of modules. The firm also has a stellar earnings record -- the stock has surpassed the consensus estimate in each of the past four quarters.

Strong results and optimistic outlooks have dominated the news from solar companies of late, and Trina's second quarter earnings call was no exception. (See our recent reports on Suntech and Yingli's record-setting second quarterly updates.)

Here are the highlights from the call:

• Second quarter shipments were 223 megawatts (guidance of 200 to 205 megawatts), an increase of 15.7% sequentially and 248.7% year-over-year
• Second quarter revenue was $370.8 million, an increase of 10.1 percent sequentially and 147.2 percent year-over-year 
• Gross margin was 32.1 percent, above the guidance of high 20s 
• Net income was $38.7 million
• For the third quarter of 2010, Trina expects to ship between 250 megawatts to 260 megawatts of PV modules.
• For the full year of 2010, Trina expects total PV module shipments to be between 900 megawatts and 930 megawatts, compared to its earlier guidance of between 750 megawatts to 800 megawatts, an increase of 126 percent to 133 percent from 2009

Trina sees "increasing evidence that strong demand for our PV products will extend well into 2011."

Trina's most recent news includes:

• Signing of a sales agreement to supply solar modules to SunEdison, a subsidiary of MEMC Electronic Materials. Under the terms of the agreement, Trina Solar is expected to supply SunEdison with approximately 35 megawatts of PV modules over the remainder of 2010. The modules are expected to be utilized by SunEdison for projects in North America and Europe.
• Signing a 45-megawatt supply agreement with Southern California Edison, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States. The modules are expected to be used in SCE's large solar photovoltaic installation program.

Trina's stock price was down two percent in early trading this morning.

Auriga's Mark Bachman on Trina Solar:

• Trina Solar has one of the most profitable crystalline-silicon business models and we believe our assumptions could prove conservative in the next year.
• Our model uses shipments of 863MW in 2010 and 1,011MW in 2011
• ASPs modeled down 12 percent year-over-year. Our 2Q10 module price is $1.70/W, which declines to $1.44/W in 4Q11. 
• We have modeled modest gross and operating margin declines in 2011. While we believe that several of the assumptions presented above may prove conservative, we are also trying to present a credible argument for investing in shares of TSL. In short, the solar industry continues to be subsidized, which results in constant pressure on both ASPs and cost reduction targets. Our new model has Trina's shipment forecast growing slower than the industry growth rate of 25 percent, coupled with ASP declines outpacing cost reduction efforts. The result is a declining margin structure year-over-year, but one that results in increasing profits on higher revenue. We find it reasonable to assume that margins should contract as the industry matures.

MiaSole, which makes copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar modules, has signed a contract to deliver 7.5 megawatts of panels to juwi Solar in Germany. The panels will be placed on roofs and in the ground at utility-scale solar parks in that country.

MiaSole delivered 1 MW to juwi in the second quarter.

The company is one of the Big Five in CIGS startups. MiaSole, NanoSolar, Solyndra, HelioVolt and Solopower all burst onto the greentech scene in the middle of the decade and all have had to face production snafus, management changes and delays. Even worse, the price of silicon solar panels has dropped considerably since then thanks to the rise of Chinese solar manufacturers, a glut of raw materials and a worldwide economic downturn. Meanwhile, cadmium telluride specialist First Solar says it has dropped its prices production costs to 76 cents a watt, creating a formidable barrier for new companies trying to break into the market.

Still, CIGS vendors say they will undercut the price of silicon solar panels and produce products that can generate more power than cadmium telluride and/or amorphous silicon panels at equivalent or better prices.

Miasole started shipping modules commercially this year and rolled out ambitious goals. The plan is to ship 22 megawatts' worth of panels this year and, by the end of the year, to boost the efficiency from a mid-year level of around 10.5 percent to 13 percent.

“At the end of the year, we will ship 13-percent-efficient modules. That is not a maybe. By the beginning of next year, we will have 13-percent-efficient modules right on the edge of the poly guys and we think we have the ability to be in the same league as the First Solar guys in terms of cost,” CEO Joseph Laia told us in June. "The only reason we are not shipping these modules today is that we are awaiting the completion of our UL certifications.”

The heart of MiaSole's technology is a fast, complex machine for sputtering CIGS solar cells. The company has also come up with an interesting packaging technology -- think of Lego bricks -- for snapping solar cells together to make a module.

The juwi deal indicates that, yes, MiaSole is cranking out the modules. However, the juwi deals announced to date account for just under 40 percent of the production goal, so we await other announcements.

Consumers Energy drastically cut the budget and scope of a smart meter plan in Michigan, calling the project a casualty of hard times.

The company is cutting out smart gas meters as part of its strategy and reducing its smart meter budget from $900 million to about $500 million over the next five years. This scale-back is part of a wider decrease in spending overall, which is down from $7.2 billion to $6.4 billion.

"We have made some modifications. We are still committed to a smart grid program. We are taking out smart grid gas meter modules, they are no longer part of our plan," said Roger Morgenstern, a company spokesman for Consumers Energy.

Basically, this means that 1.7 million gas customers won't get smart meters, but the 1.8 million electric customers will. Eventually, the gas customers may get included, but this is the plan for now.

"We see more benefits with the electric smart meter because they are more dynamic," said Morgenstern.

However, Michigan residents won't start getting their electric meters until they are deployed in 2012.

It's unclear how this will affect Elster's EnergyAxis for Smart Grid Field Pilot or General Electric's first smart grid program to use high-speed wireless with WiMAX.

"We are not discussing plans with our proprietary vendors," said Morgenstern.

These cutbacks notwithstanding, Consumers Energy is still one of the largest investors in Michigan, even in this economy. The $6.4 billion in funding will go towards the implementation of the smart grids, wind generation, other renewable investments, and on-going maintenance and gas utilities.

The recession is putting extra pressure on smart grid spending nationwide.

"We have seen cutbacks happening in Boulder, Colorado in a reaction to Xcel Energy's pioneering pilot project [with a total cost of about $100 million if completed]. There was some push-back in Baltimore Gas & Electric service territory as well," said Massoud Amin, an engineering professor at the University of Minnesota. 

The smart grid will save customers money down the line. As we mentioned before in our "Baltimore Moves Forward" post, customers will save $2.6 billion over 15 years.

Amin reminds us of the daunting costs that smart grid implementation is likely to require over the next two decades. However, the $150 billion cost of implementing the smart grid should not overshadow the obvious reasons why we need a smart grid in place: more than 4% reduction in energy by 2030 would save the nation $20.4 billion, reduce the cost of outages by $49 billion per year, reduce emissions by 12% to 18% per year, and increase the nation's energy security.

As Consumers Energy and other utilities become focused on deploying smart meters, Amin worries that the overall goal of enabling the smart grid is being overlooked. Either way, he certainly doesn't want to have to cope with the increasing risk of blackouts.

If you attend enough events covering venture capital investment in greentech, the same, sometimes obvious, themes start to repeat.

• VCs need to invest in billion-dollar markets.
• Teams are important.
• The company has to be capital-efficient, but paradoxically, must be able to scale big, quickly.

This week's VC event was entitled "Unique Challenges and Prospects for Early-Stage Clean Technology Start-Ups" in Palo Alto, California and was put on by the good folks at Agrion.  Here are some highlights:

Cleantech Open, Brian Payer, Co-Founder

• If you haven't changed your business plan in two or three years, then something is wrong.

Battery Ventures, Mike Dauber, Partner

• "I can't think of another industry more focused on cost [than energy].  No one makes a decision on Facebook based on cost."
• "If you need hundreds of millions of dollars, it might be a good company -- but it's not a VC-fundable company."
• "You can't talk about cleantech as if it were one giant market."
• Licensing revenue models might be good interim plans, but not as the basis for a long-term business.
• Battery Ventures is an investor in Redwood Systems, an LED lighting and lighting control firm.   In Dauber's words, "The lighting value chain is very complicated and highly controlled; a startup must show incentives to everyone in the value chain."
• Battery Ventures attempts to de-risk its deals by tranching the financing with milestones and technology proof-points.

CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund, Susan Preston, General Partner

• Preston plugged a congressional bill currently being worked on -- a tax credit for early stage investors.
• CalCEF has a bit of a different spin on the venture model; their LPs have access to CalCEF deal flow.
• In Preston's words, there are "lots of cleantech areas flooded with companies with no differentiation."
• Project financing has become the "second gap" in greentech financing.
• Preston pointed out the need for entrepreneurs to be coachable -- the team has to understand how to adjust and how to take advice. The team has to understand their strengths and weaknesses.  "These are tough areas for an entrepreneur to do self-evaluation."
• Preston and CalCEF are "looking hard" for an investment "at the intersection of energy and water."

People Power, Gene Wang, CEO

• Wang is a "five-time startup guy" and four-time CEO.  
• "Energy management is just like device management," according to Wang.  We'll investigate this claim in an upcoming article. 
• Wang's current company, People Power, is in stealth and has something to do with "the internet of things."  He's looking to manage every device in every building.
• In his view, ZigBee won't work well enough for intra-home communication.  Their open-source product has better range.
• People Power just received a $1 million SBIR grant and is looking for a Series B. Wang said that it's been very challenging to raise money despite the "capital efficiency of the firm" and the "great team."

Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Joshua Raffaelli, Associate

• Raffaelli has some energy experience, is focused on innovation and business models, and specifically looks at the demand side -- data center efficiency and innovative financing models.
• DFJ portfolio firm Scientific Conservation is less focused on energy efficiency and more on determining how a building is performing through predictive analytics.
• DFJ has "run into some trouble in the biofuel space" as have many other VC firms.
• "The problem is that energy in the U.S. is cheap."
• Raffaelli is on the board of troubled PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) company, Renewable Funding.  In the face of conflicting legislation, the firm and the board are now confronted with the need to conduct a search for other opportunities.  

Moderator: HelioPower, Ty Jagerson, Executive Vice President  

• HelioPower will double revenue this year from $10 million to $20 million.
• Jagerson named AQT as a company of interest because of their use of off-the-shelf equipment to build CIGS solar cells. 
• He also cited Array Converter as a potentially disruptive solar electronics firm in the 'inverterless' solar space.

ZSW, a German research institute focused on solar and hydrogen, announced today that it has developed a copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cell to convert 20.3 percent of the light that strikes it into electricity.

This nudges past the record set by ZSW in April with a cell with a 20.1 percent efficiency. The April mark broke a longstanding record held by NREL and also market the first time CIGS got past the 20 percent barrier.

CIGS cells and modules constitute almost an invisible fraction of a percentage of the solar market. Many CIGS companies, in fact, have just begun to sell modules and a large number are still in the pre-commercialization state. Nonetheless, that may change over the coming years. CIGS cells can operate at higher efficiencies than cadmium telluride and amorphous silicon solar cells, and ultimately they should cost less to produce than crystalline silicon cells. CIGS can also be placed on flexible substrates, hence the building integrated CIGS modules coming from Dow.

ZSW estimates that generic CIGS panels will rise from 11 percent efficiency today to 15 percent over the next few years. Solar power plants built around thin-film solar cells will rise from the teens today to 30 percent by 2012, the company added.

Meanwhile, it was 50 years ago that construction began on Geysers, the world's first commercial geothermal plant, according to the Geothermal Energy Association. Geothermal now provides over 3 gigawatts of power in the U.S. at 77 locations in nine states. Approximately 188 new projects are now underway. New techniques such as hot dry rock technology and better drilling techniques may expand geothermal from its traditional base on the Pacific Rim and Nevada to other locations in the U.S. Geothermal is cheaper than other renewables and can provide consistent baseline-quality power, say advocates.

Speaking of dirt and dust, Boston University researchers say it might be possible to commercialize a self-dusting technology employed by NASA for its solar panels on the Mars rover mission. In a nutshell, an additional, electrically sensitive layer is added to solar modules. Sensors detect dust pile-up and then trigger an electronic charge to sweep it away. In principle, it's like an electronic hand buzzer, but for solar panels. Debris does chronically reduce the efficiency of earth-bound solar panels. Earth panels, however, also suffer from water spots, snow and bird droppings. Thus, expect to see an intense cost/benefit/functionality debate here. Still, for utility-scale plants in the desert this could be handy.

Finally, Japan's government is considering subsidizing energy efficient power plants. Considering that some of the large conglomerates are also the largest producers of solar panels and efficiency equipment, this will ideally help employment, as well.

It's taken nearly two decades, but a technology that is getting quite close to electronic paper will soon hit the market.

Qualcomm late this year will begin to produce Mirasol displays -- thin, energy-efficient displays that show video and reproduce color accurately -- and ship them to consumer electronics manufacturers. By the first quarter, expect to see e-readers containing the 5.7-inch screens. See a prototype in the photo.

2011 will also likely see the debut of thin, energy-efficient color screens from Prime View International, which bought E-Ink last year. The Liquavista screen from Philips may also appear in products by then. LG Display is also working on a version of color paper, according to research firm DisplaySearch.

What's the big deal? Consumers are now watching video and playing games on their smart phones and tablets. That sucks battery life. Batteries improve in performance very gradually and they weigh a lot. Thus, manufacturers and consumers are faced with a trade-off between functionality and mass. To get to that futuristic world where we can replace paper with electronics and reap the benefits in recycling and energy efficiency (i.e., reducing pulp processing), the screen has to change.

These displays help crack that problem because they use far less power than an LCD. The Mirasol displays, for instance, do need internal light bulbs like LCDs. Instead, Mirasol relies on reflected, ambient light. The images are created by a MEMS -- a microelectromechanical device, or a microscopic machine -- that moves pixels back and forth to create red, green or blue. The principles behind the screen derive from how humans perceive the bright colors on butterfly wings.

An e-book containing a Mirasol screen will last three times to five times as long on a battery charge than a typical e-book, says director of marketing Cheryl Goodman. A screen sized for phones will come out next.

The e-books are also quite thin and functional. Goodman let me play with one. (Video coming soon.) It was light and I couldn't detect "hot spots" on the back surface. More importantly, the video was clear. I even tried it in different conditions -- near the window, under the table, facing away from the window. The image stayed somewhat clean and I didn't get much glare. By contrast, LCDs are notoriously difficult to see outside.

E-Ink screens contain balls that are now painted black on one side and white on the other (the color version will presumably have red, green and blue). When an electric charge passes through, the balls arrange themselves accordingly, sort of like a card section in a stadium. Liquavista (best name, arguably least developed technology) relies on electrowetting, a process based on the fact that water repels oil.

It's been a long road. Both E-Ink, which was soaked in millions in VC funds, and Iridigm Display, which got acquired by Qualcomm in 2004, came out of MIT in the mid '90s. And before the companies were formed, the research had already been taking place. Philips has shown Liquavista prototypes at shows for years.

Qualcomm, by the way, will actually make the Mirasol screen. Usually, Qualcomm just licenses its intellectual property. But with a new product, quality control is key.

I met with Qualcomm at the Emerging Displays Conference in San Jose. Other highlights:

--OLED screens accounted for $900 million in revenue in 2009. By 2018 it should grow to $8 billion, according to DisplaySearch. OLED lighting could grow to $6.2 billion by then.

--Corning is touting a green laser. A green laser is the signature product of Soraa, the Khosla Ventures-backed startup now headed up by former Intel marketing guy Eric Kim. That's a really, really bad sign for Soraa.

--Small projectors weighing less than a pound and curbing power with LED lights will be a big deal. 142 million units will ship in 2018.

Electric cars and biofuels seem to inhabit different universes these days. Nissan, General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda, Ford, BMW, Tesla Motors, Fisker Automotive and Daimler, among others, have unfurled plans to release affordable electric cars over the next few years. Thousands of consumers have plunked down deposits on upcoming models and states have sought grants to pay for charging networks.

Meanwhile, biofuel startups, struggling for cash, have branched into jet fuel, chemicals and food additives as a way to get revenue to come in the door.

The liquid versus electrolyte debate, however, is not over, according to Britta Gross, the director of the energy systems group intelligence center at General Motors. Gross' job is to examine the costs/ benefits of the different propulsion systems for cars and the corresponding infrastructure. (Editor's Note: we spoke to her right before GM filed for its IPO.)

Liquids, in fact, may well play a larger role on weaning the world of gas in the foreseeable future, she said.

"Ethanol and biodiesel will be important as the lowest cost, near-term solution," she said. "The whole ethanol strategy is a get-off-gas strategy."

Why? Her thoughts below. You may not fully agree -- and as a GM employee, Gross is gung-ho on the plug-in Volt, too -- but it's an interesting point of view.

--Ethanol cars cost less. A car that runs on E85, or 85 percent ethanol, only costs a few hundred dollars more to make than an equivalent gas car. "The incremental cost is affordable," she said.

Producing a similar green diesel adds $3,000. A plug-in hybrid or all-electric costs even more to manufacture. Advantage: ethanol.

--Electric cars will likely always carry a premium. Batteries for electric cars now cost around $700 per kilowatt hour. While that price will decline, it won't be a precipitous decline.

"Some people are unrealistic" when it comes to estimating how cheap lithium batteries will become, she said. "Batteries are going to end up being more expensive than combustion engines."

--Ethanol is already in the market and so are the cars. "Ethanol has displaced 5 percent of the gasoline consumed in vehicles," Gross pointed out.

--The historic dearth of ethanol stations may change. Most of the ethanol in the U.S. gets sold in E10 form, which contains 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gas. In 2008, former GM CEO Rick Wagoner lamented that most flex-fuel car owners filled up on gas because only 1,400 ethanol stations existed in the U.S. compared to 170,000 gas stations.

The demand for E10, however, has largely been saturated, but the U.S. biofuel mandates call for more fuel.

"We will be at the point soon where we have to put corn ethanol into E85 soon," she said. "We have to have a place to put corn ethanol . (...) We have got to build more E85 infrastructure."

--In terms of cost, ethanol (with subsidies) is comparable to gas in many regions where the pumps exist. (We didn't discuss alternatives to corn, but most cellulosic ethanol makers are still in the prototype production stage at best, so it will be a while.)

--Infrastructure in many ways could be easier and/or more cost-effective to build for ethanol than for electric cars. A filling station can serve hundreds of customers. By contrast, most consumers will charge electric cars at home, which means that most charging stations will serve only one family. GM deliberately designed the Volt so that it could be charged with an ordinary household outlet.

Meanwhile, the public charging networks needed to complement home charges could become a costly bust. Consumers will expect them, and even expensive high-speed chargers. Nonetheless, because consumers may not use them much, these chargers could wind up becoming feel-good but ultimately empty gestures.

"There is a lot of money going into what seems to be a lot of infrastructure that could be under-utilized," she said.

--Range anxiety isn't dead yet. Most electric cars will be small- to mid-sized cars, partly as a result of this.

--Hydrogen isn't dead yet, either. It won't happen tomorrow, but GM (like Honda and Toyota) still sees promise in the concept. A hydrogen car is effectively an electric car that can be refueled in minutes and go further before refueling. Hydrogen is also arguably clean. Even if the hydrogen comes from cracking methane, a hydrogen car will emit 60 percent less greenhouse gases than a conventional gas car, she said.  And like ethanol, a charging station can serve hundreds of consumers.

Sydney, Australia-based BT Imaging (BTi), just announced a $3.8 million A2 funding round from Applied Ventures, the VC arm of Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) along with investors Allen & Buckeridge and Uniseed.

BTi improves solar cell efficiency and manufacturing yields by applying luminescence imaging to the manufacturing and testing of silicon wafers and solar cells. 

BTi’s luminescence-imaging systems are used for research, product and process development, production manufacturing inspection, and quality control of silicon blocks, wafers, photovoltaic cells and PV modules. Originally developed at the University of New South Wales, BT Imaging's photoluminescence technology allows real-time electronic inspection of every wafer or solar cell processed through a manufacturing line.

BTi started out building R&D and lab equipment for testing crystalline silicon solar cells.  After shipping a number of R&D tools, the feedback was that customers needed in-line tools.  "In-situ monitoring capability is truly a gaping hole in PV manufacturing," said a colleague at an emerging PV cell firm. Applied Materials became interested in the firm when they saw the inline tools at a recent trade show in Shanghai. 

I spoke with Wayne McMillan the VP of Sales and Marketing.  He spoke of the improvements that BTi enables in efficiency and yield from silicon blocks all the the way to the module level.  McMillan claims that their tools are much faster and provide much better resolution than existing solutions.

The photoluminescence technology used by BTi "uniformly illuminates the entire sample with Near IR laser light and generates electron and hole pairs."  As those carriers recombine, the light is collected with a special CCD-type camera.  Anything that looks dark on the image is electrically poor.

The customer is looking for flaws and defects -- crystal dislocation defects and impurities.  Dislocations can reduce absolute cell efficiency by 1 percent.  The customer can recycle flawed blocks and wafers prior to the next processing steps.

Their R&D tool is sold to ingot, wafer, cell and module makers, and about 20 have been sold so far. New 3600-wafer-per-hour tools will be introduced at Eu PVSEC in September.

But it's not the imaging that the customers really need -- it's more what you do with the data and how it is classified.  According to the VP, "In production the customer doesn't want images -- they want data and analysis."  So software and algorithms are as important as the imaging itself.

BT Imaging systems can be used to predict cell performance, material quality control, process and material faults, and for process control and debugging.  The company’s inspection and QC control systems are used by wafer and cell manufacturers in Europe, Australia, Taiwan, China, and Japan.

The bottom line according to McMillan is that "the tool helps improve efficiency and yield."

Firms like AccuStrata, Laytec, and Brightview Systems are also looking at PV cell metrology and process control, although mostly in thin film.

The company has about 30 employees, most of whom are based in Australia. BTi is using distributors for worldwide sales.

The city of Leesburg, Florida was saddled with some of the highest power rates in the state less than five years ago. Today it strives to be the lowest-cost retail provider of electricity in the Sunshine State. The municipal utility still has a long way to go, but it is working hard to employ smart grid technologies, from smart meters to transmission upgrades, to deliver power cheaper and more efficiently to Leesburg's approximately 20,000 residents. 

In the world of smart grid and utility deployment, investor-owned utilities snag most of the headlines, for better or for worse. But Leesburg, about 40 miles northwest of Orlando, is just one of hundreds of cooperative and municipal utilities that are making, and winning, the case for end-to-end smart grid projects.

For utilities that answer to city councils and their constituents instead of investors, there is not the drive to sell, sell, sell more power and get an instant return on investments. And yet, while large utilities like Baltimore Gas & Electric tout the savings of smart grid, they stumble when it comes to making the business case in a way that satisfies their investors, ratepayers and the public utility commission. The savings of smart grid investment are not just being talked about by smaller utilities, they are being realized.

"The munis are the ones that are the most out front," said Alan Mantooth, IEEE Fellow and Executive Director of the National Science Foundation Center on Grid-Connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems.

In Leesburg's case, they knew that just an advanced meter deployment would cut their cost. "We told our commission we're not going to increase our rates because we're rolling this out," said Paul Kalv, Electric Director of Leesburg Power.  "And we know we'll be reducing the customer charge to share those savings." So far the city has saved about $1 million.

Kalv talks a lot about his customers. When one guy complained about his smart meter, Kalv personally went over to his house to check it out. It is that sort of on-the-ground interaction that is simply not possible for the CEO of investor-owned utilities, like Florida Power & Light Company, where Kalv worked for 22 years.

 Although CEOs are not expected to make house calls, all utilities are realizing that it is bad business to fail to engage customers. The customer service chasm between big IOUs and municipal utilities is not the only reason that smart grid rollouts have gone smoother at smaller utilities, but it certainly shines as an example of what IOUs could do better. "We want to empower our consumer and reward them for energy efficiency," said Kalv.  Until recently, most IOUs did not utter the words 'empower' and 'customer' in the same sentence, at least in part because customers were only referred to as ratepayers.

The proximity to customers, and the need to keep costs down and build efficiency, is the primary driver for the smart grid investment at munis. Mantooth notes that the push for municipal utilities is often about bringing in corporate investment to cities. The cost of electricity and the ability to integrate renewables can be drivers to win, and keep, businesses in town. "These cities want to be perceived a certain way and they want to be competitive in an economic development sense," he said.

Just behind municipals are cooperatives, according to Mantooth. For example,  Hoosier Energy, a coop in Indiana, contracted GridPoint earlier this summer to help shape and shift load.  While demand response is a hot topic for all utilities, especially throughout this hot summer, Hoosier is not just using GridPoint to cut down on critical peak load, but is also investing in residential and commercial load shifting that allows its 17 members to control costs and even out load beyond just the critical peak periods.

"Don't be surprised to see munis and co-ops moving ahead of IOUs on deploying smart grid technologies and next-gen apps," said David Leeds, smart grid analyst with GTM Research.  "This will be a definite trend, as these public utilities don't have the PUC rate-case hurdle to contend with and as the ROI on smart grid investments starts to become clearer. As unexpected as it may sound -- utilities like Leesburg Electric and Hoosier Energy are actually serving to move the whole industry forward."

When Chris Van Buiten was at a White Zombie drag race a couple of years ago, he had a flash of inspiration when he saw the electric drag cars zip around the track in a flash. He thought: If this tiny electric car can beat this dragster down the line, what would happen if you could put an electric propulsion system in a helicopter?

That question propelled Van Buiten's curiosity when he returned to Sikorsky Innovations headquarters in Stratford, Connecticut. During a routine conference meeting, Van Buiten proposed making an electric helicopter. That fateful discussion laid the groundwork for the next two years.

Jonathan Hartman was named project manager and was put in change of developing the first electric helicopter for SI. Hartman remembers the conference room meeting well because it was where Project Firefly was born.

Soon, Project Firefly will undergo ground testing. The electric system consists of two lithium polymer batteries. The electric system sits nicely in a 1950s S-300 CTM helicopter minus the 190-horsepower four-cylinder gas engine.

Hartman said that there are no commercial uses for the aircraft and that it is the company's first attempt at learning about the electric technology in this evolving field. Still, if anyone is ever going to electrify flight, even partially, Silkorsky isn't a bad candidate. Helicopter pioneer Igor Silkorsky, who invented the first helicopter, founded the company, which is now part of mega-conglomerate United Technologies.

The most challenging part of the project was pulling all the parts together. The technologies in the engine haven't been used for aerospace before and have been tweaked so the motor runs on air-cooling instead of water. U.S. Hybrid, a company in California, tweaked the electric motors it uses in trucks and street sweepers.

Additionally, Eagle Aviation Technologies was called upon for their expertise in custom fabrication and aircraft assembly to make structural adjustments to the S-3000 CTM helicopter. The two 45Ah lithium-ion batteries come from Gaia Power Technologies.

As an unfortunate side effect of using batteries to power the helicopter, the familiar noisy engine isn't humming to let the pilot know that everything is OK. That's why SI is outfitting the helicopter with sensors and an LCD screen in the cockpit to provide real-time data to the pilot.

"By avoiding a noisy combustion engine, you lose the cues that the engine is running properly. We have a real-time health monitor, a temperature gauge, and something similar to a gas display to tell the pilot how much time is left on the battery packs," Hartman said.

To be of any commercial use, the helicopter would have to run for at least an hour. But with only two lithium batteries, it's only expected to last 15 minutes in the air. You can't just strap on more batteries, either -- for every pound you put on the aircraft, it's another pound you have to lift.

The batteries are heavy. Each battery pack weighs 1,100 pounds, so that's why there are only two in this rotor craft.

"Energy storage is the main roadblock for developing an electric-powered helicopter," Hartman said.

But who has time for the batteries to get up to speed? SI wants to develop an electric propulsion system that could work in new technologies along the way. As helicopter fuel costs soar (up 90 percent in 2008), the role of helicopters in the police force might literally be grounded due to financial constraints.

Energy storage and electric propulsion have to meet the flight requirements before a 100%-electric-powered helicopter becomes a realistic possibility.

"We are looking forward for battery technology to catch up to our aspirations, " Hartman said.

The only way to know if Project Firefly will carry its weight is to fly it.

The piloted test flight is expected later this year -- that is, if the ground tests and safety reviews run smoothly. At an airport in Connecticut, Hartman is pretty confident that Project Firefly will fly, but he knows the helicopter is limited by the existing technology.

Despite SI's impressive track record, Project Firefly might be way ahead of its time. Flying a manned electric helicopter later this year might be a one-off, but even still, it will mark the beginning of a new era in manned electric aviation.

Gas isn't the fuel for car engines. Air is.

That, in part, is the theory behind Scuderi Split-Cycle Engine, a startup that has devised a novel gas engine that increases overall efficiency by 10 percent to 50 percent and cuts down on NOx gases at the same time by changing the way air gets channeled through an engine.

Scuderi completed a four-cylinder prototype last year and in about a month will come out with comprehensive test data on how it performs. A few months after that, the company hopes to show data pertaining to how well the engine did in a retrofitted Chevy Cavalier. The car test, ideally, will also let the company demonstrate how well the improvement in efficiency translates into better gas mileage.

So far, the company has raised about $45 million and is trying to raise another $40 million, according to Bill Wrinn, director of marketing for the company.

While electric cars grab all of the headlines, efficient combustion engines may actually well play a larger role in reducing gas consumption over the next several decades. Ford has placed a big bet on its EcoBoost engine, a gas engine with some diesel-like properties that can improve mileage by 10 percent to 15 percent. General Motors, meanwhile, wants to expand the infrastructure for ethanol and E85 cars. At Volkswagen, diesel gets more enthusiasm than electrics.

Startups like EcoMotors, Transonic Combustion and Achates Power have, like Scuderi, devised more energy efficient engines and components they want to sell or license. Another Silicon Valley startup (I'm sworn to secrecy on this one) will soon come out with a novel engine for generators. Some VCs, notably Maurice Gunderson of CMEA, argue that combustion engine improvements are more realistic than electric cars.

These startups have all engaged in discussions with major car makers -- particularly Asian car makers -- but getting to market will be a tough, uphill climb. Like with semiconductor manufacturers, licensing ranks right up with terms like "audit," "colonoscopy" and "dinner theater": best avoided whenever possible. Testing and certification can also take years in cars, far longer than the testing cycle for semis.

On the other hand, various national governments have imposed new emissions standards in recent years, which may force car makers to accelerate their product roadmaps and, in a pinch, to reach out to startups. EcoMotors is already in discussions with an Asian manufacturer.  

Scuderi's split-cycle engine is a "naturally aspirated gas engine" that breathes better than normal engines, according to Wrinn. In conventional engines, pistons rise and compress air in a cylinder. Gas, heat and a spark are added to the same piston, resulting in combustion.

In Scuderi's engine, the pistons on the left side of the engine compress air. The air then travels through a passage connected to the cylinders on the right side of the engine, where the gas is introduced (hence the term 'split-cycle'). The passageway architecture leads to a significantly higher air pressure, which in turn leads directly to more fuel being burned and more energy being turned into productive work.

Inventors have tinkered with split-cycle engines since 1914. They haven't worked well because the energy in the compressed air gets dissipated before it can be used effectively. Scuderi gets around this with a set of valves and other technology that push nearly 100 percent of the compressed air into the combustion cylinder. Meanwhile, the pistons on the combustion side are synchronized with how the air will get released from the passageway. In an ordinary piston cycle, the air would expand and then have to be recompressed. More technical details can be found here.

The lower-than-average NOx emissions come because the higher pressures allow the engine to operate at lower peak temperatures. The average temperature is higher, but the peak is lower. Because it doesn't hit the same peak, the chemical reaction to create NOx doesn't spread, according to Wrinn. NOx emissions are reduced by 80 percent.

Added bonus: the engine also recaptures some of the post-compression air pressure and feeds it back into the compression cylinder to pre-compress the incoming air. This air-hybrid effect allows the engine to achieve a 50 percent improvement in efficiency, he said.

Ultimately, the company will license the design to car makers. It also hopes to come out with a diesel version: the ability to reduce NOx naturally would likely be appealing to diesel makers who now have to insert additional components or materials to tackle that job.  

Carmelo Scuderi, an engineer that worked on various defense projects for Raytheon and others during his life, came up with the design. Among other projects, he played a crucial role in developing test systems for space suits for NASA and a compressor that hindered the release of CFCs. Discovery hailed the compressor as one of the technologies that has been important in repairing the ozone layer.

He finalized the Scuderi engine design in 2001, but died in 2002. His kids are behind the current commercial push. (Side note: family affairs are big in cleantech. Rivertop Renewables, Silver Spring Networks, and Hycrete are all father-son or grandfather-son companies.)

How much of the electricity in the U.S. comes from rooftop solar panels and solar power plants? If you guessed less than one-tenth of a percent, you’d be right.

A solar industry veteran from a leading solar panel manufacturer described a not-so-scientific method of assessing solar power penetration. He called it a “rooftop survey via neighborhood stroll” and even when performed in his sunny California neighborhood, it yields only the occasional sighting,

Why hasn’t solar caught on in the U.S.?

To the average power user, solar is too expensive or too complicated to install. And it often doesn’t make economic sense. The payback might take eight, ten or even 14 years after rebates.

In order for solar to reach the average consumer it has to get simple, it has to get cheap and has to be easy to finance.

More on this topic in a joint effort by General Electric Ecomagination and Greentech Media.  Read more and join the conversation here.

To utilities, a smarter grid will lay the foundation for technologies that seemed outlandishly futuristic a few years ago: electric cars, cities that can insulate themselves from rolling blackouts, homes automatically tuning themselves to the weather and alternative energy that can compete economically with coal.

But to consumers, the smart grid so far is an extra charge on their bill they don’t particularly like.

Why don’t consumers seem to care about the smart grid? The answer in part lies in a lack of awareness. A recent poll conducted by General Electric found that 79 percent of Americans were unfamiliar with the term, but those that understood it generally supported its goals.

Utilities have also chronically failed to explain the benefits, or at least demonstrate that the benefits won’t just come to them. A power distributor in Texas has noted that its 500,000 meter network-paid by surcharges to customers– will allow it to shut off an individual’s power in 30 minutes if someone doesn’t pay a bill. Consumers are not leaping for joy.

How can utilities better educate ratepayers and get the word out on the benefits of the smart grid?  Read more and join the conversation along with Greentech Media and General Electric's Ecomagination by clicking here.

Read the full press release here.

GTM Research's latest report, The Emergence of Meter Data Management (MDM): A Smart Grid Information Strategy Report, forecasts the MDM market to grow from $54 million in 2009 to $221 million by 2014 as planned smart meter rollouts occur and MDM vendors expand and enhance their product offerings.

The report defines MDM's role in smart grid build-out and presents the necessary prerequisites for MDM's success.  The report's analysis includes the best plans for MDM deployment and presents technology drivers and inhibitors.  In addition, GTM Research profiles and ranks the top MDM vendors vying for this market, including eMeter, Aclara and Itron along with eight other technology leaders.

One of the initial hurdles to MDM's breakthrough has been identifying the technology's role and value to utilities.  GTM Research's report begins by presenting a definitive taxonomy of MDM's core components, including data repositories, enterprise integration platforms and enhanced smart meter functionality.

"Accelerated deployment of smart meters is driving demand for meter data management systems," said Chet Geschickter, a Smart Grid analyst at GTM Research and the report's author. "MDM creates an opportunity for utilities to build intelligent applications across the enterprise, but they need to adopt modern system designs including service oriented architectures in order to do this."

GTM Research's report ranks the top MDM providers in the U.S., positioning California-based eMeter at the top of the list.  EMeter is most active in Texas and Ontario, where the company plans to roll out MDM systems to manage 6.5 million meters by 2014.  U.S.-based Aclara and Itron are second and third respectively in GTM Research's ranking. Other companies included are Ecologic Analytics, EnergyICT, Hansen Technology, NorthStar Utilities Solutions, Oracle, OSIsoft, SAP MDUS and Telvent.

"MDM vendors have a strategic opportunity to expand beyond core meter data management with additional features like consumer web portals and data warehousing," Chet Geschickter said.  "Their ability to work closely with utility customers is a key to growth and future success."

About the Report

The Emergence of Meter Data Management (MDM): A Smart Grid Information Strategy Report is an incisive analysis of first-wave MDM deployment in North America and will be integral to define MDM's functionality, value and competitive market.

Questions the Report Addresses:

• What is MDM? What are the core features, key system boundaries and limitations?
• Which business problems does MDM solve and enable?
• What is the strategy for managing meter data and what can that data be used for?
• How mature is the market? Can utilities count on vendors both now and in the future?
• What are the keys to successful MDM deployment? What are the pitfalls and how can they be avoided?

For purchasing or detailed information about The Emergence of Meter Data Management (MDM): A Smart Grid Information Strategy Report, priced at $1495.00, visit http://www.gtmresearch.com/report/the-emergence-of-meter-data-management-mdm.

Applied Materials had a strong quarter and beat guidance and Wall Street expectations driven by semiconductor, display and crystalline silicon solar businesses.  

Results would have even been better if it weren't for the the Energy and Environmental Solutions (EES) group restructuring plan that resulted in charges totaling $405 million. The Energy and Environmental Solutions includes the amorphous silicon Sunfab line, as well as Applied's successful crystalline silicon product lines.  These charges consisted of inventory-related charges of approximately $250 million and severance and asset impairment charges of $155 million related to their a-Si business. The inventory-related charges lowered gross margin by approximately 10 percentage points and reduced GAAP and non-GAAP EPS by $0.12. Excluding the EES restructuring plan charges, non-GAAP EPS would have been $0.29.

Greentech Media was in front on the coverage of the travails of the Sunfab amorphous silicon line.  More here.

Some highlights from the earnings call:

• Applied generated net sales of $2.52 billion, up 10%
• The Santa Clara chip equipment maker (NASDAQ:AMAT) posted a profit of $123 million, or 4 cents a share
• Orders grew 8% to $2.7 billion dollars, resulting in the highest quarterly order level since the year 2000
• Applied GAAP earnings of $0.09 and non-GAAP earnings of $0.17 
• Absent EES charges, non-GAAP results would have been $0.29 
• Gross margin was 34.2 percent including the thin-film solar equipment inventory charge which lowered gross margin by approximately 10 percentage points.

In the words of Mike Splinter, Applied's CEO: “During the quarter, we took actions that focus our Energy and Environmental Solutions segment on our most promising opportunities in solar and advanced energy, and strengthen our company’s financial outlook.” That action will impact 400 to 500 positions globally, although a number of affected employees may transfer to other groups within the company.

“Applied had strong results across our semiconductor, display and crystalline silicon solar businesses, and we now expect Silicon Systems Group net sales to be up by more than 160 percent over fiscal 2009,” said Splinter.

Energy and Environmental Solutions (EES) orders decreased to $353 million. Net sales more than doubled from the second quarter to $387 million led by record demand for crystalline silicon solar equipment. EES had an operating loss of $371 million, which included $405 million in charges associated with the restructuring plan.

For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010, Applied expects net sales to be in the range of flat to up five percent quarter over quarter.  The company sees strength in their markets but is "watching soft macroeconomic leading indicators."

Despite all the talk about carbon footprints and the rows of compact fluorescent light bulbs at every hardware store in the U.S., consumers have no idea how much energy they use and don't understand the best ways to reduce consumption, according to a new study.

The shift to educating, and empowering, consumers has been critical in the past among utilities and smart grid startups in the home area network space. But the study shows that most efforts to date have left Americans clueless and simply doing less of their regular behavior, without looking at simple changes that could reap bigger gains in efficiency.

"Of course we should be doing everything we can. But if we're going to do just one or two things, we should focus on the big energy-saving behaviors," said lead author Shahzeen Attari, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University's Earth Institute and the university's Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, in a statement. "People are still not aware of what the big savers are."

Nearly 20 percent of approximately 500 study participants listed turning off lights as the best way to save energy. Furthermore, most of the people had no idea how much energy a truck uses in comparison to a train or ship, or how much energy a room air conditioner uses versus central AC. Overall, participants were more willing to somewhat curtail their actions rather than to invest in real efficiency, even if the latter would save more energy and money over the long run.

The results of the study, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were slightly more promising when examining less energy-intensive behaviors. Although people's understanding was generally poorer when the potential for energy or carbon dioxide savings were large, they were more accurate on a smaller scale. For example, most participants were able to guesstimate the savings of swapping out an incandescent with a CFL or adjusting the thermostat in summer.

Those in the study also overrated the savings of many activities, including driving slowly on the highway, recycling glass containers or unplugging chargers when not in use. Even people who described themselves as having a high degree of pro-environmental behavior did not always report engaging in a large number energy-efficient habits and actions.

Although the study had some limitations, including the moderate sample size and a lack of incentives for correct answers, the conclusions are stark. "Many people's concerns about energy are simply not strong enough, relative to their other concerns, to warrant learning about energy conservation," the study authors write.

So for utilities and regulators looking to cut energy consumption through efficiency, how do you get people to care? For one, stop telling people to turn off lights when they leave the room. The conversation must become more sophisticated.

The problem with many of the smaller energy savings actions that are constantly suggested is that they don't offer enough gain for the effort. "We're all very instant gratification animals," said Daniel Moneta from MMB Research, an engineering firm that makes a family of ZigBee smart energy hardware and software for commercial vendors.  "From an economic standpoint, we all should have replaced our old bulbs with CFLs. If you do the math, you'd save money."

Instead of just providing actionable information, campaigns need to include information about relative effectiveness of those actionable items. For example, many people thought that line-drying clothes would save more energy than changing their washer settings, according to the study, but the opposite is true. The study also pointed out that people will often make just one or two changes and think they are doing enough, so it might be a better strategy for utilities and government programs to communicate the best two or three actions to get the most bang for the buck.

Public education campaigns and web portals should not only recommend individual actions, but should also strive to paint a picture for people about which actions, both in the home and as consumers, can save the most money and energy. 

"If we have that number in front of us all of the time, and we look at it in comparison to our Facebook friends," said Moneta, "we can see that one device next to another device has a better [contextual] meaning. I think that will certainly help to motivate customers."

For the first half of this year, the conventional wisdom was that 2010 would be the year the U.S. committed itself to a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) requiring its regulated utilities to obtain an increasing portion of their power from renewable sources over the next ten to fifteen years. Then, at the end of July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), in pursuit of re-election, threw renewables under the proverbial bus.

Conventional wisdom now holds that election year politicking makes an energy bill with an RES provision unlikely. This turn of events has provoked a wave of whining and hand-wringing. But enough with the whining! This isn't the end of the world; it is a political setback.

There are 35,000 megawatts of wind and 1,200 megawatts of solar PV out there sending electricity to the U.S. grid because a lot of dedicated people wouldn't take no for an answer. Why should the renewable energies change now?

Commentary has turned to what the renewables and environmental communities did wrong and how partisan politics has ruined everything. Reality check: what's going on in Washington is business as usual.

Some lay the blame on the president because he did not put his shoulder into the effort to pass an RES like he did for health insurance reform. But everybody in renewable energy was so in love with President Obama just twenty-one months ago. He talked straight, said a New Energy economy was possible and stayed calm when things got tougher. Guess what? That's exactly what he's done since he became president.

The president didn't turn on the renewables industries. Together, they ran up against the reality of economic circumstances harsher than any in three-quarters of a century. This economy would waylay even the wisest of political strategies. It's easy to look back and pick things apart, but doing it accurately will require the perspective of time. Those who have watched the events of 2008, 2009 and 2010 unfold shouldn't have to be told that a lot of important things got done, there were a lot of tough calls, and nothing goes right all the time.

Nobody was whining and hand-wringing when the stimulus bills of 2008 and 2009 delivered billions of dollars and most of the renewable energy industries' wish list. The president and his people made it happen in spite of the political opposition's determined obstruction. Obstruction from both Republicans and moderate Democrats is deeply saddening -- but not surprising.

Obstruction has always been a successful political tool. It stopped the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and it served the Democrats during the Reagan years. Renewables advocates should not be flogging themselves or their leaders for running afoul of it. They should be consolidating their base, working to bring costs down, pressing ahead with the agenda they know is right and looking for political leverage.

Consider the careers of some pioneers in the New Energy economy. Paul MacCready built the world's best solar-powered car in the 1980s and Aerovironment, the company he founded, built the ill-fated EV-1 in the 1990s. How would he feel to see the all-electric Nissan Leaf and the plug-in hybrid electric Chevy Volt coming to show rooms in November? Defeated? Not likely.

Tom Gray joined the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) when the idea of a utility-scale wind farm was about as realistic as putting a robotic lander on Mars. He's still with AWEA, the robots on Mars have found signs of water, the scale of wind turbines is growing and the wind industry is now partially owned by utilities.

Hazel Henderson left a Carter administration government agency in the 1980s and wrote a book called The Age of Light, envisioning a new era powered by the sun. Two decades ahead of her time, she's now working to find ethical ways for business to fund the U.S. solar industry's next gigawatt, and the gigawatts to come.

Paul is gone but Aerovironment is involved in the development of chargers for the Leaf. Tom is still with AWEA and trying to help them figure out how to deal with the fossil fools in the Senate. Hazel is now President of Ethical Markets and is trying to convince bankers and brokers to fund the fight against climate change because it would be so much better not only for their children and their world but for their bottom lines.

What the renewable energy industry has done in the last two decades came hard but engagement taught the pioneers that change comes slowly and takes work, whether or not the Obama girls and the Silicon Valley egoists think so. The Old Energy powerbrokers are not going to simply hand over the keys to the grid, no matter how many coalminers and ecosystems they kill. For over a century, they have proven they are the kind of people who double down on bad bets and make the dealer an offer he can't refuse.

But the times really are a-changing. It is tempting to quote the bard of Hibbing, Minnesota, who famously sang "Get out of the road if you can't lend a hand," but it is all-hands-on-deck time. The conventional wisdom now is that this is the hard part. Forget the whining. It's time to get to work.

Yesterday, we heard pretty positive earnings results from Suntech.  Many Chinese photovoltaic suppliers have produced revenue upside largely due to volumes with modest margin upside and stable pricing outlooks for 2H10.

But today it was Yingli's turn and they had very good news. Yingli Green Energy Holding (NYSE:YGE) designs, manufactures and sells photovoltaic modules in China and internationally.  Yingli also designs, assembles, sells and installs PV systems and is one of the world's largest vertically integrated photovoltaic manufacturers.

Here are the highlights from this morning's earnings call:

• Total net revenues were $398.1 million. The firm crushed consensus revenue of $371.13 million.
• Gross profit was $133.5 million with a historical high gross margin of 33.5 percent.
• Operating income of $83.4 million and operating margin of 20.9 percent. 
• ASP decreased slightly in the quarter due mostly to currency exchange rates.
• 2010 Guidance for shipments is 950 megawatts to one gigawatt at a margin of 28 percent to 30 percent gross margin.  The company is sold out for the year and continues to work on expansion.
• Q3 margin guidance is 28 to 30 percent.

According to representatives of the firm, initial high efficiency PANDA production was begun on a 300-megawatt capacity line. Efficiency rates of 19 percent have been achieved on a pilot line. The company expects to deliver 60 megawatts of the PANDA product at a price premium in the high single digits.  The firm also kicked off its collaboration with Innovalight to boost the average efficiency of multicrystalline silicon-based solar cells. 

Fine Silicon, their polysilicon manufacturing facility with a designed annual production capacity of 3,000 metric tons, began commercial operation earlier this month. 

The company is confident in its prospects for a strong second half of the year.

Yingli's stock was trading slightly up in the early hours of trading.

According to Barclays Capital:

• Market share gains in the U.S. could likely offset any slowdown in Germany in Q1 2011. Additionally, checks suggest demand from European markets such as Italy and France remains strong, particularly in 1H 2011. Barclays' new estimates are based on $1.40/W ASPs exiting 2011.
• Current capacity should enable 1.3 gigawatts to 1.4 gigawatts shipments in 2011, but an additional 200 to 400 megawatt capacity expansion could likely drive 2011 shipments upside to 1.4-to-1.5-gigawatts levels.

I ran into a colleague yesterday morning who said to watch for big things from Solaria.  This must be what he was talking about.

EnXco, an EDF Energies Nouvelles Company, and Solaria just announced a five-year global supply agreement under which low concentration photovoltaic (LCPV) module manufacturer Solaria will supply their solar module to enXco.  EnXco made a small equity investment in Fremont, California-based Solaria, as well.  EDF develops, constructs, operates and manages wind and solar projects throughout the U.S.

Solaria's modules are designed specifically for ground-mounted tracking systems.  The panels use less silicon than conventional flat panels, while matching the form, fit and performance of conventional PV modules.

The agreement is a combination of a firm order and options.

This is win for concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) technology, which is in the midst of a modest winning streak from the likes of Amonix, SolFocus, and Concentrix.

Solaria closed a $45 million funding round in May of this year round led by CMEA Capital and DBL Investors along with Sigma Partners, NGEN Partners, Mitsui Ventures and Savitr Capital.

Some background on Solaria and its CEO

Solaria CEO Dan Shugar has been involved in the world of solar since the early days of 1988.  He built PowerLight with Tom Dinwoodie (now CTO at SunPower), and that pioneering solar firm built over 500 large installations and grew strong from 1996 to 2006.  SunPower purchased PowerLight in 2007 for $332 million as part of their downstream integration strategy.

Shugar worked at SunPower for a few years with strong results, taking a sabbatical in March of 2009.  He then worked with the Sierra Club and helped "kill over 100 coal plants comprising 60 gigawatts of baseload coal."

Suvi Sharma, the CEO of Solaria, approached him in September of 2009 to consider a position with the company.  Shugar initially said, "No, thanks."  However, after some cajoling, Shugar and his own team of experts performed an extremely careful inspection of the company.   And when everything checked out technically and financially, Shugar took the reins of VC-funded Solaria as CEO in January of this year.

Solaria’s technology is based on dicing or “singulating" a standard crystalline silicon wafer and mounting these strips on a substrate with a lensing system that essentially halves the requirement for silicon.  The lensing and concentration is integrated into the rolled cover glass, representing a significant change from an earlier acrylic sub-assembly design.

Why waste time driving around looking for a parking space when you can simply outbid someone?

World Sensing has come up with an application that lets drivers bid on available parking spaces in downtown urban cores via a handset. If parking is tight, the price rises. If you want to reserve it 30 minutes or more in advance, the price goes up. The system reserves a given spot by programming the electronic parking meter to refuse to accept a payment from any other debit card within the reservation period.

Ideally, it could reduce gas and fumes associated with idling and prevent traffic clogs, says Drew Clark, director of strategy in IBM's Venture Group.

The company is one of the pre-public, and often pre-venture, outfits that IBM is trying to highlight through its Smart Camp initiative. At Smart Camp, startups get an opportunity to pitch themselves and VCs ideally plunk money into them. The next one occurs in September in San Mateo. ("We beat them 92 to 1/Cogito Ergo Sum!" chants the Descartes cabin at Smart Camp.)

Clark's job is to talk to established companies, startups and regulators and try to figure out where IBM's technology might best fit in the market. IBM's VC group doesn't invest in companies. Instead, it mostly tries to make connections and introductions. Ergo, Clark can serve as a signal on where the market is going. Some of the things on his mind these days:

--Expect to see servers and other high-powered computing devices out in the field as the smart grid expands. One of the primary goals of making the grid more intelligent is to be able to implement fine-tuned demand response or demand management networks. To turn power consumption up and down, however, requires a somewhat granular view of what is taking place inside of a home or office building.

Utilities thus will not be able to gather all of the data in real-time, process it, and then send signals out for turning down air conditioners or dimming lights. Instead, servers and intelligent edge switches closer to homes will access network-based databases and take the appropriate action.

Side note: networking has become one of the dominant themes of the year. As a computer giant, it is natural for IBM to promote it, but General Electric also said that leveraging IT technologies and networking will play a large role in its next five-year plan for ecomagination.

"These are going to be quad-core processor servers," he said. "More and more data is being pulled out of the data center. The closer you get, the more granular a view you get...They [utilities] are starting to think about what sort of processing on the network makes sense."

--We may see the evolution of parallel networks. Many utilities that have moved forward with plans to modernize their grids have adopted meters with low-bandwidth transmission protocols that check on energy consumption every 15 minutes. That isn't good enough for home energy management or demand response companies.

"Demand response companies will need sub-second signals," he said. "They need to take off kilowatts instantly."

To that end, these companies, particularly in deregulated states, may insert their own control boxes into homes and offices and rent fiber or bandwidth from commercial carriers. This network will interact with the utility's own network, but often operate as a separate entity.

--Speaking of demand response, some utilities will offload that task to third parties and others will keep it inside. "Some of them want to control every inch of connectivity," he said. Larsh Johnson, president of eMeter, said recently that some utilities will begin to unfurl their own demand response networks next year.

--Green IT remains a high priority in corporate America. To that end, IBM has linked alliances with SynapSense (data center assessment, monitoring and control) and Hara (software for monitoring resource consumption.) In many of these types of alliances, IBM provides sales contacts and layers on services.