Since the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced it wouldn’t be backing PACE loans for residential projects a year ago, the buzz around PACE financing has died down. However, many don’t realize that this development only slowed commercial PACE financing by a small measure. In (more…)

I’ve been researching going off the grid and looking into home solar systems. I’d love to get one for free, like this lucky Richmond mom. But somehow, my lucky stars aren’t aligned on this one.

The two main questions you are going to need to answer are: 1) does my home receive enough sun? (more…)

Considering switching to solar power in your house? Great, we like the sound of that. In order to make your transition to solar power a happier experience, we asked the folks at Batteries in a Flash for a few tips.

1 – Get Professional Help
This will help you in many ways. First, solar (more…)

The renewable energy business has done a remarkable job at positioning itself in the public psyche as the ‘it girl’ of our era. Just about everyone – politicians, celebrities, major industries – likes to be seen as pro-renewable.

But if renewable energy is the girl that everyone wants to be photographed near, (more…)

Energy efficiency is a tortoise in the green energy race. Not glamorous like solar, wind or smart grid, it tends to plod along in the back of the pack, attracting little media attention. But being last can be a good thing; you learn from the frontrunners.

Such is the case when it comes to financing. EE is beginning to borrow from strategies (more…)

The first step to any green building or renewable energy project of any size is finding the financing to make it possible.  Since the bottom fell out of the economy, finding investors and financial institutions willing to finance building projects of any sort has been close to impossible.  Real estate finance prognosticators, however, indicate that (more…)

Today, President Obama visited Solyndra, Inc. in Fremont California – a solar panel manufacturer that is building a new facility (and creating new jobs) thanks to funding from the Recovery Act. So far, construction of the new facility has created over 3,000 construction-related jobs and the new factory could create up to 1,000 long-term new jobs. And this is just one of countless stories that together account for the up to 2.8 million jobs the Recovery Act is responsible for by the CBO’s count. (more…)

BrightSource Energy, Inc., developer of utility-scale solar thermal power plants, has raised an additional $150 million in its most recent equity financing. The Series D round brings BrightSource’s total equity financing to more than $300 million and positions the company for significant growth.

New investors including Alstom and the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) joined existing investors in this round, led by VantagePoint Venture Partners, Morgan Stanley and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

The additional financing will be used to support BrightSource’s 2,610 megawatts in contracts with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and Southern California Edison to build 14 solar power plants in the US southwest by 2016. The funds will also be used by BrightSource to further its international expansion plans.

(more…)

Israeli fuel cell start-up EnStorage Ltd. has raised $15 million in a Series B financing round.

U.S. private equity fund Warburg Pincus led the round, and was joined by all of EnStorage’s current investors, including Greylock Partners, Canaan Partners, Siemens TTB, and Wellington Partners, according to a report in “Globes“.

EnStorage was founded in 2007 by VP R&D Dr. Arnon Blum, Chief Scientific Officer Prof. Emanuel Peled of Tel Aviv University, Chairman Nachman Shelef, and former CEO Eran Yarkoni.

(more…)

MP2 Capital is a San Francisco firm that develops, finances and invests in distributed generation and small-scale utility solar projects throughout North America, selling the electricity produced by its projects to commercial, government and utility customers under power purchase agreements and feed-in tariffs.

Its latest project is a 445-kilowatt solar photovoltaic array in Winsted, Connecticut. MP2 Capital has entered into a power purchase agreement to sell all of the electricity generated to the Regional School District No. 7 for 20 years under a grant from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund.

The system, which sits atop multiple rooftops of the school district, was built by groSolar and is composed of 1,937 photovoltaic panels from Canadian Solar. It is expected to produce approximately 492,000 kilowatt hours of clean solar electricity and save the school district $26,000 in energy costs during the first year of operation. Over the term of the agreement, the system is expected to produce approximately 9,380,000 kilowatt-hours to offset the school’s energy use.

Brad Bauer, co-founder and managing director of MP2  Capital, talked with CleanTechies about the project. (more…)