November 24, 2009

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced a milestone in U.S.-Israel cooperation on clean energy technology. With financial support of DOE and the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructures, the bilateral BIRD Foundation Energy Executive Committee has competitively selected four cooperative clean energy projects in the United States and Israel. This initiative will award up to $3.3 million in U.S.-Israel funding for these four projects.

The four projects selected for award help address critical shared bilateral energy-related goals, while focusing on commercializing DOE technologies. The BIRD Foundation will assist by attracting and incorporating private sector cost-sharing.

The four projects will leverage private sector cost-share for a total project value of $11.6 million:

• HelioFocus Ltd., Ness Ziona, Israel and Capstone Turbine Corporation, Chatsworth, California have been selected for an award of up to $800,000. HelioFocus and Capstone Turbine Corporation will develop and commercialize a micro-turbine to produce electric power from concentrated solar energy. This project includes $2.1 million in private sector cost-share.
• Motorola Israel Ltd., Tel Aviv, Israel and SmartSynch, Inc., Jackson, Mississippi have been selected for an award of up to $900,000. Motorola Israel and SmartSynch will collaborate in the development and commercialization of a platform to enable implementation of a Smart Grid energy management system. This project will integrate Home Area Network and Smart Grid network management software applications to give utilities greater control while allowing end-users the ability to monitor and control consumption. This project includes $2.8 million in private sector cost-share.
• Tigo Energy, Kfar Saba, Israel and U.S. Architectural Glass and Aluminum Co., Inc., Alameda, California have been selected for an award of up to $900,000. This project will support the development and integration of a complete Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) system. The partnership will seek to overcome the cost, standardization, generation performance, visibility, and safety challenges that currently hinder large scale adoption of BIPV. This project includes $2.3 million in private sector cost-share.
• TransBiodiesel Ltd., Shfar-Am, Israel and The Purolite Company, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania have been selected for an award of up to $700,000. This project seeks to design a biocatalyst comprised of methanol-resistant lipase immobilized on a cost-effective resin for the production of biodiesel at commercial scales. Lipase biocatalysts offer significant advantages over traditional catalysts used for biodiesel production including lifecycle efficiency gains and consistent product quality, but are currently high-cost and suffer from short operation life-time as they are degraded during the biodiesel production process. This project includes $1.2 million in private sector cost-share.

The projects are expected to begin in 2010.

About the U.S. Department of Energy/Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (www.eere.energy.gov)

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) works to strengthen the United States’ energy security, environmental quality, and economic vitality in public-private partnerships. It supports this goal through enhancing energy efficiency and productivity; bringing clean, reliable, and affordable energy technologies to the marketplace; and making a difference in the everyday lives of Americans by enhancing their energy choices and their quality of life.

About the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructure (www.mni.gov.il)

The Ministry of National Infrastructures is responsible for a broad range of issues in the fields of energy, water, electricity, fuel and soil. The Ministry supervises the Israeli energy sector, including licensing and R&D activities, as well ensuring the effective use of natural resources and protection of the environment for the benefit of all citizens.

About the BIRD Foundation (www.birdf.com)

The BIRD (Binational Industrial Research and Development) Foundation works to encourage cooperation between Israeli and American companies in the various areas of technology, and provides assistance in locating strategic partners from both countries for developing joint products.

During its 32 years, the BIRD Foundation has invested in more than 800 projects, which have yielded direct and indirect revenues of about $8 billion.

The BIRD Foundation supports projects without receiving any rights in the participating companies or in the project itself. The financial assistance is repaid as royalties from sales. The Foundation provides support of up to 50% of a project’s budget, beginning with R&D and ending with the initial stages of sales and marketing. The Foundation shares the risk and does not demand that the investment be repaid if the project fails to reach the sales stage.

7/11/09

The 2009 CSP Summit held in San Francisco on June 30-July 1st brought together over 400 entrepreneurs, engineers, investors, and public officials.  The large turnout underscores the potential of concentrated solar power (CSP) as a viable alternative energy source. Though the term CSP includes concentrated PV technology, the CSP summit focused exclusively on concentrated solar thermal technology where solar radiation is used as a heat source to power conventional steam turbines.

CSP technology had pick up interest and momentum in recent years with a significant number of companies both small and large entering the space.  However the technology is capital intensive, and with project financing virtually non-existent because of the current economic recession, the pace has slowed considerably.   Though many power purchase agreements have been signed (over 5 GW in total) and more are under review, no new projects have broken ground in the US.

This is in stark contrast to the business environment in Spain where a feed-in tariff set by the government has created an artificial market for renewable energy.  Companies like Abengoa, Solar Mellinium, and SENER have taken advantage of the high guaranteed rate and have constructed multiple solar plants in Southern Spain.  Andersol 1, a 50 MW solar plant with 8 hours of molten salt thermal storage, became the first trough based plant in Europe to produce electricity in December of 2008.  Additional plants are under construction and should be operational by the and of the year.  US based Solar Reserve plans construction of a power tower based design also in Spain sometime next year.   The hope is that activity in the US will soon follow given the 30% tax credit and renewed focus in renewable energy by the new administration once project financing becomes available.

There were some cautionary signs though at the conference.  First, discussions on the cost of CSP technology either in terms of capital cost per watt or levelized cost were decidely vague.  Dan Barth from Friatec warned of “hidden costs”, lessons recently learned from his involvement in several FEED studies.  Second, though thermal storage was highlighted as a key component to handling the issue of solar intermittency and technical advances have been made, several executives from US based companies on one panel remarked that thermal storage would not be included in their initial plant design.  And finally, Ausra is now marketing it’s compact linear fresnel technology as a steam source for process heat applications, changing course from the earlier ambitious goal of being both a technology provider and plant developer.

The CSP industry is still in the early stages, and therefore expect much to happen between now and next year’s CSP summit.

The Texas legislature might have fumbled in its efforts to pass a solar-incentive bill, but that isn’t stopping big solar projects from setting up shop in the Lone Star State’s arid, sunny parts.

On Monday afternoon, CPS Energy will announce a deal to buy solar power from a West Texas solar project to be build by Tessera Solar using technology from Stirling Energy Systems. The two are sister companies both owned by NTR Plc out of Ireland.

Wait a second. What West Texas solar project? Neither Stirling or Tessera has announced plans to build a solar project, but one is clearly on the way since CPS Energy – the municipal utility of San Antonio, Texas – is ready to sign up for a 20-year purchase commitment. A spokeswoman for Tessera and Stirling declined to comment.

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“We use large structures to improve the power output by changing the circulation of wind,” CEO Dr. Daniel Farb told the Cleantech Group.

The company is seeking $5 million to $10 million in a Series B round to finance a large-scale demonstration of the technology and third-party verification of the claims.

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Rooftops all over Israel look strikingly similar: More than 1 million households in the nation of 7.1 million people have solar panels that produce hot water—a relatively simple technology that gained popularity after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when oil prices shot up sharply. As of the early 1990s, all new residential buildings were required by the government to install solar water-heating systems.

Yet despite Israel’s sunny climate and early lead in solar heating, it has been slow in adopting more sophisticated solar technologies that produce electricity from sunlight. Now, with oil hovering above $100 a barrel, a local startup hopes to build on the country’s early embrace of sun power to carve out a new clean-energy business.

Read the rest of the story on Businessweek.com.