Today, Vice President Joe Bidden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu allocated $8 billion from the stimulus package for weatherization, the funds are expected to create 87,000 jobs.
According to the DOE, $1 invested returns $1.65 in energy-related benefits, including lower energy bills. A home that’s “weatherized” can save some $350 per year on energy bills, the Obama administration says.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=bcf8ec96-a5d5-40ea-a573-163974ada3bd)
The California Energy Commission expects to get $300 million, from the $787 billion stimulus signed into law last month, to “promote [energy] conservation, increase energy efficiency and expand renewable energy in California,” it said in a written statement emailed Tuesday.
The Commission also announced the launch of a stimulus Web site that will allow tax payers to track and have a say on how stimulus monies are spent. for more, see here.
Last week — as reported by GER — the Commission issued a request for proposal for research in view of constructing a California smart grid. For more on that initiative, see here.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=60564731-282d-40f5-951c-fa38d3cfdb2d)
In this morning’s media call by BP, Chief Executive Tony Hayward said the company’s cleantech expenditure for 2009 would hover between $500 million and $1billion, a steep cut compared to the $1.4 billion it invested in the sector last year.
Despite the scale back, Hayward reaffirmed investments in wind generation projects in the U.S. and Europe and growth of its solar cells manufacturing capacity, including the possible opening of a new plant in southeast Asia. Last year the company shut down a solar panel plant in Australia.
Hayward added that it would also expand biofuel investments at its Tropical BioEnergia ethanol venture in Brazil, which began operating one refinery this year and is considering constructing a second facility for a combined $1 billion investment. While growing investments in Brazil, last month the company said it would tighten investments at D1, its other biofuel venture, which produces oil from jatropha plants. For more on this, see here.
In the Middle East, Hayward reiterated planned investments for its 420 MW Hydrogen-fired power generation plant in Abu Dhabi, which it’s jointly developing with Masdar. Once operational, the facility will capture its CO2 output for injection in operating oil and gas fields to ease the recovery process.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=03f68695-61c1-4959-82b9-63d981bce2e3)
Mossadiq Umedaly, chairman of Canadian utility BC Hydro, plans to join Ventures West to help the firm raise C$200 million ($156 million) for a clean energy fund that could be launched in the next six months, reports Earth2Tech.com.
Umedaly will keep his position at BC Hydro. He joined the utility from Xantrex Technology, where he was the ceo of this power supply manufacturer. He’s also served as cfo of fuel cell company Ballard Power Systems.
Ventures West was an investor in Ballard. The firm’s current clean energy investments include stakes in 6N Silicon, a manufacturer of solar-grade silicon and fuel cell makers Angstrom Power and Polyfuel.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=20cb60e7-0bed-4303-ab61-7b6a103edb9e)
11:01 AM EDT
No Comments
This week in green energy
Underscoring this reversal of fortune was Friday’s report that OptiSolar was shutting down its two plants, one in Sacramento and the other in Hayward, Calif. Just a year ago the company said it would build the massive 550 megawatts Topaz solar farm in California’s Central Coast. Pacific Gas and Electric had agreed to buy the plant’s electricity output. But even with this marquee backing, OptiSolar was unable to secure funding.
Earlier this month OptiSolar sold its pipeline of unfinished projects, including the Topaz farm, to First Solar in a $400 million all stock transaction. At the time, the company was counting on a $300 million federal loanguarantee to stay in business as a manufacturer of thin-film solar cells.
Earth2Tech draws an interesting parallel between the end of the clean energy boom and the dot com bust a decade earlier. It writes:
The fallen dotcom firms of the past made a variety of mistakes like building services no one was ready for yet (Pets.com and Webvan), or making margins so slim that the business wasn’t sustainable (kozmo.com: free delivery of discounted goods in an hour and no tips!). But the faults of the struggling cleantech firms have been largely both underestimating how expensive it is to manufacture “stuff” and not being able to reach a large manufacturing scale quick enough before the credit crunch hit. It seemed as if OptiSolar had announced it was building one of the largest solar photovoltaic projects ever built at 550 MW, before it had even disclosed its funders or explained how its technology was superior to any competitors.
Other clean energy companies announcing scale backs: Biofuel maker Imperium Renewables laid off 24 employees; Spanish developer Acciona Windpower cut 65 jobs in the U.S.
Oil companies are doing the same. Royal Dutch Shell said this week that it would drop all wind and solar investments, arguing returns were too small. BP, over the past year, has shut down a solar panel manufacturing plant in Australia and said it would only invest in wind projects in the U.S. and Europe.
Shut downs, lay offs…. consolidation. First Solar started the process a few weeks ago with its acquisition of the OptiSolar project pipeline. That same week Spanish developer Fotowatio bought projects from MMA Renewable Ventures. It continued this week with Recurrent Energy’s acquisition of a 350-megawatt project portfolio from Chicago-based UPC Solar. In Europe private equity fund HG Capital acquired controlling interests in three Spanish solar plants from AIG Financial Products, the embattled unit of insurer American International Group.
But, there are small rays of light. This week, the Department of Energy, acting on its pledge to speed up processing of renewable energy loan guarantees, distributed the first of these to Solyndra, a California solar panel maker. It plans to use the $535 million guarantee to grow production at its facilities in Fremont, Calif.
On the regulatory front, the Department of Interior and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) signed a Memorandum Of Understanding to work on rules to regulate the development of offshore wind and solar projects.
The Wall Street Journal also reported on Tuesday that the cap-and-trade system proposed by the Obama administration, could actually raise two-to-three times the White House’s $646 billion revenue estimate, generating roughly $1.3 trillion and $1.9 trillion for the 2012 -2019 period. As is, about $120 billion of the trading platform’s revenues would fund clean energy projects.