President Obama Wednesday announced 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects that will receive $2.4 billion in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The funding aims to accelerate the development of U.S. manufacturing capacity for batteries and electric drive components as well as the deployment of electric-drive vehicles. The Big Three U.S. automakers each received funding, as did numerous other companies that regularly appear in SB.com headlines, including A123 Systems, Smith Electric, Compact Power, Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) and EnerDel.
Nissan Motor Co (7201.T) unveiled its much-anticipated all-electric vehicle, called the "Leaf." The Japanese automaker plans to begin selling the small hatchback in the U.S., Japan and Europe in 2010 and plans to introduce two additional models shortly thereafter. Nissan is clearly one of the leaders in the race to introduce all-electric vehicles to the mass market. In gaining that edge, the company has largely ignored hybrid-electric vehicles. However, Nissan said last month it will begin developing its own components for hybrid systems.
STX Heavy Industries, a unit of South Korea’s STX Corporation, is preparing to take over control of Harakosan Europe B.V., a wind turbine manufacture in the Netherlands. Harakosan owns technologies and licenses to three separate wind turbine designs. STX Heavy has its sights set on becoming one of the world’s top 10 wind turbine manufacturers and will invest about 24 billion won (or roughly $19.2 million) in the equity acquisition. STX Heavy also said it will spend an additional 100 billion won on plant construction and R&D.
German manufacturing giant Bosch has signed agreements relating to the purchase of just less than 40% of the shares in German solar company Aleo Solar AG (AS1.DE). Bosch has offered to pay EUR 46 million to the Eriksen Group for the shares. The transaction is conditional on Bosch gaining at least 75% of Aleo shares following the conclusion of a public offer. Bosch has offered to puchase the outstanding shares for EUR 9.00–a premium of about 43% over recent price averages. Aleo is an established brand name in the solar market that would give Bosch a bigger foothold in the industry. Bosch already took over Germany’s Ersol Solar last year.
The U.S. Army has selected Clark Energy Group and Spanish renewable-energy developer Acciona (ACXIF.PK) to build a 500-megawatt (MW) solar-power project at Ft. Irwin, California. The Army is planning to generate up to 1,000MW at the site through multiple technologies. The solar portion is expected to cost up to $2 billion dollars. Fort Irwin is located in the Mojave Desert, midway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The Army has suggested it may sell excess power to regional utilities.
Wal-mart (NYSE: WMT) and SunEdison are planning to deploy rooftop solar systems on five stores in Puerto Rico with the possibility of outfitting a total of 23 stores over five years. The project will be the largest renewable energy project developed on the island to date. Wal-Mart said the typical system will supply between 25% and 35% of a store’s total energy needs. Construction of the first system is schedule to begin by the end of the year.
Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar, Inc. (NasdaqGM: ESLR) has finalized agreements to begin producing solar wafers in China. Evergreen Solar will manufacture the wafers at a leased facility being built by Jiawei Solarchina Co., Ltd. in Wuhan, China. Jiawei will then convert the wafers into Evergreen Solar-branded panels on a contract basis. Production is expected to begin in Spring 2010 with an initial capacity of 100 megawatts (MW). Expansion plans call for 500 MW by 2012.
Renewable Ventures announced the completion a new $200 million fund for new solar energy projects across the United States. This is the fifth fund organized by Renewable Ventures and the first since the company was acquired by European firm Fotowatio. The fund will focus on the development and acquisition of commercial, public sector, and utility-scale solar projects from one to 10 MW in size. The fund’s first project is a two-megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic project located in Ft. Collins, Colorado that will sell energy to Colorado State University.
Massachusetts-based First Wind has closed two financing transactions for a total of $191 million. The first is an eight-and-a-half-year $115 million term loan facility from Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo). The second is a $76 million one-year loan with HSH Nordbank for First Wind’s Stetson project. First Wind currently has five operating wind projects totaling 274 MW in three states–two in Maine, two in New York and one in Hawaii. The developer also has a 200-MW project under construction in Utah.
A Cambridge, Massachusetts-based start-up has emerged from stealth operations with a process that it says can produce transportation fuel from sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2) without the need for growing biomass like corn, switchgrass or algae. Joule Biotechnologies, Inc. says it has achieved a bioengineering breakthrough that can harnesses sunlight to directly convert CO2 into liquid energy. Joule said its uses highly-engineered photosynthetic organisms in a process that requires no agriculture land or fresh water to produce 20,000 gallons of renewable ethanol or hydrocarbons per acre annually. The company revealed few details claiming the need to protect trade secrets at this point in time, but promised that its first product will be available in 2010. Joule’s chief executive Bill Sims told the Wall Street Journal: "We’re not a biofuel company, because biofuels are biomass-derived; our technology leverages a highly synthetic organism to create transportation fuels and chemicals. We don’t have an intermediary that has to be grown or transported, it’s a direct-to-product process."
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