There are a few obvious trends in our lead stories this week.
The first concerns the building energy management sector. Siemens (NYSE: SI) has signed an
agreement to acquire Site Controls, LLC, an Austin, Texas-based
provider of energy management solutions for multi-site commercial
businesses. Financial terms were not disclosed. Site Controls’ energy management platform integrates
hardware and software to provide customers with real-time analytics and control of multiple locations from a central point. The platform also includes demand response capabilities. It will expand Siemen’s portfolio of building automation and HVAC control solutions aimed at retail and commercial markets, including big box retailers, fitness clubs, convenience stores and restaurants.
According to a recent analysis by Pike Research, the market for commercial energy management systems is expected to surpass $6 billion by the year 2014.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) also is expanding its offerings in the sector. The company announced new software to assist commercial
building operators in deploying efficiency technologies and compliance systems for economic and environmental benefits.
IBM says its new Sustainability Management System (SMS)
allowed its own semiconductor factory in Burlington, Vt., to reduce water
usage 29% from 1990 to 2000, while
manufacturing capacity rose more than 30%. IBM also announced that it will expand its relationship with Germany’s Schneider Electric (SND.DE) to deliver combined offerings in the sector. Schneider Electric joins other major firms like Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) and Eaton (NYSE: ETN) that use IBM’s open-standards software within their building-management systems.
The second trend concerns the emergence of solar power optimizers and micro inverters. Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE: STP) is collaborating with four companies to explore the use of these technologies in so-called
"smart" panels. Generally speaking, these "smart" panels include power
optimization, monitoring and inverter electronics within each panel,
rather than separate larger units that manage the output of all the
panels in an installation. These panels are typically used in smaller-scale residential or commercial
installation, where they can allow for greater design flexibility. Also,
the individual optimizers are said to boost power output, especially in
situations where the installation may experience partial shading in the
course of a day. Although companies like Suntech have primarily focused on driving down the cost of panels for large-scale installations, developing a smart panel would allow the company to better compete in the growing residential market, while increasing the output of it’s crystalline solar cells.
The four companies hoping to secure a development deal with Suntech are Enphase Energy (which is currently the market leader in the microinverter niche), National Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE: NSM), Tigo Energy, and Azuray Technologies. Azuray just emerged on the scene this week, announcing its first major supply deal with China’s Renhe Photovoltaic Technology company.
In other microinverter news, SolarEdge Technologies received $25 million in funding. The company will use the funds to ramp up production of its PowerBoxes system, which it says can boost the output of individual solar panels by up to 25%, while
monitoring the performance of each panel and communicating across existing
power lines. SolarEdge is hoping to take a portion of the niche market away from Enphase Energy, which has sold more than 400,000 microinverter and monitoring units since 2008.
Our next story takes us from microinverters to regular-sized inverters. Power-One, Inc. (Nasdaq: PWER) has acquired Fat Spaniel Technologies, Inc., a company that has developed technology for remote monitoring of large-scale solar installations. Power-One will add Fat Spaniel’s technology to it’s line of inverters, thereby expanding its hardware and services for solar developers and also increasing its global customer base.
And lastly, two separate analyst groups published their evaluations of cleantech venture capital investment in 3Q10.
The Cleantech Group presented the sunnier outlook, stating that despite a 30% dip in 3Q venture funding compared to a year ago, funding for the full year ($5.73 billion) is already slightly ahead of the full-year 2009 total ($5.69 billion). Sheeraz Haji, President of Cleantech Group, said the drop in funding levels reflects a pull-back in solar funding and resurfacing doubts over the strength of global economic recovery. But he said it also masks "buoyancy" in other cleantech sectors like transportation, biofuels and smart grids.
Analyzing the same venture capital figures, analysts at Kachan & Co. noted several worrying trends. Despite increasing funding levels for cleantech, there has been a gradual downward trend every quarter since early 2009 in the number of venture investors in cleantech. Managing partner Dallas Kachan also notes there are fewer early stage investments, drawing less than 10% of global cleantech funding. And finally, he said China is dominating cleantech IPO’s–while the IPO environment in North America and Europe is just a shadow of what it was in 2007.
Two Chinese cleantech companies debuted on the New York Stock Exchange this week. Daqo New Energy Corp (NYSE: DQ), which produces polysilicon for the solar industry, raised about $76 million dollars. And wind turbine maker China Ming Yang Wind Power Group Ltd (NYSE: MY) raised approximately $350 million.
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