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News: Monday, February 8, 2010
Venture Capital 2009 Investments in Cleantech Fall 50% to $2.6 Billion as Investors Shift Focus to Energy Efficiency
The Energy Efficiency category received the most US VC investment in Q409, with $252.8 million and 22 deals, compared to $133.7 million and 14 deals in Q309. This category raised $593.3 million for all of 2009. The largest deal of Q409 in Energy Efficiency -- and across all cleantech segments -- was the $105.0 million investment in Silver Spring Networks Inc, a provider of networking infrastructure and services for smart grids, based in Redwood City, CA.
[ more ]
UK Housing Minister John Healey Backs the Country's Biggest Ever Green Home Building Program
Four areas will share £60m cash to build more than 600 new homes to the toughest-ever environmental standards. By 2016, it is estimated that 10,000 eco homes will be built.
[ more ]
IBM Unveils New Systems To Manage Data-Intensive Smart Grids
A major U.S. utility moving to a smart grid pilot is going from processing less than one million meter reads per day in a traditional grid, to more than 85 million reads per day in a smart grid. The utility needs to collect, analyze, and present all that information to its nearly five million customers in real time, versus the overnight batch processing of a traditional electrical grid which delivers monthly billing statements. The company's new POWER7 systems are designed to meet this need.
[ more ]
Report from McAfee Looks at Critical Infrastructure in an Age of Cyber War
In this report from McAfee, six hundred IT and security executives from critical infrastructure enterprises across seven sectors in 14 countries anonymously answered a series of detailed questions about the kinds of attacks they face. The survey finds that the increased use of IP networks for SCADA and
other operational control systems creates unique
and troubling vulnerabilities. Executives with
SCADA/ICS responsibilities reported high levels
of connections of those systems to IP networks
including the Internet -- even as they acknowledged
that such connections create security issues. Sector
experts expressed grave concern about the
security implications of this development, and IT
security specialists stressed the need to mitigate
this threat.
[ download .PDF of report ]
Craton Equity Partners Invests in Petra Solar
Craton's investment is part of a $40 million equity round for Petra Solar that also includes Element Partners, BlueRun Ventures, OnPoint Technologies, and NTEC -- all previous investors -- and Espirito Santo Ventures. Petra Solar is currently fulfilling a $200 million contract it received last year from PSE&G.
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HNU Energy and International Battery Team for Solar and Energy Storage Demonstration Project in Maui
The renewable energy system is comprised of sixty 224-watt photovoltaic panels, a bi-directional 3-phase inverter system, and a charge controller network provided by system integrator, HNU Energy located in Maui, Hawaii. International Battery supplied a 48V, 16.4kWh lithium-ion based energy storage system -- complete with battery management and controls -- to store the energy generated from the solar array.
[ more ]
Customers Not Yet Flocking to Social Network Sites for Utility Usage Data
Research firm Chartwell polled 1,500 North American energy customers in late 2009 about their views on getting utility information via popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Although the vast majority of respondents reported they were not interested in receiving information from their utilities via the two most-popular social messaging sites, the growing numbers of younger customers who are "interested" or "very interested" make utility social media efforts worthwhile, according to a recent report from the company.
[ more ]
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