LED Lighting’s Big Expansion

September 21, 2010

There is no shortage of emerging competition in LED lighting. Capacity is rising, prices are falling and some of the world’s biggest chipmakers appear ready to do battle.

This week LED kahuna Cree promised to spend $135 million expanding production at its North Carolina fab. It earmarked another $392 million for a new facility in the state and is said to be considering facilities in the low-cost labor markets of China and Malaysia.

Inside Bridgelux's new Silicon Valley fab

General Electric is ramping up its own production, as is Samsung, LG Electronics, Philips and Osram.  In China, about 55 producers are pumping money (some of its state funds) into their own plants.

Even India wants to get in on the act. De Core Science and Technologies is said to be gearing up for LED production at as many as two locations

Don’t forget Bridgelux, a promising U.S. producer that on Monday showed off a Silicon Valley fab where it has big plans for expansion. The company has the capacity to make 5,000 wafers a month and hopes to expand that five fold. About 180 new workers are expected by next year.

The growth should enable Bridgelux to more than double revenue next year from this year’s $30 million, says CEO Bill Watkins.

The industry’s expansion has an obvious motivation. Some estimates suggest a $19 billion worldwide market for LED lighting by 2014. There is big money to be made.

But with the steady expansion around the world, the danger of over capacity and commoditization rises as well.

Clean-room workers in the Bridgelux plant

The excitement of a massive LED market has attracted growing enthusiasm from venture capitalists. Money has poured into companies across the market spectrum, from software makers to hardware designers, including Luminus Devices, Superbulbs, Terralux, Digital Lumens, Albeo, LEDEngin. Bridgelux itself has raised $113.5 million.

There will be more to come.

5 Comments | news | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet

Mergers Seen As Clean Tech’s Financial Lifeline

June 28, 2010

Earlier this month, Solar panel maker Solyndra cancelled its IPO citing current market uncertainties.

It was not alone. Six other companies cancelled theirs the same month, though they were not in the clean-tech business.

Tesla Motors will soldier on and sell stock to the public on thsi week. The shares may even get a warm reception, despite that the company’s $290 million of losses since its founding seven years ago.

Venture capitalists predict a wave of mergers and aquisitions in clean tech.

These days Tesla is looking more like the exception rather than the rule. Other clean-tech companies have IPOs in the pipeline, Amyris and Zipcar, for example. Still others, such as Silver Spring Networks, will likely get favorable receptions if they decide to launch their own deals. (Speculation is Silver Spring could announce in July.)

But it appears more likely clean-tech start-ups and venture capitalists will make money and fund company expansion with mergers and acquisitions rather than new stock offerings. With the window for IPOs once again shutting, M&As could find themselves on the rise.

“I think we are likely to see a huge wave of M&A kicking in for clean tech,” says Alan Salzman, CEO of Vantage Point Venture Partners. The growing maturity of young companies will fuel it.

There are signs of a building wave already. In the first quarter, clean-tech companies logged 197 M&A transactions compared with just 13 IPOs, according to Cleantech Group. Despite a long list of companies registering for stock sales in the U.S., most of the IPOs – eight – took place in China.

And while the IPOs were off 28 percent from the fourth quarter, mergers and acquisitions seem on the rise. In 2009, 505 deals took place globally, or an average of 126 a quarter.

A noticeable share of the action so far involves solar technologies. Germany1 Acquisitions of Germany, for instance, paid $775 million to acquire AEG Power Solutions, a maker of inverters for solar panels, while late last year Siemens agreed to buy solar thermal company Solel of Israel and SunPower took out SunRay Renewable Energy, the Italian solar plant developer, in February.

In China, GCL-Poly Energy Holdings bought polysilicon wafer maker Jiangsu Zhongneng Polysilicon Technology Development.

But other deals looked beyond the segment. Solar City, for instance, announced in May it would buy the assets of energy remodeling contractor Building Solutions.

Erik Straser, a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, says the coming wave of deals could bring higher prices than comparable deals in high tech. That’s because target companies will need to be more mature, and their businesses will need to present obvious benefits to acquirers, such as a General Electric.

A GE acquisitions manager will need to show clear business benefits before a deal is done, he says. That clarity of purpose comes at a price.

7 Comments | news | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet

Better Place Moves Ahead In China; GE Prepares Charging Station Rollout

June 16, 2010

Clean-tech venture capital is hard to come by, and the smart grid still moves at a glacial pace.

But General Electric is making good on its thrust into charging stations, and Better Place is revving up its efforts in China.

These were the key takeaways from Tuesday evening’s Cleantech Enterpreneurs: Think Global, Think EU event in Palo Alto.

Better Place has had more success in China over the past 90 days than anywhere else in the world, say Communications Vice President Joe Paluska

The session’s overall message was clear: electric cars are hot, but capital-intensive projects are not. And corporations steadily show interest in green technologies even if they not quite sure when the payback will come.

Here is what was said:

*General Electric said it will unveil a suite of electric car charging station products in several weeks. The company has a modular approach to product design, letting customers buy just what they need. The package will include both hardware and software, and a complete set-up will sell for about $2,500.

The company announced in February a partnership with Ohio-based Juice and promised the first joint offerings would be available by the end of June under the Plug Smart name. Watch out Coulomb Technologies, the giant has arrived.

Smart grid deployment around the world is slower than expected, says GE government relations specialist Kevin Decker

*Better Place expects to kick off a battery swapping pilot project in China, perhaps later this year. The company anticipates China will step up its commitment to electric cars in the same time frame adding new cities to the more than dozen already committed to promoting electric cars.

“We’ve had more success in China in the past 90 days than we’ve had in 2½ years” elsewhere, said Joe Paluska, vice president of communications.

In April, the company took a first step into the Chinese market by partnering with the automaker Chery Automobile to develop electric-car prototypes with switchable batteries. The company said at the time it hoped to secure a pilot project.

*Despite the excitement over electric cars, the deployment of the smart grid around the world is slower than expected given the billions of dollars being spent, said Kevin Decker, U.S. engagement leader in GE’s government-relations arm.

“The smart grid is going to be big,” he said. “It’s not big yet.”

*Venture capitalists continue to be cautious with cash and start-ups find it hard to get funding in Silicon Valley, said Chief Operating Officer and founder of Calisolar, Kamel Ounadjela.

“I would not be able to raise money today with the same story,” said Ounadjela. The company raised more than $170 million since it was formed in 2006.

*However, corporations are investing. Sheeraz Haji, president of research firm Cleantech Group, said investments were up 180 percent from the fourth to the first quarters, with several billion dollars committed. Companies such as Boeing and Raytheon are participating.

1 Comment | news | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet

White House Feels Heat On HAN Standards

May 28, 2010

The White House is feeling industry pressure to complete an initial set of HAN standards as fears of a smart-grid information bottleneck grow.

Pressure falls on NIST to finalize home area network standards for smart grid

The heat is coming from appliances manufacturers who hope to enlist administration support in the National Institute of Standards and Technology review now underway to assure interoperability among competing standards and protocols.

NIST published a “roadmap” document in January with a preferred list of smart grid and home area network standards, but a schedule for final selection doesn’t appear to be in place. The aim of the review is prevent market confusion and divergence, and to promote open communications. NIST hopes to establish 77 smart-gird standards over the next few years with 14 this year.

“This has to be done as quickly as possible, “ concedes John McDonald, a general manager at GE and chair of the governing board of NIST’s Smart Grid Interoperability Panel. “There has been a lot of pressure at the White House.”

Among the leading candidates in the initial HAN standards race are the wireless technologies Zigbee and Wi-Fi and the powerline technology HomePlug. Determining a final list will provide big benefits if utilities are to deliver on the promise of demand response and greater system efficiency. Utilities need an effective distribution system with reliable two-way communications extended into the home if they hope to lower residential loads during high demand periods –perhaps by delaying defrost cycles in refrigerators or reducing power to stove tops.

California is waiting for national action so it doesn't place standed assets in the field, says CPUC Utiliites Energineer Wendy Al;-Mukdad.

From the industry perspective, standards will lower products costs and simplify development. At GE, a new hybrid water heater comes with a Zigbee connector on its side instead of integrated inside. That way it can be replaced if standards favor a different technology. However, integration would make the product less expensive to manufacture.

Product design is of particular important to companies such as Whirlpool, which promises to have 1 million smart dryers in the market by the end of 2011.

NIST’s next step is to broaden its examination of technologies beyond the Unites States to determine how technology development in places such as Japan and China might influence deployment here.

Despite the work ahead, McDonald says he is serious about getting the standards work completed sooner rather than later. It that means changing the leadership, then a change needs to be considered, he says.

He adds: “If we don’t have the house situation worked out, it’s going to be a bottleneck.”

The fallout from the lack of standards is already being felt in places such as California, where the California Public Utilities Commission put off smart grid decisions for fear of placing non-standard equipment in the field.

The commission wants to make sure utility investments don’t become “stranded assets,” said Utilities Engineer Wendy Al-Mukdad at this week at the ConnectivityWeek conference in Santa Clara. As a result, “We’re waiting for a lot of the national action on standards and protocols” to conclude.

2 Comments | news | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet

Vestas Wins Huge Order As Safe Money Bets On Wind

April 26, 2010

Entrepreneurs hope to build power plants at sea. Aquamarine Power of Edinburgh favors its wave power converting Oyster machine.

Floating Power Plant wants to combine offshore wind energy and wave converters into a single, floating unit.

GE researches electric car recharging, Better Place tests taxis, but wind energy appears the great steady

General Electric threw in its lot with Nissan on Monday. The two companies will explore ways to recharge electric cars without over burdening the utility grid. The demands on the grid and on home wiring could be considerable as electric cars become popular. The news came as Better Place began a trial in Japan with taxis designed to have their batteries swapped out when they run low on juice.

Research and product develop is raging ahead in the clean-tech industry. But the steady money appears to continue to favor traditional wind power. This was evident in a massive turbine order placed with Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s leading supplier of turbines.

Vestas said it received an order for up to 2.1 GW of wind turbines from alternative energy company EDP Renewables of Spain. According to a press release, 1.5 GW of the equipment is to be delivered for projects in the U.S., Europe and South American by 2012. An additional 600 MW could be added to the order by 2011.

The companies said the order was among the largest ever for wind turbines.

The news comes after a solid year for wind energy growth in 2009, despite the international recession. Part of the explanation is that wind energy is the closest in cost to electricity from coal and natural gas. Wind installation in the U.S grew 39 percent last year and, according to a report issued Monday, rose 23 percent in Europe.

Vestas turbines already make up 40 percent of EDP’s worldwide wind installations, or about 2.5 GW of installed capacity.

Leave a Comment » | news | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet

Can Old Fashion Polysilicon Solar Cells Survive?

April 22, 2010

Polysilicon solar cells may be more efficient, but they may never be cheap enough to compete with oil.

So claims Tom Tiller, CEO of the solar firm Abound, which produces a competing thin-film cell made with cadmium telluride.

Abound CEO Tim Tiller thinks his company can be cost competitive with the thin film cadmium telluride solar cells of First Solar

Tiller’s claim rests purely with price. The best polysilicon, or crystalline silicon, cells are manufactured at $1.40 a watt today. In four or five years, the cost will fall to $1.05 or $1.06, he projects. At $1 a watt, solar will be able to compete head to head with electricity produced from coal without government subsidies.

That leaves polysilicon high and dry, even though the cells it produces are significantly more efficient at converting sunlight to power than thin film. When it comes to lower costs, “I think it’s unlikely for the technology to do that,” he says.

Tiller, who joined the company in December, expects cadmium telluride will steal the show. He is not alone. GE, long a producer of polysilicon cells, said in March it would begin making cells with cadmium telluride. Already First Solar has carved out a market leading position in solar with the technology.

Not surprisingly, Tiller thinks he can best this industry behemoth. Today, First Solar has a 50 percent cost advantage over polysilicon competitors. “We expect to be cost competitive” with the company, he says, or better.

Abound has a simpler manufacturing technique, with only one processing step compared with First Solar’s six, he says.

Some experts question this view, including Energy Department Secretary Steven Chu. In a speech earlier this year, Chu questioned whether low cost thin-film cells can outsell polysilicon, which today makes up the majority of market. Polysilicon cells keep making gains in efficiency, he pointed out.

What’s clear, however, is that there are big opportunities for low cost producers. Solar sales will grow at a 40 percent annual pace for the next few years, Tiller projects.

Leave a Comment » | news | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet

Maxim Sees Potential In Smart Grid, Forks Over $315 Million For Teridian

April 12, 2010

The business potential of the smart grid is becoming clearer. At least to Maxim Integrated Products, which announced on Monday it would pay $315 million for Teridian Semiconductor.

Maxim finds smart grid business opportunities, but many utilities aren't yet analyzing the smart grid data they receive, a study finds.

Without a doubt, the development of a more intelligent electrical grid is at an early stage, much like the personal computer was in the early 1980s. A lot of education is needed, both with consumers and utilities.

In a survey released last month, GE found only 4 percent of Americans know what a smart grid is. Another 17 percent are familiar with the term, meaning that the rest haven’t a clue.

An equally alarming study came Monday from IDC and CSC. Research firm IDC discovered that less than half of the nation’s top 20 utilities are using analytical software to comb through the mountains of data starting to come in from millions of smart meters now being installed at homes and businesses. That’s like American Express not studying credit card purchasing data to map new ways to expand its products and services.

Survey “responses indicate that smart utility and meter-to-cash technologies are creating significant amounts of data and analytics for customer intelligence, which (would) allow utilities to study consumer reaction to pricing, identify potential revenue leakage, forecast customers’ ability to pay and limit unbilled usage through move-in/move-out disconnections,” according to a press release.

Many utilities may remain in the dark (pardon the pun), but some businesses do not. Chipmaker Maxim decided it was worth solidifying its smart-grid market position with an bundle of money.

Teridian holds 50% share of the market for integrated energy measurement semiconductors – systems on a chip, according to a Maxim press release. These systems-on-a-chip include an accurate analog front end, or interface, a microcontroller and a display driver. They are quickly replacing independent alternatives.

Maxim said Teridian’s market position with its measurement products would help push sales of its power management, real-time clock, and interface offerings for smart meters. It also could advance Maxim G3 Powerline Communication products.

Some companies are waiting for the smart grid to come to them. Others are not. Maxim’s shares were up an nickel, despite its decision to spend $315 million.

4 Comments | news | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet

GE Is Top Wind Turbine Maker In Third Quarter

December 17, 2009

General Electric was by far the largest supplier of wind turbines to the U.S. market in the third quarter, doubling the market share of number two rival Siemens.

Vestas Wind Systems, the number one supplier worldwide, had a miniscule 1 percent of the market, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

Sales in the U.S. market were strong. They topped those in the second quarter of 2009 and in the third quarter a year ago, with more than 1,600 MW of capacity was added.

Demand in the quarter was sparked by the government stimulus bill. The decision to let power companies trade future production tax credits for current investment tax credits, enacted in the quarter, had an immediate impact. Solar investments were helped as well.

However, the fourth quarter won’t be as solid. Only 5,000 MW of construction is underway compared with 8,000 MW at this time last year.

GE was the top supplier with 39.6 percent of the U.S. market. Siemens had 20 percent. In third place was Mitsubishi with 12 percent.

Texas added the most capacity followed by Oregon and Illinois. Arizona and Pennsylvania are growing their capacity most rapidly.

Source: weSRCH.com

Leave a Comment » | news | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet

VMware CEO Paul Maritz: From $600 To Multi-Millionaire

May 14, 2009
Tiecon organizers chose Maritz to kick off the self-proclaimed worlds largest entrepreneurs conference on bold entrepreneurship

Tiecon organizers chose VMware CEO Paul Maritz to kick off the self-proclaimed world's largest entrepreneurs conference

VMware CEO Paul Maritz kicked off Tiecon’s conference in Santa Clara, Calif. as the opening keynote speaker.

Maritz started his speech on entrepreneurship by drawing on his own experience, as a young computer graduate freshly arrived in Silicon Valley – on January 1st, 1981 – from South Africa, with his wife, a 9-months old baby and about $600 in cash!

“I’ve walked the path that many of you had the privilege to walk. The fairy tale and an incredible experience that all of us know of being part of a society that fosters entrepreneurs and has given us such tremendous rewards,” said Maritz.

But before joining Intel and then Microsoft as one of its top executive, Maritz had to go through some mainframe years. The computer landscape in 1981 was very different from what we know today.

“The [mainframe] world was dominated by IBM and the 7 dwarfs (Burroughs, Sperry Rand, Control Data, Honeywell, General Electric, RCA and NCR). I have left South Africa to work in the computer industry and in those days IBM was the Microsoft of these days: it was the uncool place to go in those days! Instead I went to work for Burroughs because they had a very cool instruction set,” recalls Maritz.

Today’s cool places to work in Silicon Valley are Apple (still), Google or Facebook, replacing the likes of H-P, Sun or Yahoo. But with unemployment soaring, does it matter really anymore?

1 Comment | news | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by TechPulse 360

Startup Boasts World’s Largest Enterprise Software As A Service Web Site

December 16, 2008

Aravo Solutions will announce this week $7 million of new funding that despite the sour economy will let it hire sales, service and engineering staff.

Half a million suppliers use the site, says Tim Albinson

Half a million suppliers use the site, says Tim Albinson

But the more inspiring news from the San Francisco startup might be this: it boasts the world’s largest enterprise software-as-a-service Web site, which it built for General Electric. Half a million suppliers use the site to feed information on products, themselves and compliance issue to GE, with thousands of new suppliers joining each day, says Tim Albinson, founder and CEO.

Aravo is a supply-chain company that claims its can take cost and complexity out of a customer’s relationships with its suppliers. For the eight-year-old startup of between 50 and 60 workers, taking on the GE project “was a big deal,” says Albinson.

It took 5 months to sell GE on the effort and seven months to implement the technology – a “tremendous amount of work and effort,” he says.

The $7 million in financing brings to $30 million the amount of money Aravo has raised. The series D round was led by Charles Schwab/Big Sky Partners and included Stephen Friedman, a retired chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Tony Mayer, a former CEO of JP Morgan Capital.

1 Comment | software, startups, venture capital, web 2.0 | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 31 other followers