That’s the promise of a new technology from SunPartner, a French company that has developed a 95 percent transparent 300-micron-thick solar cell module that fits right on or under your phone’s touchscreen. If phone manufacturers plug in the $1 to $2 module, you may never have to plug your phone into the wall again.

“Today, on a smartphone, your power consumption can be fully compensated while not being used,” SunPartner director of international markets Mathieu Debroca told me today. “And we can extend your battery life by 20 percent.”

That’s with currently available solar cells vacuuming up 2.5 milliwatts per square centimeter of your phone. But as SunPartner works with its U.S. partners to drive solar efficiency from 8 percent to 30 percent, that trickle of power could become a flowing stream capable of recharging your phone and giving you 50 percent more talk time.

That’s near the theoretical maximum of solar cells, and while Debroca didn’t reveal who SunPartner is working with, the percentage sounds similar to some recent work done by Swiss researchers with virus-sized nanowire solar collectors.

“We intend to double our efficiency next year and the year after as well,” Debroca said. “Going from 20 percent more battery life to 50 percent is a rational objective.”

By 2030, the ongoing avalanche of billions of power-hungry little mobile devices is expected to account for a staggering 30 percent of global electricity capacity, according to the International Energy Agency. This means that finding ways to be more efficient, save electricity, and freely and cleanly acquire more, is a bigger deal that we might assume.

E-readers are a segment of the tablet market that could benefit the most. Since many of them are high-efficiency, low-power devices, Debroca says, the SunPartner technology could almost make them entirely cord independent, or “infinite working,” as he said.

“We’re currently working with the top 10 handset manufacturers,” Debroca told me. “We expect to have licensing agreements by early next year, and products in the market by 2014.”

One caveat, of course, is in the quality of your light.

Outdoor light directly from the sun is obviously the best, providing maximum energy. Indoor light is much lower-power, offering only about 15 percent to 20 percent as much juice for your mobile devices.

But they are, after all, mobile devices. And if you need to take a walk to recharge your phone, that can’t be a bad thing for the environment — or for your body.

Image credits: SunPartner

In its bajillionth green energy investment, Google has targeted the Jasper Power Project, a South African solar plant.

The investment totals $12 million and marks the search company’s first investment in Africa. This sum is part of a larger $260 million round including investors such as SolarReserve, a U.S. solar power developer; Intikon Energy, a South African renewable energy developer; and the Kensani Group, a South African empowerment investment firm.

The Jasper Power Project will be an advanced photovoltaic plant capable of generating 96 MW of clean energy for residents of South Africa. The project is designed not only to meet the country’s renewable energy goals but also to create long-term jobs and economic opportunity.

“Back in 2008, South Africa experienced a severe energy shortage, which resulted in blackouts throughout the country and slowed down economic growth,” writes Google energy and sustainability director Rick Needham today on the company blog.

“Since then, the South African government has been actively supporting the growth of new sources of electricity to power the nation. … Given South Africa’s position as an economic powerhouse in Africa, a greener grid in South Africa can set an example for the whole continent.”

Previously, Google has made big investments in solar projects around the world. There’s a $168 million investment in a Mojave Desert power tower, a $94 million investment in photovoltaic projects throughout California, a smaller $5 million round for a plant in Germany, and a $280 million deal for SolarCity, which went public the following year.

All that is augmented by other investments in green energy, particularly wind farms.

Image credit: Google

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

The Solar Foundation is making it easier to track solar jobs with the State Solar Jobs Map, an interactive online tool showing job numbers for all 50 states.

Over 119,000 Americans have a job in the solar industry, and with a 13.2 percent increase in employment in the past year, the industry is quickly becoming one of the fastest-growing industries in the country.

The interactive map breaks down solar employment at the state level, providing information on the size of industry subsectors and shows users how their state stacks up to others on issues like key solar policies, jobs per capita, and number of homes powered by solar energy.

The State Solar Jobs Map provides a singular insight on the growing industry, apart from the numbers. The report noted that California has more solar jobs than actors, and Texas has more solar workers than ranchers.

“We are anticipating that solar jobs are going to continue to increase at the national level,” said TSF executive director Andrea Luecke. “These jobs figures demonstrate that the U.S. solar industry remains a powerful source of local job creation.”

The Solar Energy Industries Association predicts significant job growth as well – by supporting 440,000 permanent jobs by 2016.

California led the nation in solar jobs in 2012 followed by Arizona, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, proving that abundant sunshine is not necessarily essential for a strong solar market. In New Jersey, top jobs include installation, manufacturing and project development.

Although the top states don’t catch the same amount of rays, what they have in common is policy tools that support renewable energy and solar in particular, including green building and energy efficiency initiatives.

It’s also getting cheaper to install solar, which is key to company growth, according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight Report. The top solar jobs states all saw a significant decrease in residential and non-residential costs of installation, and 31 percent of employers agree that price declines drive growth.

“People want solar, people like solar, but the upfront cost has been an issue,” Luecke said. “But the declines in component prices are helping to make the installed costs much lower, and now companies can pass along the savings to the consumer.”

As solar becomes a competitive energy source for more Americans, it continues to grow the economic opportunities from east to west coast.

The Solar Foundation is a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 1977 that works to increase the widespread adoption of solar energy through educational outreach, policy research, and market transformation.

This week, Everybody Solar funded the installation of a 13.5 kW system on the roof of the Redwood City-based  nonprofit organization, which will save Rebuilding Together Peninsula (RTP) about $100,000 over the course of its 20-year life-span.

“We want to help nonprofits free up their resources to fund their projects,” Everybody Solar representative Liz Oh told me today. “So we’re bringing them renewable energy to help them benefit from going solar and getting free and clean energy.”

Source: Everybody Solar

60 solar panels arrive for Rebuilding Together Peninsula

All together, Everybody Solar will be installing about 60 solar panels on RTP’s roof with the help of another nonprofit dedicated to renewable energy, SunWork Renewable Energy Projects. The panels themselves were donated by a NYSE-listed Chinese solar energy company, Jinko Solar, and will provide enough energy to power their building, appliances, computers, and lighting … basically everything RTP uses that needs electricity.

And when there’s more power than needed? RTP will be able to feed it into the electrical grid and sell it back to its local utility.

This sort of donation makes dollars and sense, Everybody Solar’s executive director Youness Scally says:

“For each dollar we raise, RTP will save $2.20, and each dollar RTP spends on home improvement makes a difference to a neighbor in need.”

This is just the start, according to Oh. Everybody Solar is looking for new projects, and is currently taking submissions via its website from nonprofit organizations that want to benefit from green energy, and reduce their carbon footprint. That will require extra funding, which Everybody Solar is raising in a variety of ways.

“We were considering using a Kickstarter-type model,” Oh told me. “But we have been successful at getting donations through other channels such as events, private donors, and public donations via our website.”

Everybody Solar’s next event will be in April in San Francisco, where they’ll enlist some star power to go with their sun powered principles. It’ll be Solar Rock Stars for a Cause, date to be determined.

photo credit: WagnerSolar via photopin cc

Green energy company SolarCity has just announced share prices for its upcoming IPO; at between $13 and $15 per share, the initial public offering should raise approximately $151 million for the company.

In an SEC filing, SolarCity said it would release 10 million shares in the offering, and shareholders would sell around 65,000 shares total.

Shares will debut on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SCTY. Underwriters for the deal include Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Needham & Company, and Roth Capital Partners.

Back in October, the company announced its IPO plans; at that time, SolarCity aimed to raise in excess of $200 million in the deal.

SolarCity is not a manufacturer of solar panels; rather, its business is based on financing and leasing rooftop solar panels for residential, government, and commercial use. Current clients include such entities as Stanford University, Walmart, Ebay, the U.S. Armed Forces, the Department of Homeland Security, and Intel.

Risks for the business include changing regulations and subsidies around utilities in general and green energy in particular, a beleaguered but important value of the current presidential administration’s platform. Also, the government has served SolarCity with a subpoena over some U.S. Treasury grants that were part of a solar panel program.

Prior to the IPO, SolarCity has raised a total of $455 million in venture capital from the likes of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and tech luminary Elon Musk.

SolarReserve, a U.S.-based solar energy developer has succeeded in closing a $586 million equity and debt round of financing for two South African clean-energy projects.

To raise the funds for the projects, SolarReserve joined forces with the Kensani Group, a South African financial advisory firm, and Intikon Energy, a South African developer of renewable energy.

The projects, Letsatsi and Lesedi, are based in the Free State and the Northern Cape respectively, and were selected in first round bidding by the South Africa Department of Energy as part of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Program (REIPPPP).

In a statement, the company revealed that the projects will kick off in mid 2014 and will provide electricity to Eskom Holdings, South Africa’s state-owned utility, for 20 years. Jointly, the projects will cost almost $600 million, making these two of the largest project finance transactions ever completed in South Africa, and among the largest renewable energy projects in Africa.

“Kensani applauds the South African government’s large scale commitment to clean energy, and celebrates the exciting opportunities for empowering our rural communities,” said Kelley Starke-Dow, CEO of Kensani in an emailed statement. Kensani participated in the equity portion of the funding round.

The hope is that the project will result in 600 construction jobs and 100 permanent operational jobs for South Africans. The project leads will set aside a percentage of total project revenues for enterprise and socio-economic development, amounting to a total of approximately $59 million, which will be invested back into the local community.

According to SolarReserve, a California-based company, FirstRand Bank led the debt funding for the projects.

Top image via Shutterstock

Renewable energy, especially solar, is making inroads into the U.S. power grid, but it’s a very slow process.

And especially in the wake of the Solyndra collapse, it’s one fraught with political wrangling.

But there’s another country that plans to invest heavily in solar power, hoping to provide fully 30 percent of its energy needs from the sun in just 20 years.

That country is…Saudi Arabia.

Yes, the conservative kingdom and longtime U.S. ally wants to cut its own oil use.

Today, Saudi Arabia burns 850 million barrels of oil a year. That represents almost a third of its total production.

Later this year, the nation is expected to approve very ambitious plans for a massive array of renewable energy projects. The first installations should be completed next year.

The goal within two decades is for the country to have 25,000 megawatts of electricity coming rom solar-thermal plants, which use huge mirror arrays to focus sunshine into a concentrated ray that heats fluid into steam to drive turbine generators.

It also expects to create 16,000 megawatts of capacity using large arrays of photovoltaic solar cells, which are slowly but consistently falling in price as more production capacity comes online–particularly in China, which has made the industry a government priority.

Saudi Arabia also plans to add an additional 21,000 megawatts from other non-oil sources, including geothermal, wind, and nuclear plants.

The entire plan is expected to cost $109 billion, for which the country is seeking investment partners.

Industry analysts say the country can earn a healthy return on the investment by displacing a third of the oil it now consumes and selling that on the open market.

In other words, one of our major sources of imported oil thinks that spending more than $100 billion to cut its own oil consumption is a good deal–because we’ll pay them more than that for the oil they don’t use.

The next time U.S. drivers pay $4 a gallon or more for gasoline, that may be worth keeping in mind.

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports.com, one of VentureBeat’s syndication partners.

Solar panels photo via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Solar energy software companies Draker and Solar Power Technologies successfully completed a merger this week on top of closing a new $8 million round of funding.

The two companies specialize in creating software to manage solar power hardware and monitor it for efficiency and profitability. The merger will allow the companies to consolidate costs and offer customers more complete services. The new entity will operate under the Draker name.

As for the funding, Draker will use the new capital to accelerate the development of its products, boost sales and marketing efforts, and expand its operations around the world. The combined company will also maintain its existing operations in Texas, Vermont, California, and New Jersey.

Under terms of the deal, current Draker CEO Charles Curtis will assume the roll of chief executive for the combined companies. Current Solar Power Technologies CEO Ray Burgess will become the merged company’s president.

The round of funding was led by Austin Ventures, with participation from Harbor Light Capital Partners and other existing investors from both companies.

“The newly combined company brings a unique range of leadership solutions to a solar industry that is increasingly focused on capital efficiency, asset performance, and reducing operating costs,” said Clark Jernigan, partner at Austin Ventures, in a statement.

Including the new round, Austin, Tex.-based Solar Power Technologies and Burlington, Vt.-based Draker have raised a total of $18.8 million in funding to date.

Solar panels photo via worradirek /Shutterstock

Researchers at UC Berkeley have discovered that what looks like junk may actually open the doors to a treasure of solar energy.

Using an electric field, semiconductors such as metal oxides (as you can see above, this amounts to rust) can be made usable for solar panels. The electric field gives the materials the high-quality p-n junctions (the electro-chemical building blocks of solar panels) they need to capture energy from the sun’s rays.

Creating the p-n junctions needed is a process called doping. The Berkeley researchers’ paper is called Screening-engineered Field-effect Solar Cells, and it states that any semiconductive material, including cheap metal oxides, sulfides, and phosphides, can be successfully doped using an electric field.

For example, cuprous oxide (Cu2O) is, the paper says, “a highly abundant but hard-to-dope semiconductor. … We have demonstrated a 60% relative efficiency increase with Cu2O.”

“It’s time we put bad materials to good use,” said physicist Alex Zettl one of the researchers who produced the paper.

“Our technology allows us to sidestep the difficulty in chemically tailoring many earth abundant, non-toxic semiconductors and instead tailor these materials simply by applying an electric field.”

Image courtesy Zettl Research Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California at Berkeley

The advantage crystaline solar panels have over thin film (the more popular manufacturing technique) is they rely on optical concentrators which can deliver 30 percent more output from the same amount of surface area. Solaria power modules have a 14 percent efficiency rating, while the most efficient solar panels in ready supply throughout California are rated at 15.64 percent efficiency, according to SROeCo. Solar panel efficiency is calculated by dividing the power output in watts by the surface area of a cell.

Solaria solar modules are built for solar collectors which follow the sun’s movement throughout the day in order to harvest the maximum possible amount of energy.

Previous Solaria investors include Sigma Partners and Moserbaer India. The company raised $65 million in a Series D in September of 2010.

VentureBeat contacted Solaria for a comment on the funding announcement. No one was made available at press time. We will update with any comment.

Clean Power Finance connects solar panel providers and installers with investors looking to drop money into residential solar providers. Those investors provide financing to home owners, who are then able to purchase or lease out solar panels at a more reasonable cost. There are some major companies that provide financing options, but Clean Power Finance could be more attractive for smaller installers that don’t have a large market share and can’t price their systems as competitively as companies like SolarCity and SunRun.

It’s a web-based interface that streamlines the connection process between installers and investors. The installer builds the photovoltaic panel system, the investor owns that system, and homeowners make monthly payments to the investor until they completely own it.

Google made the announcement at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum in San Francisco, Calif., today. This is the company’s second investment in a residential solar provider. The search giant recently created a $280 million fund for residential solar power projects run by SolarCity. The fund gives SolarCity the capital it needs to create more reasonable financing options for homeowners who are interested in installing solar panels on their roofs but don’t have the cash to buy panels outright.

So far, Google has skirted around tying up with SunRun, another large provider of residential solar panels. SunRun has a market share of around 28 percent, though it fluctuates between 26 and 28 percent depending on the month, SunRun founder Ed Fenster told VentureBeat. That means that 28 of every 100 homes installing solar panels on their roofs are leasing panels from SunRun.

“We certainly think residential solar financing is compelling and are interested in good investments — in residential solar, or elsewhere in renewable energy,” Google clean energy spokesperson Parag Chokshi told VentureBeat.

A study done by the University of California at Berkeley found that home values increase when solar panels are installed. The study found that homes with solar panels sold for an extra $5.50 per watt of solar power installed, for an average of $17,000 more per house.

Google’s $75 million investment today brings its total residential solar investment to $355 million and its total clean energy investments — which includes investments in wind power — to $850 million.

Emerging solar markets like those in New Jersey, and third-party residential solar installers such as SolarCity and SunRun, have put the U.S. on track to double its solar capacity growth this year when compared to 2010. New Jersey overtook California as the largest commercial solar market last year. More than half of all residential solar panel installations are now done by those third-party leasers and installers, as well.

The solar industry experienced a black eye when solar panel provider Solyndra, the now-controversial recipient of a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month. That company was one of the first to receive a federal stimulus grant. But after raising $1 billion the company was forced to slash costs, close a factory and cancel an initial public offering as photovoltaic panel prices collapsed amid the economic recession that began in 2008.

Solyndra specialized in cylindrical solar panels that are not made out of polysilicon, a key component in crystalline solar panels. Solyndra was safe in the solar market when polysilicon prices were at their peak, but they fell rapidly as the U.S. entered a recession. That, along with a collapsing solar panel market in Spain, left Solyndra unable to compete with other manufacturers like SunPower, SEIA chief executive Rhone Resch told VentureBeat.

“What we saw occurring over the last several years was a decline in module prices much more rapid than anybody anticipated,” he said. “Solyndra couldn’t compete, Solyndra’s investors and officials assumed the price of polysilicon would continue to rise or maintain the high levels we experienced in 2008.”

Many governments are offering incentives for solar panel manufacturers, but the market is shifting in favor of higher-efficiency photovoltaic manufacturers because the incentives favor rooftop solar installations with smaller surface areas, senior director of global product marketing Jim Cushing of Applied Materials, a company that sells solar panel manufacturing equipment, told us. But even that market isn’t insulated from a glut of solar panels on the market.

Those incentives could expire by the end of the year, driving solar installation expansion down in 2012, GTM Research managing director Shayle Kann said in an interview. While the U.S. solar market is expected to double this year, it might only grow by around 50 percent next year, thanks to a lack of federal funding he said.

Despite pricing woes, solar panel manufacturing in the United States has some advantages over international manufacturers, Kann said. The U.S. solar panel market expanded by 314 megawatts worth of installations, up 69 percent from the same period last year. The U.S. solar market typically sees most of its growth in the fourth quarter of the year as well, Kann said. There are 7 gigawatts worth of installations already planned for construction in the United States.

“What’s happening, Solyndra is the exception to the rule rather than what’s happening across the board,” Kann said. “The US market remains a rare bright spot, I would say and I don’t think this is an exaggeration, every global solar player is currently developing or has developed a strategy to invest in the U.S. market.”

The company makes cylindrical solar rooftop systems and is a now-controversial recipient of a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy — one of the first of its kind as part of the U.S. government’s federal stimulus program. After raising $1 billion, the company was forced to slash costs, close a factory and cancel an initial public offering as photovoltaic panel prices collapsed amid the economic recession that began in 2008.

“The price drops outpaced market growth and put pressure on solar panel manufacturer revenues,” Lux Research analyst Matt Feinstein told VentureBeat. “Eventually, the market growth begins to then outpace the price decline, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

As a result, the company has closed its factory in Fremont, Calif. The company grew from $6 million in revenue in its first year of operations to $140 million in revenue. Its solar panels cost an average of around $2 per watt to produce — which is high compared to many manufacturers in China and First Solar, which can produce solar panels for less than $1.20 per watt.

“I wish we would target more U.S. companies, but the solar manufacturing market is in Asia,” senior director of global product marketing Jim Cushing of Applied Materials, a company that sells solar panel manufacturing equipment, told VentureBeat. “China in particular has been extremely aggressive investing in building up a photovoltaic infrastructure and a photovoltaic capacity, and they’ve been able to drive their costs down.”

Dropping demand for solar panels that capture between 16 and 17 percent of the sunlight shining on them has also taken its toll on solar cell manufacturers. Many governments are offering incentives for solar panel manufacturers, but the market is shifting in favor of higher-efficiency photovoltaic manufacturers because the incentives favor rooftop solar installations with smaller surface areas, Cushing said.

The loan guarantees are one of the financial engines powering many cleantech investments in Silicon Valley. But concerns about burgeoning debt in the United States have raised questions about whether the program will continue to exist. The program will likely continue to exist in its current form for electric car manufacturers, but other cleantech sectors could be in jeopardy, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Ray Lane told VentureBeat. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has a large presence in the cleantech space with investments in Fisker Automotive and electric bus manufacturer Proterra.

The U.S. government has allotted an enormous amount of money to companies like solar panel manufacturer First Solar. The program has issued conditional guarantees valued at around $16 billion to solar power projects and $38 billion to clean technology projects. Other countries stimulate cleantech expansion by other means, like feed-in tariffs.

“I don’t think (cutting the loan program) will ever not be on the table,” Feinstein said. “Newer technologies, unproven technologies are the ones that would suffer most because they rely on those loan guarantee programs.

Solyndra’s annual revenues topped $140 million last year amid growth in U.S. and European markets. Solyndra had shipped nearly 100 megawatts of panels and expected to reach an installed system cost-of-goods-sold price of about $2 per watt in the first quarter of 2013 as of February.

The Baccini Pegaso solar panel printer reduces overall manufacturing costs for solar panels screen printing — a part of the process of manufacturing a cell — by around 5 percent. But the machines can produce solar panels that capture more sunlight and convert it to electricity than typical photovoltaic solar panels, Applied Materials senior director of global product marketing Jim Cushing told VentureBeat. Improving solar panel efficiency ends up reducing the cost of generating a watt of electricity from solar power.

“If you look at our customers, they’ve spent the last two years doing two things: scaling by building a lot more factories and trying to lower the cost,” he said. “The scaling part is slowing down right now, they’re lowering the price right now, so the focus right now is how we get our efficiencies up.”

There is a glut of solar panels on the market right now, which has driven the price of photovoltaic solar panels down. Most of the solar panels on the market that capture between 16 and 17 percent of the sunlight shining on the panel, Lux Research analyst Matt Feinstein told VentureBeat. That’s compared to higher-efficiency panels that capture around 17.5 to 18 percent of sunlight, where there is a lot of demand, Cushing said.

“There is significant overcapacity in solar,” he said. “Falling prices are good for making solar power more competitive with other sources, but we have the (average selling price) declines outpacing market growth — meaning industry revenues will actually dip short-term and remain flat through 2016.”

Most government incentives for solar power are available geared toward home owners and manufacturers that build solar panels for home rooftops. There’s a smaller surface area available for the panels, which typically need to face a certain direction. Efficiency is more important to take full advantage of solar power in that situation, Cushing said.

“From end customer demand all the way down there, there’s demand for higher-efficient solar panels, and that’s working its way all the way through the supply chain,” Cushing said. “Cell manufacturers are finally able to get a premium on their high-efficiency solar cells.”

Applied Materials sells its manufacturing technology primarily to solar panel manufacturers in Asia and China. That region rose from an upstart to the top solar panel manufacturer in the world in around 3 years. But the region only accounts for around 3 percent of solar power produced globally.

Infinia’s PowerDish is a parabolic disk covered with mirrors that concentrate sunlight. That light hits a small point on something called a Stirling engine, which uses the heat generated from the sunlight to create a temperature differential across the engine. That causes helium gas in the engine to expand and contract, which pushes a piston and generates electricity.

Stirling engines are a variation of a class of energy projects that use the heat generated from sunlight to produce electricity. Other methods include using a large array of mirrors to heat a point on a tower, which heats up molten salt that boils water and powers a steam engine. Solar thermal power projects have attracted $2 billion in federal funding this year alone.

Infinia raised $50 million in its most recent funding round in 2008. GLG Partners led the $50 million round, with Wexford Capital and previous investors Vulcan Capital, Khosla Ventures, EQUUS Total Returns, Idealab and Power Play Energy also participating. The company also raised $9.5 million in 2007 and $3.5 million in early 2005.

The company snagged a $30 million loan from Ex-Im Bank to build solar dishes that generate 10 megawatts worth of electricity for customers in India earlier this year. The company hired a new chief executive, Mike Ward, in April.

VentureBeat has contacted the Infinia for additional details.

Via Earth2Tech

Khosla Ventures partners Jim Kim and Alex Kinnier have followed former partner Gideon Yu in leaving the cleantech investing firm. The turnover has clouded the future of clean technology investment firms, which are exposed to higher risk and lower returns now that the initial excitement has died down.

“Not unlike most sectors, there’s a period of exuberance that tends to kick off a particular sector and then it settles down into the hard work necessary to build real value,” Mohr Davidow Ventures general partner Josh Green told VentureBeat. “We’re into that real value building element of clean technology, so a little bit of the excitement has slowed down.”

Cleantech investing is particularly sensitive to investor sentiment because the sector typically requires massive upfront capital costs and, as a result, is a little more risky. A recent broad market sell-off that scattered public investors hasn’t helped much either, leaving less liquidity on the table for venture capital firms looking to cash in on high-priced initial public offerings.

That’s made investors turn to safer investments like treasuries and bonds as well as less capital-intensive startups, like business social network LinkedIn and those in the Web 2.0 space. The sell-off has also raised questions about whether the window for companies looking to file for an initial public offering has closed.

The Khosla Way

When Vinod Khosla (pictured above) left Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2004 to invest in clean technology startups, he swung for the fences. Khosla was known for taking a “portfolio” approach to cleantech investing by dropping money in just about every potential part of the budding sector, from biofuels to smart grid companies. The company has invested in some information tech companies like group texting service GroupMe, but it has traditionally been known as a clean technology investment firm.

But the excitement during clean technology’s honeymoon period has started to die down. That’s left venture capital firms that are heavily exposed to clean technology investments at a disadvantage compared to the likes of Andreessen-Horowitz and Accel Partners, which are investing in the newest and sexiest startups in Silicon Valley.

VantagePoint Venture Partners was able to ride the existing excitement by investing in companies like electric car maker Tesla Motors, which successfully went public, and solar power provider Brightsource Energy, which has filed for an initial public offering. It also invested in biofuels maker Solazyme, which also went public. But right now, it seems Fisker Automotive and Bloom Energy are the “aha” moments in clean technology right now, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Ray Lane told VentureBeat.

Yu, an investor in transaction provider Square, left Khosla Ventures in earlier this year to become the chief strategy officer of the San Francisco 49ers — an established sports franchise with five Superbowl victories. Kinnier planned to start his own company after joining Khosla Ventures from search giant Google. Kim has not said what his plans are after leaving the firm.

Slower investing, lighter IPOs

Investments in clean technology companies slowed in the second quarter this year. The amount of money invested clean technology projects fell 10 percent to $1.83 billion when compared to $2.03 billion in the second quarter of 2010.

Algae-based biofuel maker Solazyme raised $227 million from its initial public offering in June, while biofuel maker KiOR raised $150 million in its initial public offering in May. (Both companies’ share prices were crushed in the market sell-off on Monday, with each company losing more than 16 percent of its share’s value by the end of trading.) Smart grid developer Silver Spring Networks only plans to raise $150 million in its upcoming initial public offering.

That’s compared to business social network LinkedIn, which raised more than $350 million without flinching. That company also picked up a market cap of nearly $10 billion before the sell-off wiped out more than $3 billion in value. Two other Web 2.0 companies, Groupon and Zynga, already filed to go public. Groupon wants to raise up to $750 million, while Zynga wants to raise up to $1 billion.

Meanwhile, mergers and acquisitions activity in the tech space — particularly companies that use cloud computing technology, which uses powerful remote servers to execute computationally-intensive tasks — is exploding. The amount of money spent on mergers and acquisitions in those spaces nearly doubled to $52 billion in the second quarter this year, up from $30 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

The lack of excitement could lead to a cash crunch for clean technology companies that need to raise large later rounds of funding to continue working through their larger capital costs. It’s a vicious cycle that threatens to dismantle the cleantech investing ethos if it were left to run rampant.

“There would be very greatly reduced interest on the part of venture capital firms to fund anything,” Claremont Creek Ventures partner Nat Goldhaber told VentureBeat. “That means that follow-on capital could be more difficult than it has been historically to pick up.”

There’s also concern over whether government grants that have helped clean technology companies with their large capital costs will persist, which could also take the wind out of the sails for cleantech companies.

“Many of those investments were made possible by TARP and other extra ordinary grants,” Goldhaber said. “Brightsource, Tesla and many others were recipients of very large investments by the Fed, who knows what’s going to happen with that.”

Focus Electric car buyers will have the option to buy a rooftop solar charging system that costs around $10,000 after federal tax credits. The panels generate around 2.5 kilowatts of power, which is enough to charge an electric car to the point that it can drive around 1,000 miles with typical driving habits. The panels will generated 3,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year on average.

“If you’re selling electric vehicles, your potential buyers want people to know they’re driving electric cars,” Kachan & Co. managing partner Dallas Kachan told VentureBeat. “So attaching big, visible solar chargers make merchandising sense, even if they don’t charge vehicles a meaningful amount.”

The electricity generated by the panels powers the cars directly, taking some load off the power grid. When owners aren’t charging cars, the panels divert the electricity to the home. It’s part of what’s called “distributed solar,” which is designed to help reduce some of the strain on power grids during peak usage hours when homes are drawing more electricity for air conditioning or, in the future, electric car charging.

Distributed solar is viewed as one way of relieving strain on a power grid that faces the risk of excessive demand if electric cars become popular in the mainstream. It’s spawned a number of companies that lease and sell solar panels on homes and generated a lot of interest from investors. Search giant Google recently created a $280 million fund for residential solar power projects run by residential solar panel provider SolarCity.

A study done by the University of California at Berkeley found that home values increase when solar panels are installed. The study found that homes with solar panels sold for an extra $5.50 per watt of solar power installed, for an average of $17,000 more per house.

The United States manufactured only 7 percent of the world’s solar panels last year, according to the Energy Department. That’s down from 27 percent in 2000 and 43 percent in 1995. Most solar panels are now manufactured in China, where more lax labor laws make it cheaper to manufacture and deliver solar panels.

“This certainly helps, but just to put it in perspective, the chinese government is dealing in billions when they support these areas, not millions” Craig Lund, vice president of business development at 1366 Technologies, told VentureBeat. “U.S. market share has dropped precipitously in the past decade while China has done a lot to subsidize manufacturing.”

The new investments, which will come over the course of two years, are geared toward companies that reduce the cost of manufacturing solar panels and scaling up solar-panel production. But reducing the cost of manufacturing solar panels won’t necessarily give the U.S. a competitive edge in producing them, Kachan & Co. managing partner Dallas Kachan told VentureBeat.

“The biggest challenge in solar-cost reduction is not module price, but balance-of-system costs,” he said. “It takes time and money to fasten panels in place, run cabling and install inverters.”

But there is renewed interest in manufacturing in the United States thanks to favorable exchange rates. That’s prompted companies like silicon wafer producing company 1366 Technologies, which recently filed for a conditional Department of Energy loan, to reconsider manufacturing stateside. The investment from the Department of Energy is a small step in that direction, Lund said.

“Generally, the exchange rate is moving in our favor,” Lund said. “The time is right. It’s as good as it’s been in a while.”

The investment is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s SUNSHOT initiative, which is attempting to bring the cost of electricity for solar panels down to around 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. That would make it more competitive with other kinds of power like fossil fuels, which enjoy much lower costs per kilowatt-hour of electricity and do not carry the same upfront capital costs solar panels have.

The “Level 2″ 240-volt chargers can charge an electric car like the Nissan Leaf to an 80-percent charge in around 3 hours. SolarCity sells the chargers outright, but gives their solar leasing customers a discount. So residents who lease solar panels are essentially getting subsidized electric car chargers that are priced below market value.

“We’ll install an electric vehicle charging station whether they’re a solar customer or not,” SolarCity spokesperson Johnathan Bass told VentureBeat. “But if you’re a solar customer it delivers a lot of additional economic benefit.”

The electric car chargers can pull electricity from solar panels installed on homes during the day. They pull electricity from a typical power grid at night, but owners are credited for that electricity when their rooftop solar panels produce it during the day, Bass said.

There are two other types of electric car chargers — a low-volt Level 1 charger and a super-fast 480-volt charging station that can charge an electric car much more quickly.

“We’re doing level 2 today, this is our announcement, but we’ll be open to using additional chargers in the future,” Bass said.

SolarCity leases residential solar panels for a 15-year period, handling all the maintenance during the life of the lease. The electricity generated by the panels powers homes directly, taking some load off the electric grid. The company works in the “distributed solar” space, which is designed to help reduce some of the strain on power grids during peak usage hours when homes are drawing more electricity for air conditioning or, in the future, electric car charging.

The company also works with home owners to introduce a number of other energy efficiency tweaks as part of a program it started in 2009. For example, homeowners can hire SolarCity to install more efficient lighting and cooling services and seal up air ducts for better insulation.

Google recently created a $280 million fund for residential solar power projects run by SolarCity. The fund gives SolarCity the capital it needs to create more reasonable financing options for homeowners who are interested in installing solar panels on their roofs but don’t necessarily have the cash to buy panels outright. SolarCity is also raising $42 million in its most recent funding round.

The next victim of the United States debt crisis could be conditional loan guarantees, says a prominent venture capitalist.

The loan guarantees are one of the financial engines powering many cleantech investments in Silicon Valley.

“I think the loan guarantee programs could go away,” Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers partner Ray Lane told VentureBeat. “I think everybody is concerned about the loan guarantee program, fewer are concerned about (the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program) ATVM.”

A loan guarantee from the Department of Energy helps companies attract buyers and investors for new renewable energy projects. It means the government will foot the bill if the project does not take off or is unable to produce some kind of return for investors. It’s one of the ways the U.S. government is promoting renewable energy.

The loan program comes in three flavors: the 1703, 1705 and ATVM programs. The ATVM program is specifically designed for electric car manufacturers. That program probably won’t go anywhere because of rising gas prices and because of a desire to make the United States as “clean” as other countries with very high gas prices.

The U.S. government has allotted an enormous amount of money to companies like solar panel manufacturer First Solar. The program has issued conditional guarantees valued at around $16 billion to solar power projects and $38 billion to clean technology projects. Other countries stimulate cleantech expansion by other means, like feed-in tariffs. While the loan program is important, Lane said it might not be the right way to approach cleantech funding.

“The role of the government isn’t necessarily to give out loans but to stimulate innovation, and I think we are dangerously close to the government getting out of that role,” he said. “If you look at the amount of greentech R&D this country did over the past couple of years, it’s really tiny; we basically had a $1 billion R&D budget.”

One of the U.S. Department of Energy’s most stellar programs is the Advanced Research Projects Association – Energy, he said. That program allots between $3 million and $5 million for highly disruptive clean technology projects and will likely endure the debt crisis because it is popular, low-cost and has a high potential to create innovative technology, he said.

“It’s not dependent on budget cycle tax payer funding, it’s a natural gas-fired market and you expect power to get more expensive and it’s in the same wholesale market as New Jersey,” Fenster told VentureBeat. “The market is large, no reason to think the adoption rates in Maryland would be materially different from New Jersey.”

The decision to enter a new state is never taken lightly, he said. There are a lot of stars that have to align — both in terms of consumer demand and the regulatory environment — for it to be worthwhile when opening in a new state, he said. New Jersey was the last state SunRun expanded to, where it now has a 0.2 percent market penetration in terms of electricity generation.

“When we’re looking at what states to operate in, we look at first cut — where can we legally operate, which is not everywhere,” Fenster said.

SunRun installs and maintains panels for the duration of a lease and gives customers the option to buy the panels at the end of the lease. The electricity generated by the panels powers homes directly, taking some load off the electric grid. The company works in the “distributed solar” space, which is designed to help reduce some of the strain on power grids during peak usage hours when homes are drawing more electricity for air conditioning or, in the future, electric car charging.

SunRun has a market share of around 28 percent, though it fluctuates between 26 and 28 percent depending on the month, Fenster said. That means that 28 of every 100 homes installing solar panels on their roofs are leasing panels from SunRun. SolarCity is currently the second-largest provider of residential solar panels behind SunRun with a 14 percent share of the leasable solar panel market.

Google recently created a $280 million fund for residential solar power projects run by SolarCity. The fund gives SolarCity the capital it needs to create more reasonable financing options for homeowners who are interested in installing solar panels on their roofs but don’t necessarily have the cash to buy panels outright.

A study done by the University of California at Berkeley found that home values increase when solar panels are installed. The study found that homes with solar panels sold for an extra $5.50 per watt of solar power installed, for an average of $17,000 more per house. That goes against a lot of not-in-my-backyard arguments that have been plaguing clean energy providers because some homeowners see solar panels and wind turbines as an eyesore.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers led venture capital firms in the number of fundraising rounds. The venture capital firm participated in a total of 12 rounds, including those of electric bus manufacturer Proterra and iControl Networks. Draper Fisher Jurveston had the next highest number of investments at six fundraising rounds.

Companies that produce technology that helps increase energy efficiency through the use of more advanced computer algorithms that plug into the “smart grid” led the clean technology sector in the second quarter. Those companies brought in $428 million in investments, including efficient lighting systems Bridgelux’s $80 million round led by Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital.

Most firms invested in North American-based companies. Those companies raised $1.42 billion in the second quarter this year, down 10 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. Californian companies led the region by bringing in $611 million in venture capital investments.

Nearly a dozen companies made their debut in public trading in the second quarter this year, bringing in about $2 billion in funding. Algae-based biofuel maker Solazyme made the biggest splash in U.S.-based markets after making its debut on the NASDAQ stock market. That company raised $227 million in its initial public offering.

Here’s a breakdown of the clean technology sectors that received funding:

Energy Efficiency: $428 million across 38 deals, led by Bridgelux’s $80 million funding round.

Solar Power: $363 million across 27 deals, led by solar panel manufacturer Suniva’s $94.7 million funding round.

Biofuels: $237 million across 12 deals, led by trash-to-fuel company Enerkem’s $60 million funding round.

Transportation: $176 million across 9 deals, led by luxury hybrid electric car maker Fisker Automotive’s $100 million funding round.

SolarCity leases residential solar panels for a 15-year period, handling all the maintenance during the life of the lease. The electricity generated by the panels powers homes directly, taking some load off the electric grid. The company works in the “distributed solar” space, which is designed to help reduce some of the strain on power grids during peak usage hours when homes are drawing more electricity for air conditioning or, in the future, electric car charging.

Google recently created a $280 million fund for residential solar power projects run by SolarCity. The fund gives SolarCity the capital it needs to create more reasonable financing options for homeowners who are interested in installing solar panels on their roofs but don’t necessarily have the cash to buy panels outright.

SolarCity is currently the second-largest provider of residential solar panels behind SunRun. SolarCity has a market share of around 14 percent of the leasable solar panel market, while SunRun has a market share of around 28 percent.

A study done by the University of California at Berkeley found that home values increase when solar panels are installed. The study found that homes with solar panels sold for an extra $5.50 per watt of solar power installed, for an average of $17,000 more per house. That goes against a lot of not-in-my-backyard arguments that have been plaguing clean energy providers because some homeowners see solar panels and wind turbines as an eyesore.

The Department of Energy has awarded First Solar a $680 million conditional loan guarantee for its Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 project. The government has also awarded the company partial loan guarantees for First Solar’s Topaz Solar and Desert Sunlight projects. First Solar is shooting for $1.93 billion and $1.88 billion loans for those projects, respectively. The three California projects will generate around 1,330 megawatts of power altogether.

This is the U.S. Department of Energy’s largest single commitment to a solar power company to date. The program has allotted around $16 billion to solar power projects and $38 billion to clean technology projects.

A loan guarantee from the Department of Energy helps companies like First Solar attract buyers and investors for new renewable energy projects. Basically it means the government will foot the bill if the project does not take off or is unable to produce some kind of return for investors. It’s one of the ways the U.S. government is promoting renewable energy.

First Solar was the first company to bring the cost of solar power down below $1 per watt. The company manufactures thin-film solar panels from a Cadmium-Telluride (CdTe) compound. Those solar panels have a lower efficiency rating than crystalline silicon panels, but can operate in a wider range of environments. For example, CdTe solar panels perform better and generate more power in days with more cloud cover than crystalline silicon panels.

First Solar became the last major U.S.-based independent solar panel manufacturer after French oil company Total bought a majority stake in SunPower. But it also struggled to grow in its most recent operating quarter, and the company had a lukewarm outlook for the remainder of the year. It’s essentially the last major player on the solar panel manufacturing stage.

SoloPower manufactures photovoltaic cells, which capture sunlight and convert it to electricity on a flexible surface that can be bent and placed just about anywhere. They’re called thin-film solar panels, but they are typically less efficient at capturing sunlight and converting it to electricity than hard wafer-style photovoltaic cells. Thin-film solar panels are usually able to convert about 15 to 20 percent of the light shining on the panel into energy.

The company filed a form with the SEC that indicated it has raised $13.5 million but only planned to raise around $20 million in March. The new filing indicates a much higher target for fundraising in its fifth round of funding.

SoloPower recently snagged a $197 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a thin-film solar panel factory in Wilsonville, Ore. It also raised $51 million in its fourth round of funding and a $20 million loan from Oregon’s state government.

Crosslink Capital and Hudson Clean Energy Partner participated in this round of funding, according to the filing.

Astrum, one of the largest residential solar panel providers on the East Coast, will install systems on around 2,000 homes this year. The average price for a home solar system is around $30,000 for an array that generates 10 kilowatts of power, based on a dozen or so quotes made through the site’s price calculator.

Solar panels on homes can help reduce some of the strain on power grids during peak usage hours, as when homes draw more electricity for air conditioning or electric car charging. It’s part of a “distributed solar” power strategy designed to reduce electricity demands on local power grids.

Interest has also been growing in companies that lease out and maintain home solar panels. Google recently invested $280 million in SolarCity, a provider of residential solar panels. SunRun, the largest provider of home solar panels, also won General Electric’s Ecomagination Challenge. That award came with an investment, though the company wouldn’t specify how much funding it received from GE.

A study done by the University of California at Berkeley found that home values increase an average of $17,000 more per house when solar panels are installed.

Solar panel micro-inverters transform a direct current generated by the photovoltaic cell on the panel into an alternating current. The alternating current is fed into a power grid, which can’t accept a direct current. Micro-inverters are built into a single solar panel rather than an array of solar panels. As a result, the total electrical output of a solar array does not suffer when a single solar panel is damaged or in the shade.

Enphase Energy’s micro-inverters are compatible with about 80 percent of solar modules currently on the market.

Enphase Energy filed to go public and raise up to $100 million earlier this month. Like a number of other companies filing to go public this year, Enphase has not been profitable for several years. The company lost $21.8 million in 2010 and $16.7 million in 2009. It also lost $9.3 million in the first quarter this year, up from a loss of $3.7 million in the first quarter of 2010.

The company brought in $18.1 million in revenue in the first quarter this year, up 56 percent from $11.6 million in the first quarter of 2010. It brought in $61.7 million in revenue in 2010, up 205 percent from $20.2 million in revenue in 2009.

Enphase raised $63 million in its last funding round in July last year led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The company raised $22.6 million in a funding round in May 2009 and $6.5 million in January 2008. The company has raised a total of around $113 million to date.

Competitor SolarBridge also recently closed a $19 million funding round led by Rho Ventures and Battery Ventures. SolarBridge’s micro-inverters last around 25 years, compared to typical centralized power inverters that usually last around a decade. SolarBridge also includes a 25-year warranty on its micro-inverters. SolarBridge has raised round $46 million total after launching in 2004.

Petaluma, Calif.-based Enphase Energy was founded in 2006. Its investors include Third Point Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners, Madrone Capital Partners, PCG Asset Management and Applied Ventures, and Bay Partners.

The AMP Project will install around 733 megawatts worth of solar panels on the rooftops of warehouses owned by Prologis. The electricity generated by the solar panels will then be sold to utility companies and distributed across the grid. It’s one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s largest loan guarantee commitments, though the department didn’t specify how much of the loan it would guarantee for the project.

NRG Energy will fund the first phase of the project, which will create a 15.4 megawatt array of solar panels in southern California. The company will create a power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison. When completed, Project Amp should generate enough electricity to power 88,000 homes, the Department of Energy said.

The Department of Energy offers loan guarantees to help companies attract buyers and investors for renewable energy projects. Under the guarantee, the federal government will foot the bill if the project does not take off or is unable to get some kind of return for investors.

The U.S. Department of Energy has committed a total of $33 billion in conditional loan guarantees to clean technology projects across the country. The department has committed $12 billion of that money to solar power projects.

The projects will range from ones that will generate 5 megawatts worth of power to more than 100 megawatts. The firm is hoping to invest in projects that will generate around 1 gigawatt worth of power by 2016. Most of the projects the company will invest in will generate between 5 and 20 megawatts of power, CleanPath said.

CleanPath will invest money from the new fund in North America primarily. The companies that receive an investment will receive capital, lines of credit and mentorship from the advisors at CleanPath.

Once the solar panel plant comes online, CleanPath can sell its stake in the company and use the funds to invest in a new solar power project. Firms like CleanPath can provide critical funding necessary for startups and other solar panel manufacturers to bring a panel manufacturing plant online so they can start making money producing the panels.

The firm is based in San Francisco, Calif. The firm has invested in solar power projects that generate more than 50 megawatts worth of power and biomass renewable energy projects that produce 100 megawatts worth of power. It has financed, owned and operated more than $300 million worth of solar power assets, the firm said.

Alta Devices said it was able to produce Gallium Arsenide solar panels that capture 28.2 percent of the light shining on the panel and convert it to electricity, up from a previous efficiency rating of 27.6 percent that the company produced last year. The last record for solar panel efficiency rating was 26.4 percent, according to results verified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Wafer-style solar panels have a theoretical efficiency rating of 33.5 percent, according to the company. Alta Devices appears to be developing solar panels that will eventually reach that efficiency rating. The company is one of several solar panel manufacturers that focus on wafer-style solar panels that operate best in clear days when the sun is shining directly on the panel.

Thin-film solar panels like those that First Solar manufacture do not have efficiency ratings as high as those types of solar panels. But they are able to perform better in diffuse light situations and in high-temperature environments, said First Solar’s Pam Hegarty. Those panels take up more space than crystalline solar panels and cost more to install, but can generate more electricity in non-optimal environments, she said.

“All things being equal, those systems have a higher conversion efficiency,” she said. “But when the sun is not at a 90 degree angle, thin-film solar cells absorb more of that light and has a broader energy curve than crystalline silicon panels.”

Alta Devices recently raised $72 million in its most recent round of funding despite still being in stealth mode. A job posting at the time indicated the company wanted to develop photovoltaic cells that are around 30 percent efficient and can generate 1 watt of electricity at a cost of 50 cents.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company plans to move a few minutes north to Sunnyvale, Calif., according to Green Tech Media. It has 55 employees and has filed for 35 patents, according to the job posting. The company also received a $3 million grant from the Department of Energy to develop low-cost and highly efficient photovoltaic cells.