Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Arcapita Ventures Leads $37M Investment in Aspen Aerogels

ATLANTA, -- Arcapita Ventures announced today that it has led a $37 million round of investment in Aspen Aerogels, Inc., a leading provider of advanced insulation materials. Joining Arcapita in the round were existing investors Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, Reservoir Capital Group and Rockport Capital Partners. Link.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

SunRun Secures $12 Million in Financing to Accelerate "Solar as a Service" Model for Homeowners

SAN FRANCISCO – SunRun, the nation’s first residential solar electricity provider, announced today it has raised $12 million in a financing led by Foundation Capital. SunRun's vision of making solar electricity accessible to a greater number of homeowners through its unique "solar as a service" model dovetails with Foundation Capital's commitment to cleantech investing. Despite struggles on Capitol Hill over energy policy, Silicon Valley innovation is paving the way to energy independence and environmental security. Link.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Basin Water Announces Changes in Management Team

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif., -- Basin Water, Inc. (NASDAQ:BWTR) announced organizational changes including the appointment of Thomas C. Tekulve as Vice President of Finance - Business Development and W. Christopher Chisholm as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the company. With over 30 years of professional experience, Mr. Tekulve, Basin Water's former Chief Financial Officer, will guide the expansion of Basin Water's sales and service operations by directing project risk assessment, financing and development of new business based upon the company's low lifecycle cost and pay-for-performance model. Mr. Chisholm is a financial executive with over 27 years of experience in financial management, including work in public offerings, acquisitions, and divestitures, financial reporting and risk management. Prior to joining Basin Water, Mr. Chisholm was Executive Vice-President, Finance of United States Filter Corporation and Executive Vice-President, Finance & Administration and Chief Financial Officer of Veolia Water North America. Link. Chart.

Nordic Windpower Appoints New Chief Financial Officer

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Nordic Windpower Ltd., the leading company manufacturing and selling innovative, utility-scale wind turbines based on proven Swedish technology, announced that Prakash Ramachandran, a finance expert in growth-oriented technology businesses and international markets, has joined the company as Chief Financial Officer and member of its Board of Directors. Link.

Tendril Expands Executive Team

Boulder, Colo. – Tendril, a leading provider of Residential Energy Management Systems (REMS) for the utilities industry and their consumers, announced the addition of three new executives to the company’s management team, representing more than 50 years of experience in product engineering, business unit expansion and IT and wireless systems design. Tendril has hired Andy Wheeler as chief technology officer (CTO), Kent Dickson as vice president of engineering and Marcelo Bergquist as vice president of operations. Their appointments and breadth and depth of expertise help put Tendril in an even stronger position to address the growing market demand for comprehensive and innovative technologies that allow customers to manage their energy consumption. Link.

Medis Technologies Appoints Frank Romero as Sr. VP

NEW YORK -- Medis Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:MDTL) announced that it appointed Mr. Frank Romero as its Sr. VP of Sales and Market Development. Mr. Romero brings to Medis 15 years of broad industry experience that spans product management, marketing, and sales development in the telecommunications and IT industries. Mr. Romero joins Medis from Hewlett-Packard Corporation where he most recently held the position of Group Manager, Accessories & Options, for the iPAQ handheld business. In that position, he led and managed the iPAQ accessories portfolio. He developed the category roadmap and made significant contributions in business planning, partner and product development efforts, and creating sales and marketing tools for the accessory products for iPAQ smart phones, iPAQ portable GPS navigation devices, and iPAQ PDA handhelds. Link. Chart.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Terry Copeland Appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of Altair Nanotechnologies

RENO, NV -- Altair Nanotechnologies Inc. (Nasdaq: ALTI), a leading provider of advanced nanomaterials technology for use in energy, life sciences and industrial applications, announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Terry Copeland, Ph.D., as its President and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Copeland has been serving as interim President since March 2008. Link. Chart.

Franz Kemper Appointed General Manager, EPV SOLAR Germany GmbH

Robbinsville, NJ, USA: EPV SOLAR, Inc., a thin-film solar module manufacturer and technology developer headquartered in Robbinsville, NJ, announced its appointment of Mr. Franz Kemper as General Manager of its newly established Senftenberg, Germany, facility. Mr. Kemper, who comes to EPV SOLAR with over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, is presently overseeing the facility’s start-up operations--including the hiring of management, engineers, technical teams, and more than 200 production workers--and will assume overall responsibility for the plant’s operations and profitability. Link.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Vycon Appoints New Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director

Yorba Linda, CA -- The Board of Vycon, Inc, the AIM listed, designer and manufacturer of high-speed flywheel based energy storage systems, is pleased to announce that Craig T. Glynn has been appointed as Chief Financial Officer and as an Executive Director of Vycon, with immediate effect. Mr. Glynn succeeds Dennis Whittler, who is retiring and has stepped down as a director of Vycon. Craig Glynn brings to Vycon twenty-three years of extensive hands-on experience in financial management and reporting, financial and strategic planning and mergers and acquisitions. Craig most recently served as Chief Financial Officer for Hilex Poly Co. LLC (‘Hilex’), a plastics manufacturer with annual sales of $500 million, eleven manufacturing facilities and approximately 2,500 employees. Craig was instrumental in the re-capitalisation of Hilex, with private equity backing, and the subsequent purchase of the company’s largest domestic competitor, financed primarily with debt. Link.

Simon Upfill-Brown Joins GreenFuel as CEO and Director

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--GreenFuel Technologies Corporation, a private company developing algae farming technologies for recycling CO2 emissions, has recruited Simon Upfill-Brown to be Chief Executive Officer (CEO), starting July 14. The former Dow Chemical executive will also be elected to GreenFuel’s Board of Directors on July 23. Upfill-Brown comes to GreenFuel from Haltermann Custom Processing, of which he was CEO starting in 1993. After Dow Chemical bought the $50 million Houston company in 2001, he was General Manager of Dow Haltermann until it was spun out in 2008 with international operations employing 435 people and earning $230 million in annual revenues. Haltermann provides specialty chemical manufacturing services, including biodiesel, for which GreenFuel plans to be an algae oil feedstock supplier. Link.

Monday, June 16, 2008

SET Venture Partners announces investment in Epyon B.V.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands – SET Venture Partners ("SET VP") announced today the investment in Epyon B.V. by SET VP, Chrysalix Energy Limited Partnership ("Chrysalix") and the management of Epyon B.V. SET VP is the General Partner of the Sustainable Energy Technology ("SET") Fund, which invests in innovative companies with entrepreneurial management teams actively developing new technologies for the production of clean energy, alternative fuels, CO2 reductions and energy savings. Chrysalix, located in Vancouver, is a global leader in cleantech venture capital investing. Epyon B.V., a spin-off company of the Delft University of Technology, develops technology and IP in the field of ultra fast charging of advanced lithium-ion batteries. Their strength is their knowledge of state-of-the-art energy storage media and super capacitors in combination with their in-house capabilities to create intelligent computer-controlled power conversion systems. Epyon B.V. supports three different markets. The primary market is clean Electrical Vehicles (EV) for professional use, where ultra fast charging is the solution to lower the total cost of ownership through increased efficiency. The second market is the in-car (on-board) plug-in charger solutions for EVs and Plug-in Hybrid Electrical Vehicles. Thirdly, the company has a white label consumer product, called Flash Pack, for delivering back-up power for mobile devices like cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players including iPods and some digital photo cameras. Link.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

SunEdison Names Brian Jacolick General Manager

Beltsville, MD – SunEdison, North America’s largest solar energy services provider, today announced that Brian Jacolick has been named General Manager – North America. Based in Beltsville, Jacolick will report directly to SunEdison CEO Thomas (Tom) Rainwater and will oversee all business operations for SunEdison in North America, including U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean. Jacolick previously served as Vice President of Sales, leading the development of solar programs for marquee organizations including Kohl’s, Staples, Wal-Mart, the State of California, and most recently Duke Energy. Link.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

GE Increases Share in PrimeStar Solar

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- GE Energy today announced that it has increased its equity share in PrimeStar Solar, Inc., an emerging solar thin-film technology and manufacturing company. GE already held a minority equity share of PrimeStar Solar, as announced in September 2007. PrimeStar Solar, headquartered in Golden, Colo., was formed in June 2006 to develop and commercialize thin-film photovoltaic modules. The company has 60 employees, including a core management team with more than 100 years of thin-film equipment and process experience. Link.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

SunPower Names Marty T. Neese Chief Operating Officer

SAN JOSE, Calif., -- SunPower Corporation (Nasdaq: SPWR), a Silicon Valley-based manufacturer of high-efficiency solar cells, solar panels and solar systems, today announced that Marty T. Neese is joining the company as its chief operating officer. Neese will be responsible for leading SunPower's global strategic operations and worldwide materials sourcing, and will oversee the execution of its recently announced solar cell fabrication plant in Malaysia. Neese brings more than 25 years of experience driving cost effective, scalable manufacturing processes and policies. A proponent of Kaizen, the Japanese strategy for continuous improvement, Neese successfully executed the Lean Six Sigma methodology at Flextronics International, a $30+ billion company, and received the 2007 Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence. Link. Chart.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Fat Spaniel Technologies Adds New VP of Operations

San Jose, Calif. ––Fat Spaniel Technologies, Inc., the market leader in monitoring and reporting services for distributed renewable energy systems, today announced that cleantech market veteran Ron Lloyd has joined the executive team as vice president of operations. Lloyd has more than 20 years of experience in high technology process management including leadership roles at Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems and Tesla Motors, Inc. At Fat Spaniel Technologies, Lloyd will guide the operational ramp-up of the company’s independent monitoring services for renewable energy OEMs, integrators and PPA service providers worldwide. Link.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Tigo Energy Scores $6 Million Funding

Los Gatos, CA –– Tigo Energy, a solar company whose technology enables increased efficiency in commercial and residential solar installations, announced today it has raised $6 million in a round co-led by and Matrix Partners and OVP Venture Partners. Link.

FTL Solar Closes Successful Series A Financing

NEW YORK, -- FTL Solar, a developer of lightweight, flexible tensile structures embedded with thin-film solar cells providing military and commercial enterprises with economical, scalable and portable sources of electrical power and shelter, announced today that the Company had closed a successful first round of funding, as Phase I of the Company's $50 million capital acquisition initiative. Link.