by David Heyerman on January 19, 2009
- If you haven’t heard about it yet, Masdar City is planned to be the first ever carbon neutral city located in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The project was started by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC) in 2006, and will supposedly cost around $22 Billion. The first phase of the project, however, is beginning this year with completion set for 2016. The city plans to house around 50,000 people within a 6.5 square kilometer area with an additional 40,000 people commuting to the city everyday for work. The city plans to house various manufacturing and commercial companies focusing on environmentally-friendly products.
- Within the first year of construction, Masdar put two 5MW Solar contracts up for grabs from the most cost-efficient and quality producers. Not surprisingly, Arizona’s First Solar and China’s Suntech Power were just announced as the beneficiaries of those contracts.
- The 10MW farm is projected to be finished by March, with the energy generated going towards the cities construction. What’s not clear is if there’s any future opportunities for the Suntech and FS with Masdar City.
- I’ll tell you what, as interesting as it’s been to see the growth of Dubai over the last 5 or so years, it never made much sense to me, how these gigantic companies would ever profit off such lavish, over-the top construction. This, on the other hand, might eventually be the key to Abu Dhabi’s success; building a city with sustainability at the forefront of efforts, virtually guarenteeing unlimited future potential. Seems a whole lot better of an idea than building the tallest tower in the world (which will be overtaken in a matter of years, anyway).
![[Post to Twitter]](http://tinycomb.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter-big4.png)
by David Heyerman on January 15, 2009
- The Kinesis K2 portable charger captures energy by wind, solar, or both. It even has a wall plug, so you can charge it up if natural resources aren’t available. It comes with a USB port and has various adapters available as well. At full charge, the K2 can power up your phone roughly five times. No official word on price yet, but I assume it can’t be much more than $100.
- This stapler-esk device is sure to be popular for travelers. The ZipCharge has enough power to juice up your iPod or cell phone, and only takes 10 minutes to power up, nice. Only problem…..gotta wait till March to buy this $80 soon-to-be necessity.
by David Heyerman on January 14, 2009
- Since I wrapped up the Solar Sector in 2008, there’s been a a steady stream of new 2009 announcements coming out of the same companies covered before. The wires have been, for the most part, unfortunately flooded with negative expectations from research analysts pushing to sell, plants shutting down, and workers being laid off.
- First Solar, SunPower, Yingli Green Energy, Suntech Power, JA Solar, and Evergreen Solar all saw quick share price increases early last week. Now, they’re all down to below where they were on the 1st. Some analysts are pushing the sell because of an expected lowering of solar panel and module prices over the next year. In fact, Christopher Blansett, from JP Morgan was unapologetically urging investors to sell solar stocks because of this expectation.
- Evergreen Solar announced the closing of their Marlboro, Mass. plant. Although, they expect “continued progress” at another plant, they’ll be hit pretty hard as shutting down the plant will have cost the company upwards of $30 million from Q4 2008, into 2009.
- Suntech Power had some mixed news with a huge milestone, raising their Wuxi factory production capacity of photovoltaic cells and modules to 1 GW. This is a huge achievement, considering 2007’s output of 540 MW. CEO of Suntech, Zhengrong Shi, is expecting an oversupply of polysilicon this year, which could potentially cut their prices 20-30 percent from 3rd quarter 2008. On the other side of things, Steve Chadima, vice president of external affairs has announced that 800 people or 10% of their workforce were cut in the fourth quarter of 2008.
- Workforce cuts have seemingly been widespread in the solar industry, with layoff announcements from Day4Energy, GT Solar, Emcore, Ausra, and Advanced Energy. Even OptiSolar laid off 300 employees because of a lack of funding.
- On the positive side of things, the Federal Bureau of Land Management has seen a huge jump in the amount of applications they’re receiving for solar energy projects. The number of applications rose from 125 to 223, a 78% increase since July. All the applications were for projects over 10MW in capacity and were located in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado.
- So on one hand, we have this industry that is experiencing such incredibly growth as far as technology and necessity goes, but on the other hand we have this pesky little thing called the economy which likes to sway industry at it’s, sometime unjustified, hand. The only thing us investors and cleantech enthusiasts can trust is that we, as a world, need renewable energy and solar is at the forefront of that effort. It is an unfortunate and as I mentioned before, ironic situation, but I’m still confident the future for solar is bright. How bout you guys?
by David Heyerman on January 11, 2009
- With CES last week, and the Detroit Auto Show to come, the tech scene, especially the cleantech scene has been bubbling with news, whether it be positive or negative. There’s been a lot of talk about energy infrastructure investment to come in 2009, and one sector sure to benefit from this investment is cleantech automotive. The economy should benefit tremendously as near 280,000 jobs could be created with the deployment of a smart grid in 2009.
- Toyota – Because of a snag in the battery pack, Toyota will be pulling their plug-in Prius from the Detroit Auto Show next week. DIY’s need not worry, there are plenty of kits out there. With production slowing down seriously, the company has also begun lowering salaries of its Japanese employees.
- Aptera – Like previously mentioned, Aptera’s promised end-of-2008 delivery date didn’t happen but turns out it’s way worse than expected. We’re not talking a couple months delay here, an official letter from the Google.org backed company explains that volume production won’t come until October 2009. Great job, as Fambro and Musk high-five!
- Mazda – This might be the most impressive green car development yet in 2009. Currently catalytic converters are very expensive due to the amount of precious metals (platinum, rhodium) used in their production, however are incredibly important because of their emission reductions. The company just developed a new manufacturing process for catalytic converters that will cut the amount of precious metals by 70% in their 2010 Mazda3. Hats off Mazda, maybe you won’t live the rest of your life in Japanese car manufacturer mediocrity.
- Nissan – Straight off an electric network partnership with Switzerland, Nissan’s back at again, this time with a battery announcement. Nissan and NEC plan to invest $1.1 Billion into a the production of 200,000 high-capacity electric vehicle batteries. Only problem, the investment will be made by 2011 or later.
- Dodge – Pictured above is the new Dodge EV to be name the Circuit. The electric car is to be unveiled next week at the Detroit Auto Show.
- Ener1 – Lithium-ion vehicle battery producer Ener1 is looking for some government cash as they apply for $480 million in low-interest loans from the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Incentive Program (ATVMIP). Tesla is asking for $400 million from the same program.
- Stay tuned for updates as the announcements roll in from Detroit. Already we’ve seen leaks from Chrysler with their new 200C extended-range EV, Toyota with their full electric FT-EV, and Ford promising a pure electric by 2011.
RSS
Email
Twitter
Letter From Carol Bartz To Yahoo Employees
by Jason Wilk on January 25, 2009
{ 0 comments }