A123 may have solved its short-term financial problems by raising $50 million in debt on Saturday. But the price of saving the beleaguered lithium-ion battery maker’s immediate concerns could lead to a “death by a thousand cuts” to its share price and long-term viability. That’s what some analysts are saying about A123&rsqu
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Our inaugural podcast covers a piece of highly charged news: the preliminary verdict from the Department of Commerce on the Anti-Dumping (AD) complaint which resulted in a 31 percent levy for most of the major Chinese panel manufacturers. We covered the verdict yesterday, as well as feedback from both sides of the dispute. Here's the text of the
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) levied a second round of preliminary tariffs against Chinese solar module imports in the ongoing trade war between U.S. solar manufacturers and their Chinese counterparts. The following are the anti-dumping tariffs handed down in the ruling: Suntech: 31.22 percent Trina: 31.14 percent Named Chinese
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Now that AMI has become more of a steady-state business in the U.S., Gary High from Landis+Gyr talks about growth opportunities in emerging markets and innovation with utilities in the U.S.
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
If, as currently predicted, Southern California Edison is unable to get its 2,200-megawatt San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) back in service in time for the heat of the summer, California’s power generation and delivery system will be profoundly tested. “An extended outage of both SONGS units may create local reliability is
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Here's a reprint of the fact sheet just issued by the Department of Commerce on the preliminary decision on the anti-dumping complaint from SolarWorld. (Click on the images to enlarge.)
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Shyam Mehta, Greentech Media's Senior Solar Analyst: While the margins are not as high as those seen in many previous U.S.-China antidumping cases (electrical blankets, steel grating), they are certainly much higher than Chinese manufacturers would have hoped for. Stacked onto the margins for countervailing duties, they amount to levels of
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
The verdict is in. And it's not good for Chinese solar manufacturers. Although the official pronouncement has not been made -- we've learned from sources close to the case that the Commerce Departments's preliminary decision on SolarWorld's solar dumping petition against China has been handed down in a case that had the potential t
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
A tsunami of Green Button applications is coming to an iPad, Android phone or computer near you, if you happen to be one of the 30 million or so Americans that has a utility that supports the Green Button initiative. The Green Button, which was announced last fall, is a feature that allows residential and commercial customers to download detailed
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
A decision at the California Utilities Commission (CPUC) on May 24 could determine the future of distributed generation (DG) and, especially, of rooftop solar in the state. The decision involves two questions, a legality explicitly before the commission and an implied dispute between the state’s three investor owned utilities (IOUs) and rene
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Getting later-stage VC funding for a photovoltaic module company with an unproven technology can't be easy. It might barely make any sense to launch a startup in the current solar market, either. But Solexel, a Milpitas, California-based solar firm still in stealth, just closed on a $25 million C round, according to an SEC filing. The firm h
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Third-party financed residential solar — offering homeowners rooftop solar at no cost, then reaping the benefits of tax incentives and economies of scale — is all the rage these days. California saw third-party solar outpace homeowner-owned solar for the first time last year, with contenders like SolarCity, SunRun, Sungevity, Clean Power
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Standards, they’re so boring yet so essential. That is true in every industry, and particularly for energy intensive products. Just 10 years ago, a clothes washer used double the energy it does today. In the coming years, that figure will again be slashed again, thanks to the new standards released on Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Ener
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Opower, the energy management startup with the lead in U.S. utility deployments, had just expanded again. On Tuesday, it announced 15 new utility customers, bringing its list to 75 total, and six new expansions with existing customers like NSTAR and Consumers Energy. Looks as if the Arlington, Va.-based startup with about $64 million in v
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Tomorrow the U.S. Department of Commerce will announce its preliminary determination on the issue of whether Chinese solar manufacturers dumped crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules into the U.S. market. But it’s important to understand that, irrespective of the alleged dumping, China’s top tier solar manufacturers do have a
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
This is the first piece in a three-part series exploring thin film's place in today's solar market from the author of GTM Research's latest report, Thin Film 2012–2016: Technologies, Markets and Strategies for Survival. No other PV technology has seen as many false fits and starts or held as much promise as thin-film PV. Dur
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
The mercury has just started to rise across the country, but utilities and system operators have already started to plan to cut down on peak demand. In Texas, this summer is expected to be nearly as hot as last summer, when excessive temperatures led to record-breaking energy use. To combat the weather, Centerpoint has turned to a company
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
GTM Research analyst Emma Ritch and On-Ramp's COO, Jake Rasweiller, discuss the fragmented state of the communications market, the status of the DOE grant for On-Ramp's underground communications network, and the current issues and solutions around communications and data for utilities.
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Stion is having a CIGS solar panel sale. The VC- and strategic-funded CIGS solar firm sent out an email blast offering solar modules, "for as low as $.75 per watt." The email and a representative of the company would not disclose the volumes available or the terms of the offer for modules at that price. Aaron Thurlow, Stion VP of West Co
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Last year NRG installed three eVgo charging stations at its headquarters parking lot in Princeton, New Jersey. And as per the accompanying video -- David Crane the CEO of NRG, "dreams of a country with 50 million to 100 million electric cars on the road." If he also wishes for more charging stations in California, his firm --
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
EEStor is the urban legend of a startup that is said to be building a supercapacitor material that would store more energy and charge and discharge faster than previous materials by a factor of ten. If true, it could change the technology of electric vehicle charging and utility-scale energy storage. We've made repeated attempts to conta
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Opt-out options for smart meters are popping up around the country, but they have all come with a cost for the customer, until now. The legislature in Vermont passed a bill that allows a customer to choose to not have a wireless smart meter at no additional cost. If there is already a smart meter in place, the customer will not be charged to remov
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Sovello, based in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, not far from Q-Cells, cannot pay its debts and has asked the Dessau insolvency court to restructure under its management, the company said in a release on its website yesterday. In early 2010, Sovello, the Q-Cells-Evergreen-REC joint venture, then on the verge of bankruptcy, was sold to German private equity fi
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
A fight over the future of net energy metering (NEM) in California is expected to be decided in a May 24 California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) decision on the arcane question of how to define the NEM cap. It has become a battleground over NEM for investor-owned utilities (IOUs) and solar advocates. NEM, the solar industry’s key inc
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |
Awaiting a key U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) decision, American solar manufacturers are speaking out against SolarWorld’s campaign to raise tariffs on imported Chinese solar cells. Manufacturers including Dow Corning and Hemlock Semiconductor, GT Advanced Technologies, MEMC, REC Silicon, and Suntech America believe that free trade and g
| Greentech Media: All Content | Environmental Green Technology |