Subsequent to the announcement last week of Los Angeles’ approval of a feed-in tariff, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has signed an ordinance authorizing the city’s Department of Water and Power to now establish a pilot program. Approval of the program by the Board of Water and Power Commissioners has been scheduled for April 17.
Despite our reports in March and earlier this month, the Brazilian Secretary of Energy Planning and Development of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Altino Ventura Filho, has announced that solar energy will not form part of auctions in order to augment generation of solar power.
Following the retirement of José Villarreal, a member of the board since 2007, First Solar has taken the opportunity to expand its board membership from nine to 11 members. The company has nominated George “Chip” Hambro, former First Solar COO, and Richard “Rick” Chapman, CFO of Walton Enterprises, Inc., to stand for election at its annual stockholder meeting on May 23, the latter as an independent director.
In the first quarter of 2012, financial investment in clean energy has been the weakest since 2009, states Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The figures published demonstrate investment was down 28% from Q4 2011 to just US$27 billion – 22% lower than the equivalent figure in the first quarter of last year. This includes venture capital, private equity, public markets and asset finance, but excludes small-scale projects and corporate and government RD&D.
RWE is supposedly looking to invest in solar power plants, citing solar module prices as one of its key determining factors. According to Bloomberg, up until now Germany’s second-biggest utility, which owns a stake in Spain’s Andasol 3 solar thermal power plant, has distanced itself from investing in PV generation because of what it considered too high of a cost for the technology. However, now that prices for solar modules are considerably lower than in the past, the utility is taking a second look.
PV inverter manufacturer, Satcon Technology has said that new orders have increased 130% in the first quarter of 2012 compared to previous quarter, reaching a bookings value of approximately US$45 million. The company said the quarter had been the most successful bookings period in four quarters, with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.9:1.
Specialist PV system monitoring firm, Solare Datensysteme said that sales had reached almost €7 million in the first quarter of 2012, a 118% increase over the same quarter in 2011. The company guided sales in the second quarter of 2012 would be inline with the first quarter. The increase in sales was said to be due to sales success in a wider number of countries, including Canada and the US.
In a joint venture, NYSE Euronext and research company Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) have developed three new sector indices covering solar and wind energy as well as energy smart technologies (EST). Each index is produced using the different global stock market values of 70–200 industry companies, and a minimum threshold exposure to applicable renewable energy sectors is also calculated.
PV project developer, Premier Power reported 2011 full-year revenue results of US$70.2 million, including fourth quarter revenue of US$15.5 million. Fourth quarter revenue was down 66% or US$30.6 million from US$46.1 million achieved in the same period in 2010. Full-year results were down 19%, compared to 2010, while non-GAAP operating loss increased to US$3.8 million in 2011, up from US$2.8 million in 2010. This decrease in revenue was said to be mainly due to project delays in Bulgaria that were pushed into the first quarter of 2012.
Big funding deals maybe a thing of the past but overall VC funding deals remain at record levels, according to the latest quarterly report of solar VC funding activity by Mercom Capital Group. Citing a slow start to 2012, VC funding in the first quarter of 2012 reached only US$329 million the lowest dollar amount recorded since Q4 2010. However, 34 deals were reported, suggesting VC’s are taking a lower risk approach to the sector, according to the report authors.
