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The Global Cleantech Cluster Association announced its winners for the 2011 Later Stage Award, which included the storage/smart grid winner, PowerGenix.  Ten North American and European companies were selected by 28 cleantech venture capitalists, investors and serial entrepreneurs who collectively manage $3.5 billion in clean technology investment.

These are companies that made broad strides within their industries and work closely with their regional cleantech clusters to build sustainable green economies and jobs. In other words, these companies have turned their cleantech innovations into meaningful commercial businesses.

The top 10 were selected from an original pool of 4,000 eligible companies represented by the GCCA’s 33 member clusters. These member clusters nominated 185 companies for the 2011 Later Stage Award.

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Petra Solar announced the acquisition of EnergyFlow Consulting LLC, a Jordan-based full service consulting firm that provides local, cost-effective specialized software and hardware, professional consulting, engineering, high-tech field services, and training to energy producers and consumers. Former EnergyFlow CEO, Hisham Othman will join Petra Solar as Vice President, Professional Services and Regional Manager of Middle East and Africa, and will orchestrate Petra Solar's expansion in the Middle East and Africa.

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Petra Solar has launched its IllumiWave smart street lighting energy management solutions enabling significant cost savings for municipalities and other providers of street lighting.   Its IllumiWave street light control system enables remote control and management of widely distributed street lights from a central location.  

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The area between broadcast TV channels on the spectrum is referred to as white space. A new FCC test began in September to convert it to a much stronger Internet access pipeline.  The FCC is testing Spectrum Bridge's ability to manage traffic in this white space and deliver a much more robust Internet experience.

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Nanosolar Inc of San Jose, CA, USA, has announced the installation of 538kWp of its utility panels at the Camp Perry Ohio National Guard Base in Port Clinton, OH. Nanosolar's partner Romanoff Electric Co LLC of Toledo, OH oversaw engineering, procurement and construction of 2750 Nanosolar Utility Panels as part of the project.  Nanosolar also says that, together with engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) partner Belectric Inc of Newark, CA, it is on schedule to construct its 1MWp ground-mount thin-film solar installation at the Camp Roberts California National Guard Base near Paso Robles, CA. 

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The ongoing saga of copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide photovoltaics provided one of the talking-point touchstones of this year’s Solar Power International show. Will solar historians look back to 2010 as the beginning of the Production Age of CIGS? That may be presumptuous and premature, since the thin-film PV’s slice of the overall solar shipment/deployment pie remains small.

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Thin film solar firm Nanosolar finally seems ready to be a serious company. At least that’s the impression I got during a rare factory tour of the company’s cell manufacturing plant this week (see my photos below). After over seven years of the colorful and sometimes misleading claims from the founder and former CEO Martin Rocheisen, followed by a 6-month quiet period as a new CEO and management took over the firm, Nanosolar is cautiously revealing some of its actual production capacity, expansion plans and first customers.

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Industry-leading SGSS Solution to Increase Capacity, Improve Responsiveness and Enhance Efficiency of Electric Power Systems by Enabling Cost-effective Frequency Regulation

WATERTOWN, Mass., Aug. 10, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A123 Systems (Nasdaq:AONE), a developer and manufacturer of advanced Nanophosphate™ lithium ion batteries and systems, today announced that AES Energy Storage, a leader in the use of fast-responsive energy storage for the grid, has ordered and is deploying 44MW of A123's Smart Grid Stabilization Systems (SGSS) for various new projects—including an energy storage project in Johnson City, N.Y.

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New Facility in Livonia, Mich. Significantly Expands A123's Production Capabilities to Meet Increasing Global Demand; Company Expects to Create Thousands of Jobs in Michigan

LIVONIA, Mich., Sept. 13, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A123 Systems (Nasdaq:AONE), a developer and manufacturer of advanced Nanophosphate™ lithium ion batteries and systems, today announced the grand opening of the largest lithium ion automotive battery production facility in North America, based on available data. The new plant in Livonia, Mich. is expected to expand A123's manufacturing capabilities by up to 600MW hours per year when fully operational, contributing to the company's plan to expand global final cell assembly capacity to more than 760MW hours annually by the end of 2011. The opening of the Livonia factory comes just over one year after A123 was awarded a $249 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help the company execute its strategy to ramp up U.S. manufacturing capabilities to meet increasing, market-driven demand for its innovative technologies.

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