Walmart’s move demonstrates how solar energy has grown and become a mainstream part of our energy system. Walmart will save money every day of the 20+ years of the solar systems they are putting on their roofs. Their move to aggressively install solar reflects how the solar industry has innovated to reduced costs and increased the efficiency and reliability of solar.

Walmart is both a good neighbor and a shrewd business. They know solar makes sense not just in the sunny southwest where they started putting solar on their rooftops 5 years ago, but also here in New England.

They know that we have a strong solar installation and financing industry here in New England that provides quality, cost-effective service. And they are benefiting from strong policies here in Massachusetts that have helped build a vibrant clean energy industry.

NECEC congratulates Walmart on its leadership, as well as others investing in solar energy efficiency.

The New York Times ran an editorial on Sunday, May 6, 2012, calling attention to the report, saying that it is the wrong time to step away from subsidies. The editorial says it is the right time to institute reforms to become more “salable to budget hawks.”

“The idea is not to prop up clean tech industries forever. It is to get them to a point where they can stand on their own,” wrote the New York Times editors.

A May 6 Financial Times article points out the growth of the clean tech sector, noting that between 2006 and 2011, renewable electricity generation, excluding hydropower, doubled to 195 megawatt hours, enough to power 17 million American homes, roughly one in seven homes.

“Beyond Boom and Bust: Putting Clean Tech on a Path to Subsidy Independence” analyzes reductions in federal clean tech subsidies, the impact on the clean tech sector, and recommends policy changes to advance the U.S. clean tech industry.

Findings in the report include the growth of clean tech sectors, citing that by the end of 2010, installed wind power capacity in the U.S. was 60% higher than 2008 levels, and that solar power had increased 120 percent during those two years. The report found that the U.S. has regained global market share in advanced battery and vehicle segments, and that construction on U.S. nuclear reactors began for the first time in decades.

The report shows clean tech employment growing 11.8 percent from 2007 to 2010, and that U.S. renewable and energy efficiency segments received $48 billion in investment in 2011, a 42% increase over 2010.

Among the report’s recommendations for reform are: establishing a competitive clean tech market; driving cost reductions and performance improvements, maximizing the impact of taxpayer resources, and providing ready access to affordable private capital.

The full report can be found at: http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2012/0418_clean_investments_muro.aspx

Cleantech Innovations New England partnered with the Clean Energy Prize this year to offer two $20,000 supplemental funded service awards to interested semi-finalists.  We received five solid applications but in the end our review team was able to settle on two winners.

Dynamo Micropower, a Greentown Labs located startup that could revolutionize the ultra-low power micro-turbine marketplace received a grant valued at $20,000 to engineer, manufacture, and assemble their next prototype.

Solid Energy, CEP Deployment and Infrastructure Category Winner and an MIT startup creating a safe lithium battery initially targeted at providing sensor power for down hole oil and gas drilling applications, received a grant valued at $20,000 for a mix of technical, incubation, and entrepreneur-in-residence services.

Congratulations to Dynamo Micropower and Solid Energy for their accomplishments as the first winners of Cleantech Innovations NE awards.

Zuberi said that, from the viewpoint of a potential investor, technology usually comes in second in importance to the quality of the entrepreneur. He went on to praise entrepreneurs who could operate effectively on a shoestring budget, overcome the many and varied hurdles set before them, call upon their own internal resources to pull together necessary analytics and due diligence, be the champion for their idea and do whatever else was required to give wings to their idea; in short, a contortionist.

In their flexibility, great entrepreneurs clearly identify their place in their team, they recognize the critical role of mentors and role models, and importantly, they understand that, maybe, they may not be the best person to step into the role of CEO, notwithstanding their passion for and dedication to their blossoming idea.  The successful contortionist entrepreneur exists as part of a team. She understands when to let go of the trapeze bar and trust that her network of experienced team members will do their part in the aerial ballet to make the move successful.  She must pay attention to the commands and signals of the troupe and react with humble and coordinated aplomb.

Similarly, the successful entrepreneur outlines a path, describes scenarios, and imagines what each step of the process must look like for success.  She’s got a plan. She’s outlined the supply chain, she knows where she fits in, she sees clearly and can even describe the road to market. Thank goodness, because with all these team members coming together, proper execution depends first on careful choreography, but also on being a well rounded athlete – especially when the landscape of ropes and bars changes, the plan takes a radical detour, and mid-swing it’s not clear how to land that triple summersault.

Zuberi described the resourceful entrepreneur with equal color, significantly less chaos and in a more concise way than I have.   He summarized that raw intellect and the willingness to learn are at the root of the successful entrepreneur. She is a living paradox, a self-reliant and yet humble part of team, maneuvering the business forward with an astute and agile plan.  Oh, and let’s not forget she’s got some really fantastic technology too.

The GCA is already delivering hundreds of millions of dollars of net benefits to Massachusetts electric and gas ratepayers through smart investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy that are reducing energy waste and diminishing reliance on imported fossil fuels while promoting job growth and other economic opportunities in the fast-growing Massachusetts clean energy sector.  By 2015, Massachusetts’ investment of $4 billion in efficiency and clean energy will have delivered almost $10 billion of benefits to energy consumers, a 2-½ times return.

S2214 will ensure that these benefits grow and continue to accrue to Massachusetts energy consumers and that our state will increasingly be a center for innovation and an attractive place for clean energy companies to build their businesses, creating jobs and supporting economic development.  Among other things, important provisions in S2214:

• Preserve a framework that has made Massachusetts #1 in the nation for energy efficiency policy;
• Expand net metering opportunities, providing energy users with an incentive to install renewable generation and the ability to save on their energy costs;
• Open net metering to anaerobic digestion, a renewable technology that reduces waste going to landfills, provides local economic development and reduces greenhouse gases;
• Extend and expand long term contracting for renewable energy, reducing financing costs to developers and thereby reducing costs to energy customers; and
• Resolve property tax issues for solar projects, facilitating residential, commercial and industrial deployment of a technology whose costs are coming down.

The New England Clean Energy Council, its members and allies played an important role in advancing this bill by educating our legislators – and the general public – on the benefits of clean energy for Massachusetts, both now and for the long term.  These efforts will continue as S2214 is taken up in the coming weeks in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.  So please stay tuned….

This Friday, our friends at Foley Hoag will host the latest edition of the Restructuring Roundtable, “Energy Efficiency in New England: Strengthening Core Programs while Tackling New Frontiers”. Speakers will include energy efficiency officials from several New England states, as well as Steve Cowell, CEO of NECEC Sponsor Conservation Services Group. Attendance is free, and registration is not required

On Tuesday April 17, please join us for a luncheon event from 12:00 – 2:00 PM at the offices of Brown Rudnick, “Unlocking Energy Innovation: How America Can Build a Low Cost, Low-Carbon Energy System”. This event, presented by Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), will feature a robust panel examining our global climate problems and need for affordable and reliable energy. E2 and NECEC members can register for free here, while others can register here.

Thursday, April 19 will feature the Council’s own Spring Finance Series, “The Project Finance Market for Small and Mid-Sized Projects”. This event, hosted at the offices of Cooley, LLP on Boylston St., and co-sponsored by KeyBanc Capital Markets, will feature panelists from Cooley, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Nexamp, Birch Tree Capital, and SPG Solar. Join us for an important panel discussion on what financiers of clean energy projects are looking for, the obstacles they may face when attempting to secure financing, and, most importantly, strategies to obtain funding in the current financial environment. Registration is available at http://councilfinanceseries7.eventbrite.com/, and this event is free for NECEC members!

Friday & Saturday, April 20-21 will see the Partnerships in Sustainability – Sustainable Campuses & Communities Conferences – come to the Boston campus of UMass. This two-day event will bring together experts and peers from government, businesses, communities and campuses. Registration is available at  http://masccc.eventbrite.com, and NECEC members receive a 20% discount when using code NECEC.

Confirmed by the U.S. Senate last Friday for this position, congratulations are in order!

…No one doubts the need for better oversight of loan recipients, as the White House’s own audit has urged, but there are vital reasons for bipartisan cooperation on renewable energy. It is remarkable that even in the face of polarized politics and partially paralyzed policy that the Solar Energy Industries Association recently reported a record doubling of installations around the nation last year and cited Massachusetts as among five states “which could be near-term growth markets.’’

Read the full Editorial here.

NECEC, as part of a group of business, energy and environmental organizations we’re calling the GCA Coalition, weighed in with a letter [PDF] to Senate President Murray, Senator Ben Downing, Co-chair of the Joint Committee, and the other members of the Senate, to indicate our support for the bill, building on the Green Communities Act (GCA) of 2008, and its potential to advance efficiency, clean and renewable energy in the Commonwealth.

We also communicated our concerns with some of the provisions and urged support for several amendments we think are needed.

There are also a number of amendments being offered that we are opposing.  Broadly, these amendments would undermine the GCA provisions that are critical to MA achieving long term energy price stability,  maintaining and increasing jobs in the clean energy sector, and retaining its 1^st in the nation status on energy efficiency and its 2^nd in the nation status for attracting investment in clean energy.

Debate on S2200 will resume next week, so stay tuned!

At the beginning of March in his keynote address at the 3^rd ARPA-e Energy Innovation Summit, President Clinton said, “one political party has developed a political imperative to deny climate change.” This creates an unfortunate, artificial and very real impediment to the shift to more benign technologies that are better for the planet.

No matter how much entrenched players may resist, however, change will come.  Existing fossil fuel reserves are about equal to the amount of fossil fuels consumed thus far by the human race. Considering the pace of extraction, we are much more than halfway to the end of the fossil age. New extraction technologies like hydraulic “fracking” buy time, but any finite resource will by definition eventually run out. Setting aside production, the electrical grid itself is old and continues to age. It needs significant investment to meet growing demand.  Transportation fuels also continue to grow more expensive and geopolitically complex.

The entrepreneurs and scientists leading the energy transformation are already developing new technologies to solve these problems The cumulative effect of their efforts over time will be the creation of a new energy infrastructure that the future demands. President Clinton was just one of many influential leaders who presented to a full house of more than three thousand people gathered in Washington DC to discuss the future of energy and energy innovation in the United States. I left the ARPA-e Energy Innovation Summit feeling energized and unbelievably privileged to be playing a part in the virtual army of dedicated scientists, business people, politicians, and educators focused on addressing technical, market, and policy challenges to create new, more sustainable ways to produce energy.

The mission of the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) is to fund projects that will develop transformational technologies to reduce America’s dependence on foreign energy imports; reduce U.S. energy related emissions (including greenhouse gasses); improve energy efficiency across all sectors of the U.S. economy and ensure that the U.S. maintains its leadership in developing and deploying advanced energy technologies. Modeled on the successful Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the Department of Defense, ARPA-E also bears an important structural difference: a captive customer.

A unique and successful technology developed for military customer application can be costly, but the military will buy it as long as it contributes to the mission. The Department of Defense recognizes this model as integral to innovation, and it expects to work collaboratively as a customer of innovators, improving new products over time.  This model drives down costs to a point where, if relevant to the civilian population, the technology can be made available for non-military application. GPS devices are a fine example of this in practice.

Unfortunately, ARPA-E has no such captive customer. For some innovative energy technologies, the military can serve as an early market, but not for all. Without additional government support through incentives, early adoption of new technologies, or policies like the establishment of renewable portfolio standards, new energy technology breakthroughs face slow or non-existent business growth.

Fortunately there is a growing network of federal agencies, state organizations, and private enterprises making major sustainability commitments and also looking for cost-effective ways to become proving grounds for emerging energy innovations.  I’m seeing unprecedented collaboration across the six New England states in sharing practices that can reap the economic benefit from deploying new energy innovations.  Instead of a single captive customer, this collaboration aims to create a networked, virtual customer to provide market input to innovators.

Turning inventions into commercial successes is never easy. In our complex energy system it’s harder still. But the entrepreneurial drive that has differentiated the US economy in so many other sectors is now taking hold in energy, and change is happening.  Seeing the vision and dedication of thousands of innovators at the ARPA-E conference confirmed that while the path will be complicated, there’s no turning back from the effort’s eventual success.