Deals and investments

Swedish retailer Ikea will sell LED lightbulbs from Lemnis Lighting starting in the fourth quarter of this year, a move that will help push efficient LEDs toward broader use.

The two companies have a multiyear partnership to sell LED bulbs through Ikea stores starting in Europe, Lemnis Lighting CEO Warner Philips said today. The partnership was first reported by trade publication LEDs Magazine.

The collaboration is designed to make normally pricey LED bulbs appealing to consumers. In Europe the price target with tax is about 10 euros, or less than $14, for a 400 lumen lamp, which gives about the … Read more

Some Virginians will soon have forests to thank for their electricity.

Biomass manufacturer Enviva has signed a contract with Dominion Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Dominion, to supply wood waste chips to two power plants that are being converted from using coal to renewable biomass.

Dominion Virginia Power had announced in April its intention to convert three 63-megawatt coal-burning electricity plants into three 50-megawatt renewable biomass electricity plants. Specifically, it plans to convert its Altavista, Southampton, and Hopewell, Va., plants. The Southampton and Hopewell plants have contracted to use Enviva wood waste chips pending approval from the Virginia State Corporation … Read more

When it comes to tackling the world's challenges around energy and natural resources, incremental improvements don't interest famed technologist Bill Joy.

Joy, who co-founded Sun Microsystems and is now a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has led investments in about 10 startups pursuing risky, yet potentially game-changing, technologies.

In terms of the economic gains from green tech, "the default outcome" is that Asia and Europe will become leaders because of more supportive government policies, he said during the EmTech conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology today. The conference is being streamed live … Read more

Home security company Vivint is entering the solar panel installation business with financing model that avoids the upfront cost.

The company, which used to be called APX Alarms, said today it is offering financing for solar through a plan in which the panels are installed for free and consumers purchase the electricity they produce at a 20 percent discount from the retail electricity rate.

Vivint Solar has secured $75 million in financing from US Bancorp that it will use for about 2,400 installations, as a complement to its home security and home automation services. Vivint has started in New … Read more

BrightSource Energy today disclosed plans to build a 750-megawatt solar power plant in California, which would be its third and largest utility-scale project.

The company said that the Rio Mesa Solar Electric Generating Facility will use its solar tower technology, where a field of mirrors reflects light onto a tower to create steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity. The project would generate enough electricity to power more than 300,000 homes, BrightSource said.

The plan calls for installing three towers able to generate 250 megawatts each (before accounting for the energy consumed by their operation).

BrightSource earlier this … Read more

Famed tech investor Vinod Khosla and his venture firm, Khosla Ventures, announced today the firm had closed a $1.05 billion venture fund, one of the largest new venture funds this year.

The Khosla Ventures IV will make early-stage investments in the areas of clean tech, IT, mobile, and Internet technology, with half the fund going toward clean tech, he said.

"We have identified the 'Clean Dozen' companies in clean tech that can achieve unsubsidized market competitiveness and the 'Cool Dozen' categories in Internet and mobile in the post-PC world such as big data, emotion, interest graphs and consumer … Read more

Philadelphia-based Quench has garnered $30 million in funding for expansion, the company announced Thursday.

Quench makes water coolers with built-in filtration systems that tap into a building's existing water supply instead of using water in five-gallon plastic jugs that need to be regularly delivered and replaced. The company makes free-standing and countertop water coolers and ice makers.

The coolers use a reverse osmosis water filtration system that includes a sediment filter, an antimicrobial filter for killing microorganisms, a carbon filter that removes things like chlorine that might change water flavor, and a lead filter for reducing heavy metal content. … Read more

Much like a hybrid car, Silevo's solar cells use a few engineering tricks to boost overall performance beyond the oft-touted cell efficiency.

The 4-year-old company today detailed its technology, claiming it will be able to outperform incumbent Asian solar panel manufacturers on efficiency and industry cost leader First Solar.

The company has a research facility in Fremont, Calif., and has plans to build a demonstration-scale manufacturing plant in Hangzhou, China, to validate its technology next year, said Chris Beitel, the company's vice president of marketing and business development. The factory will be able to produce 32 megawatts worth … Read more

Tesla Motors today said it has secured supply of battery cells from Panasonic for its Model S electric sedan, a move Tesla says will allow it to meet its cost targets.

Through the supply agreement, Panasonic will make enough lithium ion battery cells for 80,000 electric vehicles over the next four years, according to Tesla.

The Model S will use a line of batteries developed by Panasonic and Tesla specifically for electric vehicles. The collaboration came out of a deal between the two companies in 2009, in which Panasonic supplied battery cells, the components that go into battery packs, … Read more