Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Arch Venture Partners. When DOE officials sought additional venture help to avoid the commercialization "valley of death," other venture firms, such as Khosla Ventures and Matrix Partners, got involved.

In recent years, solar technology has enjoyed compound annual growth rates of 43 percent in generated megawatts (from 286 MW in 2000 to 3.43 GW in 2007), and 30 percent in revenue growth ($3.43 billion in 2000 to $21.2 billion in 2007).

Nanotechnology investment from the private sector began growing as the federal government expanded its National Nanotechnology Initiative, which has been funded to the tune of $io billion since 2000. The Energy Department has facilitated investor interest through the creation of five nanotechnology centers of excellence, covering such areas as micromolecular structures and thin films.

Bruce told EE Times the DOE has turned away from traditional licensing schemes, involving royalties for patents, and instead is promoting arrangements in which equity shares ir private companies are exchanged for technology licensing rights.

Several conference panelists wamed of the potential downsides to investment. Lux Research senior analyst Michael LoCascio said growth will continue in the solar industry but projected a dip in the growth rate in late 2008 or early 2009 as a supply surge erodes prices. This does not indicate softening of interest in solar, he said.

Scott Livingston, founder of the Liv- ingston group investment arm of Axiom Capital, quipped that "$150-a-barrel oil and the collapse of the financial system in this country might be the best thing that's happened to our business."

Joel Serface of Kleiner Perkins helped his firm open an office near National Renewable Energy Labs in Golden, Cob., to work with the DOE entrepreneur program. He said the influx of venture capitalists "brings some lemming-like tendencies, but in general, the expansion in this area is a good thing."

Rockport Capital partner Abe Yokell said the field once struggled to attract good managers, "but lately the semiconductor and biotechnology guys have been looking to move into this space." U

Loring Wirbel is director of EE Times'
Market Intelligence Unit.

Electronic Engineering Times July 28, 2008

While renewable energy investments have been on an upstroke since the late 1990s, in recent years solar in particular has enjoyed CAGR rates of 43 percent in generated megawatts (from 286 MW in 2000 to 3.43 GW in 2007), and 30 percent in revenue growth ($3.41 billion in 2000 to $21.2 billion in 2007).

Still, experts here agreed that for large alternative energy projects, solar thermal for now appears to be the best approach. According to estimates compiled by the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development, solar thermal power-generating costs could drop from about $4.25 per watt in 2008 to $2.5 per watt by 2020.

Solar thermal developers also say that their power is more valuable than that provided by wind, currently the fastest-growing form of renewable energy. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, wind power costs about 8 cents per kilowatt, while solar thermal power costs 13 to 17 cents. But power from wind farms fluctuates with every gust and lull; solar thermal plants, on the other hand, capture solar energy as heat, which is much easier to store than electricity. Utilities can dispatch this stored solar energy when they need it--whether or not the sun happens to be shining. "That's going to be worth a lot of money," says Terry Murphy, president and chief executive officer of SolarReserve, a Santa Monica, CA, developer of solar thermal technology. "People are coming to realize that power shifting and 'dispatchability' are key to the utility's requirements to try to balance their system."

Looking into Solar Thermal power systems.

What are the steam cycle parameters?
What is the overall thermal efficiency?
What is the cooling medium for your condensers?
How much water will the plant consume per unit of power?
Are the mirrors steered so that they track the sun?
What is the installation cost per unit of energy produced each year?

Giant Facility Could Serve 52,000 Homes

By Michael G. Murphy
Journal Business Editor

New Mexico's four largest electric utilities on Monday issued a request for proposals for a large-scale solar generating plant that could provide electricity for up to 52,000 homes.

Public Service Company of New Mexico, El Paso Electric, Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association jointly issued the request, seeking detailed plans from solar developers for construction of a solar parabolic trough generation plant to feed power to each of the utilities by 2012.

In a small-population state like New Mexico, it makes sense for utilities to join forces on such a project to seek economies of scale and to meet alternative energy mandates from regulators, PNM spokesman Jeff Buell told the Journal late Monday.

"The four of us directly or indirectly provide electricity to almost every customer in the state," Pat Vincent, PNM Utilities president, said in a statement.

El Paso Electric spokesman Henry Quintana said it is not unusual to work together with other utilities on shared power projects, noting that El Paso and PNM both went into the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station together.

"This (the solar plant) is just a project all four of us were interested in," he said.

RFP requirements include:

· Locating the plant in New Mexico.
· Using parabolic trough technology.
· Encouraging thermal, energy storage.
· Being able to deliver between 211,000 and 375,000 megawatt-hours per year (enough to power between 29,000 and 52,000 average New Mexico homes).

"Each of the utilities has shown tremendous leadership by coming together as partners for renewable energy," Vincent said.

None of the utilities had an idea what such a plant might cost, but each utility would financially support it through some sort of purchased power agreements for the electricity generated. "All the costs would be rolled into that," Buell said.

The cost of the plant eventually would go into customer rates pending regulatory approval, he said.

The RFP follows a feasibility study performed by the Electric Power Research Institute last year that found that the most feasible solar technology currently available for a large-scale plant here is parabolic trough.

It utilizes a series of trough-shaped mirrors to focus sunlight onto an oil-filled tube, and then uses the hot oil to generate steam. The steam is used to turn a generator, producing electricity. When combined with thermal energy storage, this solar technology is capable of generating electricity at night, as well as during cloudy periods, the utilities said in a joint news release.

The parabolic trough technology technology looks the most promising and most economically feasible, in part because it has been field tested the most, Buell said.

The study also mentioned that potential locations could be near Albuquerque or Lordsburg in southwest New Mexico, although no more specific information on potential sites was available, Tri-State spokesman Jim Van Someren said.

If the RFP process is successful, the utilities plan to have a contract negotiated by the end of 2008, and the solar facility could be generating electricity by 2011.

Tri-State, which is the primary electric provider for most electric cooperatives in New Mexico, said partnering with the other companies was the best way to meet renewable mandates but also because "our board has made a commitment to balanced (energy) resource planning and development. Solar in certain parts of our service territory holds a lot of promise," Van Someren said.

Buell added, "We are very hopeful we can find a project that works technologically and economically."

El Paso Electric primarily serves southern New Mexico, including the Las Cruces area. Xcel serves the Clovis area and other portions of eastern New Mexico, and Tri-State handles most of the co-ops in central, western and northern New Mexico.

PNM has 487,000 electric customers, mostly in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe areas.

Albuquerque Journal Tuesday July 1, 2008

BY AMANDA LEE MYERS
The Associated Press

PHOENIX - A Spanish company is planning to take 3 square miles of desert southwest of Phoenix and turn them into one of the largest solar power plants in the world.

Abengoa Solar, which has plants in Spain, northern Africa and other parts of the U.S., could begin construction as early as next year on the 280-megawatt plant in Gila Bend a small, dusty town 50 miles southeast of Phoenix. The company said Thursday it could be producing solar energy by 2011.

Abengoa would build, own and operate the $1 billion plant, named the Solana Generating Station.

Arizona Public Service, the state's largest utility, would pay Abengoa $4 billion over 30 years for the energy produced, estimated to be enough to supply up to 70,000 homes at full capacity.

APS filed for approval of the plant with Arizona's public utilities regulator Thursday. The plant also hinges on an. extension of the federal solar investment tax credit, which APS and Abengoa said they're confident will happen.

If the Arizona plant is approved, it would triple the amount of renewable energy APS produces. Now, about 1 1/2 percent of the utility's energy comes from renewable sources.

A 3,200-acre solar plant is also being proposed on state land near Deming, though Franklin Sharf, president of New Solar Ventures, has told the Journal he could not speculate when ground would be broken. The company disassociated itself from its financier in 2006, after a Journal investigation found the financiers manager had a history of unpaid debts, tax liens and a fraud conviction.

PNM Resources spokesman Jeff Buell said Friday that the company has finalized a feasibility report on constructing a concentrated solar energy plant, between 50 megawatts and 500 megawatts in size, somewhere in New Mexico.

Albuquerque Journal Saturday February 23, 2008