Energy Secretary Steven Chu, often described at the “smartest man in the room” in the Obama administration, urged Congress to pass a comprehensive climate and energy bill. Speaking this week at a conference at Stanford University, Chu warned that failure to seriously tackle climate change could limit the nation’s ability to be a leader in the green-energy technologies of tomorrow.

He warned:

The future prosperity of the United States is at risk. I think we will lose (and) end up purchasing equipment from abroad.

Along with an overhaul of the country’s healthcare system, the Obama administration has made clean energy-  and specifically, ensuring that it beats China as the world’s leading green power – one of its top priorities. The country that wins the clean energy race will lead the 21st century, President  Obama often repeats.

But much like the healthcare debate (at least until recently), on the Senate side, the energy and climate change discussion has been paralyzed by ongoing debates about the validity of carbon pricing and yes, (hard to believe) whether human-made climate change is real. The House overcame those divisions this summer, approving its energy and climate change bill in a largely partisan vote.

Taking a cue from Secretary Chu’s stark warning this week Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) and his co-sponsors — Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — took steps to revive their stalled climate change and energy bill, as they met with Senators from carbon-dependent states at a White House mini-summit headed by President Obama. The day before, Kerry also met with key industry groups, including the powerful American Petroleum Institute, which has been lukewarm about cap-and-trade, despite strong support from key member companies and industries.

Is an acquisition in the making in the wind sector? It’s certainly looking that way following this week’s resignation of Doug Pertz, CEO of California wind turbine maker Clipper Windpower, and his replacement with United Technologies (UTC) executive Mauricio Quintana. The corporate reshuffle could pave the way for UTC to take a majority stake in the turbine company, of which it already controls a 49.5 percent stake.

German solar cell maker Q-Cells also showed CEO Anton Milner the door this week. Milner, one of the company’s co-founders, was forced out after the company reported steep financial losses of €1.36 billion ($1.84 billion / £896 million). Taking over the top slot is Chief Financial Officer Nedim Cen, who joined the company from the restructuring consultants Alvarez & Marshal on an interim basis in June 2009.

SunPower, the San Jose, Calif. solar panel maker, scored a big contract this week to supply up to 200 megawatts of solar panels to be installed on rooftops of commercial buildings across the service area of power utility, Southern California Edison (SCE). This is one of the Southern California’s more innovative projects, which at full capacity, will generate some 500 megawatts of sun-powered electricity. Indeed, rather than building large utility-scale plants, SCE has opted to use existing space (building rooftops) and distribute power locally, which voids the needs for cumbersome, long transmission lines.

Competitor First Solar signed a large power purchase agreement with SCE and Pacific Gas and Electric for the 550-megawatt output of its Desert Sunlight photovoltaic solar project. The contract effectively preps the power plant for a potential sale by First Solar, which as a strategy has bought projects to ensure a market for its PV panels; it then sells them once the projects are close to completion.

This week GER also caught up with long-time green financier Andrew de Pass of cleantech-focused investment bank Greentech Capital Advisors. Since its launch in July the New York-based firm has scored a number of advisory mandates. Next step in the firm’s development – private equity. De Pass said Greentech Capital is planning to launch private equity investment funds early next year. The firm took a crucial step in its evolution as a one stop shop to green industry with its hiring of Heather Smith, Deutsche Bank’s former head of structured private placements, to build its own private placement group.

The cleantech-focused private equity fund US Renewables Group launched Westerly Wind to provide financing to wind developers that are having a hard time raising capital. Former American National Power CEO Joe Cofelice was brought on to lead the new venture.

VC Watch

This is probably a first, but GER this week did not report on any significant venture capital investments. If we’ve missed anything or if you have a tip on an upcoming announcement, let us know at: editors@greenenergyreporter.com. Thanks!

Rambling

This week, as part of our Cornerstone Conversation series, we talked to Audra Parker, who’s been leading the opposition against the Cape Wind offshore wind project. The project is awaiting a crucial decision by the Interior Department that could finally pave the way to the construction of the controversial project on the Cape Cod sound.

Parker highlighted that her organization is not against the project, but merely against its location.

She said:

It’s not an issue of being opposed to renewable energy, it’s not an issue of being NIMBY, it’s an issue of being the wrong location for Cape Wind.

As the U.S. seeks to swell its renewable energy potential beyond technology and increase its access to capital and even to the grid system, another often overlooked issue is finding sites. Cape Wind has been trying to launch its “clean energy project” for eight years, and in doing so has been largely paralyzed by strong local opposition. The ability to balance the policy demands with the demands of developers and local residents will play a crucial role in ensuring that the U.S. leads this ongoing cleantech race…a race that China and its centralized, undemocratic, one-party system seems to be winning.

Image: iStockphoto

Ontario, the new solar eldorado?

First Solar, the world’s largest maker of thin-film photovoltaic panels, sells a substantial majority of its production on the German market. The company estimates that just for the first half of 2010 about 50 percent of its production will go to Germany.

With the conservative coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel tightening the countries generous solar feed-in program, the Tempe, Ariz.  company has been working hard to reassure analysts that other markets including, Italy, France and China, will offset an expected declining demand in Germany.

But what about Ontario…? That’s the question Barclays Capital’s Vishal Shah asks this morning in a research note.

Shah highlights that for First Solar, sales of its PV panels to developers, operating under the province’s Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP) subsidy program, could translate in sales margins of up to 70 percent.

He writes –(see here for the full report):

Potential systems project buyers may be looking at almost $5/W ASP for Ontario solar projects under the RESOP program, which could potentially result in nearly 70% margins for [First Solar] FSLR modules sold to the captive Ontario pipeline.

First Solar has nearly 112 megawatts of Ontario projects that have not yet started construction, according to Shah.

Of all the renewable energy subsidy programs now in place in North America and beyond, Ontario’s RESOP is probably one of the most popular with developers because their projects are assured to sell their output to the Ontario Power Authority under long-term power purchase agreements. This has made it a lot easier for developers to secure financing for Ontario projects.

Image: iStockphoto

Andrew de Pass, a senior advisor with cleantech-focused investment bank Greentech Capital Advisors, tells GER that the firm could  launch a cleantech-focused investment fund early next year.

The investment fund  would not provide early stage venture capital. “We are looking to do later stage private equity investments,” de Pass tells us.

Investments would support companies across the whole green / sustainable space, including  renewable energy projects.

No word on expected size of capital commitments or the fund’s potential investors.

Jeffrey McDermott, a former i-banker with UBS, launched Greentech Capital last Summer as an M&A advisory business. The firm has been on at least four deals. Most recently,  advising solar power developer Ausra as part of its acquisition by Areva, the French nuclear reactor maker.

But from the start New York-based Greentech Capital has set out to become a full service shop for the green industry. As part of this strategy last week it announced that Heather Smith, Deutsche Bank’s former head of structured private placements, would join the firm to build its own private placement group. Former Goldman Sachs banker Timothy Vincent oversees project finance for the  firm.

Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound CEO Audra Parker

In April, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will decide the fate of the most contentious green energy project in the U.S. – a 420-megawatt offshore wind farm in Massachusetts called Cape Wind. It’s Audra Parker’s job to make sure the developers don’t plant 130 turbines five miles out in Nantucket Sound.

Parker leads the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, which brings together homeowners, tourism organizations, local fishermen and native tribes that oppose the project. The groups say Cape Wind is sited beside key shipping and ferry routes, would disrupt wildlife in the area and would hinder tribal rituals that require unobstructed views of the sound. Cape Wind supporters, including Greenpeace, say the Alliance’s stand is misguided and Business Insider recently called the group “wine-sipping hypocrites.”

Critics who say the Alliance is a “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) group, Parker fires back, ignore legitimate concerns. She says the privately-held Cape Wind could win broad support by moving from the Horseshoe Shoal site to one  further offshore called South of Tuckernuck Island. GER caught up with Parker last week for our Cornerstone Conversations series.

Green Energy Reporter: How did you get involved in the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound?

Audra Parker: I started working at the Alliance in January 2003. I had grown up here in the summertime and I had moved here a couple of years beforehand. I heard about the Cape Wind project and it was really the first time that a [wind] project was being proposed offshore. It seemed that it was public trust land that belonged to everyone and it seemed in a variety of ways an inappropriate location for an industrial scale development.

GER: Who are your major backers?

AP: We’re totally funded by private donations and we probably have 5,000-plus donors. They range from small donors to large donors. Over time, we’ve raised over $20 million. It’s fishermen, it’s tribal members, it’s wealthy people, it’s everyone. Every affected stakeholder that wants to protect the sound knows that this is not the right location.

GER: How have you been able to marshal all of the various objectors into one cohesive group?

AP: We are an alliance of various stakeholders. The tribes will do their own thing. The fishermen will do their own thing. For the most part, everyone is on the same page but for different reasons. The airports are writing to the Federal Aviation Administration to say this is an aviation safety issue. The ferry lines are talking to the U.S. Coast Guard.

GER: Your Web site says there’s still 45 days to make a difference in this eight-year fight against Cape Wind. Do you think authorities in Washington have already made a decision?

AP: I don’t think there is a decision made yet. I think Interior Secretary [Ken] Salazar was genuine in saying he has three priorities: first, respect of tribal rights; second, promoting green energy; third, historic preservation.

The Advisory Council on Historic Properties [which will make the recommendation about Cape Wind to the Interior Department in April] is definitely sensitive to tribal issues. I’m hopeful that they will recommend that Cape Wind be relocated or that it is denied and Secretary Salazar will accept their recommendation. Clearly this is a special place. It’s not an issue of being opposed to renewable energy, it’s not an issue of being NIMBY, it’s an issue of being the wrong location for Cape Wind.

GER: Is there an acceptable halfway solution for your members, like if Cape Wind digs for artifacts in the seabed or pursues other mitigation measures?

AP: When Cape Wind says, ‘We’ll go ahead and dig in the middle of an ancestral burial ground,’ that’s hardly mitigation. The South of Tuckernuck Island site already is a compromise. The downside for Cape Wind is that they claim it’s slightly deeper and it’s 12 percent more expensive. The towns [on Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and Cape Cod] have come forward in an electrical cooperative and said they’ll help offset the additional cost. There’s no financial reason for Cape Wind not to support this. It’s a pretty reasonable scenario.

The ferry lines alone transports 3 million passengers alone through Nantucket Sound, which has 200 days of fog per year. The ferry lines are calling the project an accident waiting to happen. It’s put in the most conflicted area you could imagine.

It’s not an issue of being opposed to renewable energy, it’s not an issue of being NIMBY, it’s an issue of being the wrong location for Cape Wind.

GER: After Cape Wind released a study about the projected cost savings from the project, you said that the company was propagating “the myth of cheap offshore wind.” Are you opposed to all offshore wind?

AP: We support renewable energy including offshore wind, but appropriately sited and without being an excessive burden to ratepayers.

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers came in [to review the site] eight years ago, there was no process in place for permitting renewable energy in offshore waters. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 put the Department of Interior in charge instead of the Army Corps. They also charged them with establishing rules and regulations for permitting. Those didn’t come out until summer 2009. We feel that regulations need to precede the project. In June, President Obama introduced ocean zoning and again we believe that needs to precede any project. Had there been ocean zoning in place, had they not picked such a conflicted location in the first place there wouldn’t have been a problem.

Also, I think there’s a public perception that wind is free and it has been fed by Cape Wind and offshore wind proponents. Land-based wind is far less expensive than offshore. Cape Wind would get anywhere between $1 and $2 billion in federal and state subsidies and tax credits. It is a hugely expensive form of electricity generation and that should be transparent to the public.

GER: Green energy companies complain that they’re being forced to jump through too many regulatory hoops to do produce renewable energy. What’s your take?

AP: South of Tuckernuck Island may not be the ideal site but [Cape Wind doesn’t] have to go back to the drawing board. It’s far better from a public interest standpoint than what they picked. It’s already in the federal review, they’ve already studied it.

GER: Does Cape Wind get more flack because it is an offshore wind pioneer in the U.S.?

AP: I think that they truly have not listened to opposition. They have tried to steamroll the local community. They’re trying to ignore the very legitimate issues that exist in this community.

GER: Is there a “green on green” war between cultural, wildlife and land conservationists on one side and renewable energy companies on the other?

AP: I think to some extent it’s unavoidable because, if you’re talking wind, your windiest areas are going to be offshore or on ridgelines. I can see why it would come to that. If you think of the reality of wind at this point it requires a fairly large footprint. If we could go into deeper waters and make that more cost effective I’d think you’d have far fewer siting issues.

GER: Do you think Cape Wind is a bad test case for offshore wind in America?

AP: I think if it goes forward it’s going to be at the expense of public safety and at the expense of the tribes. This is a test case for that commitment. If it’s allowed to go forward obviously that commitment wasn’t taken seriously.

Interview conducted and condensed by GER.

Anton Milner: Out as Q-Cells CEO

Q-Cells SE Chief Executive Officer Anton Milner has resigned, effective immediately, from the German photovoltaic cells maker, according to a company release.

Chief Financial Officer Nedim Cen, who joined the company from the restructuring consultants Alvarez & Marshal on an interim basis in June 2009, will take over the CEO duties and hold both positions. Cen will remain with the Q-Cells while it restructures and Alvarez & Marshal will support him in the program, called Q-Cells Reloaded.

Q-Cells reported losses of 1.36 billion Euros ($1.84 billion) on Feb. 23. The company blamed a drastic decline in prices and a time lag in its Calyxo subsidiary becoming competitive.

Milner, one of the company’s four founders, said in a statement:

The very dramatic negative 2009 figures have consequences and have in particular led to a loss of confidence in the financial markets.

Analysts have battered Q-Cells for constant revisions in its 2009 sales outlook, Reuters noted.

Director of Finance Carsten Simon will support Cen in the day-to-day duties of CFO.

Milner photo: Courtesy Q-Cells