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Elon Musk explaining falcon wings

In contrast to gull wing doors that sweep out and up and take up considerable horizontal space, the Model X falcon wings lift up and have a double hinge so they take up a lot less horizontal space. Tesla designed the doors not only to add that extra cool-factor, but also to appeal to, say, a Mom or family driving to the mall and parking in a tight spot.

Because the doors open up vertically there’s also room to stand in the car while getting in and packing cargo (see photo) like kids and groceries. I fully stood up in the car with the doors open and I’m 5’11 and I had ample head room. The Model X is as roomy as any minivan out there and then some — it seats seven, and has cargo space in both the back trunk, and the front trunk (please don’t make me say frunk).

Rear of the Model X with trunk closed

The Model X is built on the backbone of the Model S, Tesla’s sedan that will be delivered to customers this Summer, and the Model X prototype that we checked out on Thursday was Tesla’s most advanced prototype at a launch to date and little will be changed for the production version, said Musk.

Tesla execs drove us around a short driving track and the car handled like the Model S — it has the same low, long, bottom battery pack design. It’s pretty amazing to ride in a minivan/SUV that can handle like a sports car. Musk says the Model X can go zero to 60 in 4.4 seconds. Think of it as the first cool, green, sporty minivan.

The Model X will be priced similarly to the Model S, said Musk, (Model S costs $50,000 to $70,000) and will have about the same electric driving range, with potentially 10 percent less range, because it’s a heavier car (the Model S has three range option, 160 miles, 230 miles and 300 miles).

OK, enough talk, I know you want to see the first photos of Tesla’s Model X! So here you go:

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Energy usage and tariff information generally isn’t easy to understand. To get input on how to solve this problem, U.K. energy regulator Ofgem has been conducting workshops with consumers across Great Britain. The new Consumer First Panel Report lists suggestions from consumers to help them better understand and engage with the electricity and gas market.

The workshops had 110 total participants in six locations across Great Britain last fall, with the goals of:

• Identify energy information needed to equip customers to make an informed decision.
• Establish the communication channels through which consumers want to receive this information.
• Provide insight into how energy information should be presented to encourage engagement.

Here are some suggestions that consumers offered in these workshops:

• Simpler language.Standardized and more easily understood language could better communicate key tariff and consumption information.
• Fewer tariffs.Consumers proposed limiting the number of tariffs — but this could be a bad thing if time-varying options are not permitted.
• Easier price comparisons.Consumers wanted to make it easier to decide which rate options are right for them.
• Guidance. Electricity retailers could work to build better relationships with their customers by helping consumers find the best tariff for them, and by rewarding loyalty.

Smart meters are essential to implement three of these four recommendations in the UK. Without smart meters, actual consumption data is rarely available, since traditional meters are read only quarterly or annually.

Smart meters also provide key tariff and consumption data, because they provide data more often (at least monthly). Also, tariff (cost) data is based on actual consumption, not the estimated consumption most commonly used today.

Smart meter data also makes it easier to compare prices, thus helping consumers find the best tariff option. Actual consumption data can be plugged into smartphone, tablet, or laptop apps which makes these comparisons. Or, retailers can do this on the web. America’s Green Button initiative is one example of how this is becoming a reality in 22 states by April 2012.

It’s worth repeating: Ofgem said that clear information — in simple language — is crucial to making communication materials from energy retailers more effective. This involves improvements to the language, design and layout.

Ironically, Ofgem made this key point in slightly convoluted wording: “How saving messages are communicated and signposted is crucial.”

This article originally appeared on eMeter’s Smart Grid Watch blog. Chris King is the Chief Regulatory Officer for eMeter. He is a nationally recognized authority on energy regulation and competitive energy markets, and is widely recruited by regulators and legislators to consult on technology issues in electric restructuring and grid management.

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The plant is called the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Plant and SolarReserve says it’ll be “the largest power plant of its kind in the world.” It’ll also use molten salt for energy storage.

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Tesla Roadsters lined up outside of the Model S Beta Customer event

This week two Valley-backed and government-supported electric car companies — Tesla and Fisker — have been taking two very different paths: one up and one down.

As you read this, I’ll shortly be heading down to Tesla’s design studio to attend the company’s Model X electric SUV launch event. The Model X is the company’s third electric car — which will be one of the first electric SUVs ever in the world — and Tesla could start selling the first Model X cars by the end of 2013. By this Summer Tesla pans to start selling its second car the Model S (if it meets its target), and it’s already sold around 2,000 Roadsters and signed several development deals with huge automakers. If you need to be convinced that Tesla is doing OK, just check out its stock price: it’s above $30, after an IPO in the Summer of 2010 priced at $17 per share.

Then on the other hand there’s Fisker, which has been dominating the electric car news this week with another type of story. This week Fisker announcedthat it’s suspending work on its second planned car, Project Nina, that was supposed to be built in Delaware with a Department of Energy loan. The company had delayed (by months and years) shipping its first car the Karma to the extent that it couldn’t make the milestones to get the remainder of the DOE loan. Fisker is trying

Tesla merch at the Model S Beta Customer event

to renegotiate the loan, or look for other funding for Project Nina, but in the meantime is putting its head down to work on selling the Karma — a car that came out with a $20,o00 higher than expected price tag and a far lower than expected MPG.

A lot of people have asked me why is one doing so well, while the other seems to be struggling, despite that the companies share a lot of similarities. Back in 2008 the companies even shared a few things that were a little too close for comfort (Tesla at one point sued Fisker alleging that Fisker stole Tesla’s design ideas and trade secrets). So here’s 3 10 key differences between these two electric car makers:

1). Tech vs design: Tesla has been building next-gen electric vehicle technology since its inception in 2003, and made a strategic bet at the beginning of its life to build cars around packaging commoditized (low cost) small-format batteries. Tesla is selling its battery pack and powertrain tech to some of the largest auto makers out there, like Tesla’s $100 million deal with Toyota, for its RAV-4 EV. Tesla can use this tech to not only make hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from development deals, but all of that IP is extremely valuable, and puts the company in control of a lot more of the development of its cars.

Fisker is a design shop first before it’s a technology company. The company founder Henrik Fisker is the well-known auto designer behind the Aston Martin. Fisker has a long-term supply agreement deal with Quantum for the powertrain tech and software for the Karma and Fisker gets its Karma batteries from A123 Systems. Fisker has no plans to sell or license car tech, which means it doesn’t have that valuable IP and also it won’t be making revenues off of development deals. Also it’s subject to issues in third party tech, like the battery problem that emerged in late 2011, that led to a recall and fix of the Karmas on the market.

2). Stage of development: Tesla is about four years older than Fisker, but it seems like EV-years are like dog years, they’re accelerated. Tesla went through its roller coaster, delay-filled and worrisome years about four years ago. Tesla won $465 millionin DOE loans after it eeked past that period and about three months after it started delivering its

Fisker Karmas

first car. Fisker was awarded $529 million in loans from the DOE, over two years before it delivered its first car the Karma.

Tesla was at just the right stage of development to be able to make use of those government loans to build its own factory for the Model S. On the other hand, Fisker was not in the right stage to start planning a factory for a second car that was supposed to produce 75,000 to 100,000 cars annually.

3). Elon Musk: Tesla has a founder and CEO that has put up some serious cash to keep the business running, particularly getting Tesla through the dark days of the downturn. There’s not an equivalent at Fisker, or at most companies, and Fisker’s investors are made up of dozens of firms and wealthy individuals.

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Here’s the full comment:

We at Nest are proud of creating products that bring true innovation to home efficiency and we are continuing to innovate and bring products to market. The Nest Learning Thermostat is already making a difference, saving customers energy and money. Nest will vigorously defend itself against Honeywell’s patent-attack strategy to stifle thoughtful competition and we have the resources, support and conviction to do so.

If you’re just jumping into this story, Honeywell is a thermostat behemoth, and Nest is a Valley startup that created what it calls the world’s first learning thermostat. Honeywell says that the Nest learning thermostat is infringing on at least seven of Honeywell’s patents, and Honeywell also named retailer Best Buy, which sells the Nest thermostat, in the suit.

Beth Wozniak, president, Honeywell Environmental and Combustion Controls, said in a statement about the lawsuit this week that “Competition is good and we welcome it, but we will not stand by while competitors, large or small, offer products that infringe on our intellectual property.”

Nest is backed by tens of millions of dollars from Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, and Al Gore’s investment fund.

Here’s some other background on the suit:

• The details behind the Honeywell, Nest lawsuit
• How the Honeywell, Nest lawsuit could stifle innovation
• Honeywell killed off its learning thermostat 20 years ago
• Let the battle for the smart thermostat begin (subscription required)

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• Let the battle for the smart thermostat begin
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A few weeks ago when Paul Walborsky, CEO of GigaOM, came to the board and suggested that we should try and acquire paidContent, my fellow board members — Jon Callaghan (True Ventures), Ammar Hanafi (Alloy Ventures) and Kevin Brown (Reed Elsevier Ventures) — didn’t hesitate for a minute. The ethos of paidContent and our company are in sync. GigaOM’s core belief is that as connectivity becomes ubiquitous, it changes everything from society to business to we the people. paidContent from the very beginning has been built on the idea that connectedness is and will change media. It makes perfect sense for us to team up. Since then, Paul and his team worked tirelessly to make it happen.

OK, now you know what. Let me tell you why.

Now, why are we doing this deal, clearly the biggest of our five-and-a-half-year history? Two simple but equally powerful reasons — the first and perhaps most important reason: people. I have been an admirer of paidContent’s editorial team from the very beginning of its journey. Rafat Ali and Staci Kramer were two of my favorite writers in the early days of professional blogging. And while Rafat (who is on our board of advisers) has moved on to new things, I am glad to have Staci join us. She has been instrumental in building ContentNext from the ground up, and in addition to writing, she has been building the company’s event business. I am thrilled to announce that she will remain the editor of paidContent.

Ernie Sander who spearheads the ContentNext editorial operations is the kind of veteran everyone on our team, including me, can learn from. And for that precise reason, Ernie is going to become the executive editor of our sprawling online editorial operations. Our managing editor, Nicole Solis, is being promoted to VP of Editorial Operations. And then there is the most awesome team of journalists — Robert Andrews, Tom Krazit, Daniel Frankel, Laura Hazard Owen, Jeff Roberts and Amanda Natividad. In addition there are a wonderful group of technology, business and sales people who are joining our company. I welcome them all to our growing family and can’t wait to break bread with them in weeks to come.

Location, location, location

These fine folks are actually going to help bolster our presence in New York and help increase our footprint in Europe, a region of key strategic focus for GigaOM. (We will be hosting Structure:Europe in Amsterdam, October 16-17.) With this deal, we are really pleased that one of the most forward-looking media outlets around, Guardian News & Media, will become a shareholder in our business.

As you all know, I am (and will always be) a displaced New Yorker; New York City is my spiritual home. By increasing our footprint in the capital of the world, I would get a chance to go back more often. But it’s not an emotional tug that is driving us to this decision. New York is fast becoming a major technology hub, as Ryan Kim outlined in his recent post. And we want to expand our coverage to Boston — thanks to Barb Darrow who joined us several months ago — and the Washington DC corridor as well. paidContent’s New York City offices are now GigaOM East.

Media is the new Wild West

We are quite strategic about our acquisitions — we acquire media entities only if we love the people and believe that we are at the starting phase of a trend. In 2008, we acquired jkOnTheRun as our tip of the hat to the growing demand for mobile devices and the changes it would bring into society. Later that year, we brought in The Apple Blog because we knew the best was yet to come for Apple. Both of those acquisitions have helped GigaOM cover the issues that matter most to our ultimate customers — you, the reader — in a smart, sensible fashion.

“The question that mass amateurization poses to traditional media is ‘What happens when the costs of reproduction and distribution go away? What happens when there is nothing unique about publishing anymore because users can do it for themselves?’ We are now starting to see that question being answered.”— Clay Shirky

Shirky’s observation means that we are in a time of chaos where the very idea of media is being questioned. And as a Chinese proverb says, from chaos emerges opportunity. I believe the best is yet to come for media.

Over the past few years we have started to see the transformation of media by new technologies, new methods of distribution and newer ways to consume information. Mathew Ingram has been writing about these disruptions on a regular basis, and now we are going to double down on what we think is a great new chapter in the media industry.

I have always believed that we’ve got to stop thinking of media as what it was and focus on more of what it could be. In the world of plenty, the only currency is attention and attention is what defines “media.” Zynga is fighting Hollywood for attention (and winning). Instagram is taking moments away from other media. They have attention. There are old companies that are dying and new ones that are being invented. We’re eager to expand our coverage of social and digital media editorially, in our research and at our events. paidContent is the best chronicler of the media industry, and by blending their coverage with ours, we hope to watch this fast-changing industry ever more closely.

Please join me in welcoming the ContentNext team!

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At the Photon Thin Film conference in San Francisco last week, well-known researcher Rommel Noufi, who heads the thin film research at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, challenged startup AQT Solar over promising and under delivering.

AQT Solar’s CEO, Michael Bartholomeusz, gave a pretty standard talk about the company’s shift from using the material combo CIGS (stands for copper-indium-gallium-selenide) to using CZTS (copper-zinc-tin-sulfide) for its solar cells. The Silicon Valley startup hasn’t met the goals it set a few years back with the manufacturing of CIGS solar cells, but it recently raised $18.7 million and is now charging ahead with its new CZTS technology instead. He promised to commercialize the CZTS technology in 2013.

And after Bartholomeusz spoke, Noufi stepped up to the microphone that was set up for a Q&A, and promptly put Bartholomeusz on the spot and cautioned about making empty promises: “The only advantage of CZTS is when indium and gallium disappear. We have to be careful about not giving another technology a bad name.”

In his own defense, Bartholomeusz, pointed out that the amount of money that has been pumped into developing CIGS technology has yet to make a significant dent in the market. He said: “I don’t think any commodity since the dawn of time hasn’t responded to supply and demand. So with indium and gallium there will have an issue.”

Failure of CIGS

The exchange ended there, but the feeling that the CIGS technology, which has attracted more than $1 billion in venture capital, hasn’t become a key player in the solar market lingered. Markus Beck, who until last December was heading the secretive CIGS development lab at First Solar, gave a talk at the conference that outlined why the CIGS community hasn’t achieved success. 

Some of the missteps involved experimenting with too many different ways to making CIGS panels and falling short on figuring out how to run production lines efficiently, Beck said. He noted the reliance on venture capital is partly to blame – VCs want to bet on cutting-edge technology because it could deliver a huge return if done right. But that in fact encouraged the development of fancy but expensive products that can’t compete, and Solyndra is a prime example, said Beck, who was the lead scientist at Solyndra before joining First Solar in 2008.

“If I say I have a new sexy process, then people give you money. We have diluted the money that is available to us,” he said.

Aside from AQT, other CIGS companies that still hope to become major players in the market include MiaSole, Nanosolar, HelioVolt, Stion, SoloPower, Soltecture, Global Solar, Solibro and Avancis. Several of them have brought in new CEOs in recent past. The biggest CIGS solar manufacturer is Solar Frontier, which brought online a 900 MW factory in its native Japan last year. The company last month announced a deal to supply up to 150MW of solar panels for a project in California. That project is now touted as a sign that demand for CIGS technology is there. Now if only other CIGS solar manufactures could work fast enough to meet demand.

Photo courtesy of Micky Aldridge via Flickr and Nanosolar

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Fisker has been one of Kleiner’s largest auto bets to date, and Fisker has raised over $850 million in private funding from dozens of investors including NEA. Kleiner Partner Ray Lane helped lead the deal and was the public face of the investment back when it won its loan from the DOE in 2010.

This week Fisker announced that while it will continue to sell its Fisker Karma, it has suspended its plans to build a second car, its Project Nina, and hasn’t been able to draw down on the remainder of its DOE loan award. Fisker could end up doing alright if its Karma car takes off, but to date the investment hasn’t exactly been a slam dunk.

What was Lane’s idea when he put Kleiner’s funds in Fisker? Lane told me in an interview last Summer that:

When I did Fisker and another car company, my partners thought I was out of my mind. But I had a thesis. We can invest in a car company and either have a way to get the valuation high enough so you don’t get crushed on dilution or get low-cost loans that are high leverage for equity investors.

Then there’s Next Autoworks, formerly called V-Vehicle, which had plans to build a gas-sipping plastic four-seater car in Louisiana at an uncommonly low cost. In addition to Kleiner, that venture managed to also get funding from Google Ventures and oil baron turned green crusader T. Boone Pickens, despite that the company never showed off a car prototype or really explained much about what it’s new development would be.

The company hit some rocky ground in 2010 when its founder Frank Varasano left, and Lane temporarily took over. Then in late 2010, it reformed as Next Autoworks and brought in another CEO. However late last year, it finally stopped pursuing the DOE loan, withdrew its application and shelved its proposed factory.

Lastly there’s Think, a Norwegian electric car company that has tried for decades to build an urban small electric car in both Europe and the U.S. At an event in 2008, Lane announced how Kleiner and investor Rockport Capital would create a joint venture with Think, called Think North America, which would sell electric cars (beginning with the Think City) in the U.S., made in the U.S. Kleiner and Rockport owned 50 percent of the venture, while Think Global held the remaining 50 percent.

Think had a plan to build cars in Indiana back in 2010 and was also waiting on approval of a DOE loan. Think had a plan to invest some $43.5 million improving and equipping the Indiana Elkhart plant, and planned to create more than 400 jobs in the area by 2013. Think never got that DOE loan and declared bankruptcy last Summer.

In an interview last Summer, Lane told me the financial details behind his Think investment. He said Kleiner never put equity in the company, but that RockPort and Kleiner paid $2.5 million each to buy the North American rights to Think if it ever came to the U.S. But when Think restructured later, he said,  it bought back the American rights from Kleiner.

Investing in the auto space is a whole different ball game compared to investing in software, computing and mobile. The time lines and capital needed and much different, and the auto sector is also much more susceptible to economic downturns.

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Greenpeace gave Google the top overall score (53 out of 100), while Cisco (49 out of 100), Ericsson (48 out of 100) and Fujitsu (48 out of 100) followed shortly behind. On the flipside of the top companies, were the stragglers, which included Oracle (10 out of 100) at the very bottom, and TCS (11 out of 100) and Telefonica (11 out of 100) at the second and third to last spots.

Greenpeace gives the most weight in its scores to companies for using their own technology to reduce the world’s green house emissions. For example, a networking company like Cisco develops smart grid technology which can save energy and reduce emissions. The second largest part of the Greenpeace score is made up by how well the company advocates publicly and politically for reducing emissions. Lastly, Greenpeace gives companies points for monitoring and managing their own company emissions footprint.

Google rose in the rankings from six overall in 2010 to number one this week. Last year Google invested close to a billion dollars into clean energy projects. Cisco lost its top spot in 2010 to Google this year.

IBM, which was 3rd in 2010, dropped to 9th overall this week. Greenpeace says that IBM fell across all three categories and obtained four penalty points in political advocacy for being a member of a trade association that is trying to block the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals.

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The first light Soraa is launching is a lamp to replace a halogen bulb (called an MR16), which are commonly used in places like recessed ceiling lights and spot lights on products in stores and venues. These aren’t lamps for the everyday home owner, and Soraa is targeting commercial and industrial building owners first, before it moves to the residential market.

During an interview with Soraa CEO Eric Kim at Soraa’s factory, Kim explained to me that “light is not a commodity,” as he showed me the light from the Soraa lamp in comparison to a variety of LED competitors including giants like Philips that also make halogen replacement LEDs. Indeed in the various tests the bright white light displayed a far better quality, consistency, color and angle than the comparison light.

That type of quality would be pretty cool on its own. But Soraa’s LED light is also highly energy efficient. It uses about 75 percent less energy than incandescent and halogen bulbs, and lasts 25 times longer than halogen bulbs. For a company that’s buying lighting for a commercial building, a Soraa light can deliver a year pay back period in energy savings, said Kim.

How does it work?

Soraa’s secret sauce lies in the startup’s early bet on using the semiconductor gallium nitride for the substrate part of the light. LEDs are usually made by putting gallium nitride onto sapphire of silicon carbide substrates. But Soraa’s light places gallium nitride onto a gallium nitride substrate, enabling the core of the light itself to create better uniformity. Soraa says the combo is more cost effective and can produce more light per lamp than the traditional methods.

While the tech sounds like a perfect thing to license to the big players, Soraa is making the big bet that it can be a vertically-integrated LED manufacturer, making the substrate, chip, packaging and entire light solution. That’s always a slight risk, because that can be capital intensive, but on the other hand, the payoff and potential are a lot higher when you own the whole value chain.

Soraa is currently moving into volume commercial production at its factory in Fremont, Calif. Kim tells me at the company’s current fab, it will be able to turn into a $400 million revenue per year company.

Soraa, which was founded in 2008, is backed by Khosla Ventures, NEA and NGEN Partners and has raised over $100 million in funding.

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• Fisker was founded in 2007. Back in the Spring of 2009 Fisker was estimating to make its first Karma production models by the end of 2009 and enter full-scale production of the Karma — about 1,200 cars per month — by June 2010. The goal was to sell 15,000 Karma’s in 2011.
• According to the September 2009 Conditional Commitment letter, Fisker was supposed to hit a milestone of vehicle sales of its Karma of 11,000 units by September 2011.
• In 2009, Fisker was looking to be profitable on 5,000 cars sold in 2011.
• One of the milestones named on the DOE’s Conditional Commitment Letter in September 2009 was that Fisker’s minimum EBIDTA by the end of 2011 has to be $25 million.
• At the end of 2009 Fisker bumped the Karma launch to September 2010.
• The first Karma’s were delivered in the Summer of 2011. We were there and saw Kleiner Perkins partner Ray Lane get his car.
• The rest of the Karma deliveries in the Summer of 2011 were delayed because the car lacked federal and state certification.
• By September 2011, Fisker was estimating to fulfill orders for the Karma of 3,000 by the end of 2011.
• By November 2011, battery maker A123 Systems had to lower its fourth-quarter and year-2011 guidance by $45 million because of the decreased Fisker volume. A123 Systems said Fisker wouldn’t ramp up volume production until Q2 2012.
• By the end of 2011, Fisker said it had sent 225 Karmas to its dealers and had another 1,200 “in the pipeline.”
• Fisker was hit by two production problems at the of 2011 and early 2012. One was a battery defect that forced Fisker to recall and fix the issue for 239 cars. The other was a software glitch that needed to be fixed in early January.
• Now for 2012, Fisker spokesperson is telling reporters this week that Fisker is making “20 to 25” Karmas a day. The goal for Fisker is to produce 60 cars a day at some point. Will it ever get there?
• For Project Nina, Fisker received the DOE loan to manufacture at a volume of 75,000 to 100,000 per year starting in 2012.
• This week Fisker said that it’s suspended working on Project Nina and laid off workers until it can either renegotiate the loan or find alternative funding for Project Nina.

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Honeywell & Opower's iPad smart thermostat app

When tech patent lawsuits land in the middle of an industry they tend to make a loud, dull, thud sound. Nobody particularly likes them (other than maybe the media), both parties can often times end up looking bad, (or at least petty) and patent lawsuits are a guaranteed time and money-suck. But, in addition to all these moderate downfalls, when it comes to a newly emerging industry like smart, Internet-connected thermostats, tech patent lawsuits can also deliver some real harm by potentially hampering innovation.

Of course we’re talking about this week’s shocker: that thermostat giant Honeywell has filed a lawsuit alleging seven different patent infringements against learning thermostat startup Nest Labs. While we’ve solicited your survey results, and you’ve given some great comments on our posts, one thing seems clear to me that I wanted to expand on, and that’s that Honeywell’s patent lawsuit appears broad enough that it could potentially slow down innovation in this space. Here’s why:

• Patents need to be non-obvious and inventive enough to be worthy of a patent. Some of the patents in the Honeywell case — like the natural language Q&A patent and the remote control patent — just seem to be so obvious that I’m not sure how defensible they are. As one of our commenters on this post put it: there’s only a few ways to do certain things, so sometimes the obvious way is obvious to multiple people and companies.
• Major patent wars can be a damper on investment. Say, a promising young startup is building smart thermostat analytics, but they are looking to raise money next month, and all anyone is talking about around smart thermostats is this patent war. An investor could think twice about funding a company that a massive thermostat maker like Honeywell could set its sites on.
• This is a truly David and Goliath scenario. Honeywell has a $47 billion market cap. Nest raised several tens of millions of dollars in venture funding and just launched its learning thermostat. Nest could really struggle if Honeywell pursues this case, even if Honeywell isn’t able to win.
• The really large companies like Honeywell, but also GE and Johnson Controls, have been in this thermostat industry so long that they no doubt have researched a wide portfolio of things that they haven’t actually ever been able to commercialize. Honeywell said as much in its latest interview with me. But it’s unfortunate that instead of commercializing some of these products, these big companies will just crush them rather than see them come to market.
• Go big or go home. This is one of the trends I noticed at the annual DistribuTECH event in January. This industry is maturing and companies have to grow to compete and survive. Particularly if there are patent lawsuits around.

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How might this new lawsuit impact the growth of the overall smart thermostat market? We want you, GigaOM readers, to weigh in below, and we’ll release all the details of the survey in a research note.

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The private equity firm won the bid, which is subject to court approval on Tuesday, to buy Beacon’s assets, including its 20-megawatt flywheel energy plant in New York that was built with a federal loan guarantee.

Rockland Capital plans to pay $30.5 million in cash and a promissory note for Beacon. The deal would allow the U.S. Department of Energy to recoup more than 70 percent of the investments made through its loan guarantee program, a DOE spokesman told Reuters.

Rockland, a private equity firm founded in 2003, focuses on energy investments in North American and Europe. Its investment portfolio mostly includes natural gas power plants, according to a list on its website.

The DOE awarded Beacon a $43 million loan guarantee in 2010 to build a $69 million flywheel plant in New York. Beacon turned that loan guarantee into a loan from the Treasury-run Federal Financing Bank. It owed the government about $39.1 million when it filed for bankruptcy last October. The DOE’s interest to recoup the loan – and potentially minimize any comparison of Beacon to Solyndra and the government’s role in their failures – prompted Beacon to put the flywheel plant for sale last November.

A flywheel is a mechanical device for storing electricity. The term refers to the rotor in a vacuum chamber that spins at a high speed while being powered by electricity it takes from the grid. When the time comes to give the power back to the grid, the flywheel switches into the generator mode and the rotor slows down to discharge power.

A flywheel can charge and discharge energy quickly, making it a good source for providing quick bursts of power that an electric grid needs from time to time to make sure it operates at the optimal, 60-hertz frequency. Grid operators foresee a greater need for frequency regulation service in the future as more intermittent but cleaner energy such as wind and solar flows into the grid.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last year issued a critical ruling that will require higher payments for such services. Beacon was set to benefit from this ruling, which made its flywheel plant much more appealing to potential buyers. FERC will have to approve the sale of the flywheel plant before Rockland can own it.

Rockland said it plans to rehire the majority of the Beacon employees and put up money to build another, 20 MW flywheel plant, which will be in Pennsylvania.

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In late 2009 Fisker was awarded a $528.7 million loan from the Department of Energy that it planned to use to both build its first plug-in car, the Fisker Karma, and start working on its second car to be “Made in the U.S.A” called Project Nina. The company recently launched the Karma — which is manufactured in Finland and assembled in the U.S. — but that car was significantly delayed to market.

Fisker tells me it has drawn down on $193 million of the $529 million loan mostly for the Karma program, and that it received its last reimbursement in May of 2011. Fisker says it is currently “renegotiating some terms of the DOE agreement for the $336 million balance of the loan related to the Project Nina program,” but that it “continues to pursue alternative funding sources.”

If you recall, solar maker Solyndra had the terms of its loan guarantee renegotiated by the DOE, which caused much political backlash after Solyndra went bankrupt. So you can be sure that the DOE will be particularly cautious in how (and if) it works with Fisker on the remainder of its loan.

As I reported last month, following some of its hurdles, Fisker quietly decided to double its current Series D fund-raising round from $150 million to $300 million, and the company has now raised $850 million in private equity. Fisker’s investors include Valley venture firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and NEA and private equity firm Advanced Equities.

Fisker says with Project Nina, it has “completed Phase One of the re-commissioning of a former General Motors plant in Wilmington, Delaware,” and will first focus on selling the Karma in 2012, and then later on focus on the Nina. Fisker was originally shooting to manufacture Project Nina electric cars at a volume of 75,000 to 100,000 per year starting in 2012.

Update: A DOE spokesperson says: “Our loan guarantees have strict conditions in place to protect taxpayers. The Department only allows the loan to be disbursed as the company meets certain milestones and demonstrates results.  As has been widely reported, Fisker has experienced some delays in its sales and production schedule — which is common for start-ups. As Fisker works through those issues and incorporates lessons learned from the production of the Karma, the Department is working with Fisker to review a revised business plan and determine the best path forward so the company can meet its benchmarks, produce cars and employ workers here in America.”

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