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Looks like hard-core behavioral analysis and the good ol’ U.S. mail has won one of the bigger cleantech cash prizes of the year.

Opower has landed a $50 million investment from Kleiner Perkins, Accel Partners and New Energy Associates, more than tripling the $14 million it raised from NEA in late 2008 as it scales up to quadruple its customer base and launch some new products in 2011.

greennumbers opower behavioral analysis investment New Energy Associates kleiner perkins Accel Partners

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  A power grid is only as secure and reliable as its most overloaded and vulnerable distribution areas.  A single point of failure can interrupt power for thousands, even millions of customers.  This flaw in our grid is becoming more apparent as electricity demand has increased quickly over the past few decades.  Since demand is outpacing the available supply of electricity generation capacity, power grid failures are becoming more common, but this need not be the case.  Smart grid technologies can efficiently schedule and redistribute electricity usage, smoothing the demand curve and reducing the peaks.  If we invest in smart grid technology, automating the detection of grid malfunctions before they become catastrophic, we will save billions of dollars a year.

greennumbers smart grid investment

Trilliant Incorporated, a leader in delivering Smart Grid solutions that enhance energy efficiency, utility operations, and renewable resource integration, today announced that it has closed financing totaling $106 million from a global syndicate of industry and financial leaders.

The financing round was led by two highly-respected financial investors, Investor Growth Capital (the wholly-owned venture arm of Investor AB of Sweden) and VantagePoint Venture Partners and two leading global grid-related equipment companies, ABB and GE. The financing, which was coordinated by Deutsche Bank, also includes a significant credit facility from a major venture credit provider as well as continuing financial support from existing investors MissionPoint Capital Partners and zouk ventures. The new investment will be used to finance Trilliant’s continued growth in North America and globally.

trilliant smart grid financing round investment greennumbers

In a new IEA report intended to inform and guide climate and energy policy decision makers, the Energy Technology Perspective 2010 demonstrates that the clean technology revolution will require an additional $46 trillion investment (beyond energy infrastructure investment expected in BAU scenarios) if we intend to halve carbon emissions by 2050 (from 2005 levels). And, the IEA adds, a carbon price alone will not be sufficient to drive that level of investment.

iea greennumbers Energy Technology Perspective 2010 clean technology investment carbon emissions

Large banks, including Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, are making major investments in wind farms because a change in federal renewable energy subsidies is providing investors returns of up to 15 percent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The surge in investment has been spurred in part by a new
Wind
U.S. government policy, which now allows wind farm developers to receive 30 percent of the cost of the project upfront in cash, rather than receiving tax credits spread out over the life of the wind farm.

wind energy Wind farm investment greenmonktv