Nancy Floyd is the founder and managing director at Nth Power, a venture capital firm established specifically to invest in clean energy startups.
Solar, energy efficiency, smart grid and advanced transportation all feature in Nth Power’s portfolio. Keep reading →
Nancy Floyd is the founder and managing director at Nth Power, a venture capital firm established specifically to invest in clean energy startups. Floyd began her career as the first professional recruitment of a woman at the Vermont Public Utilities Commission. In 1982, Floyd founded NFC Energy Corporation, which developed over $30 million in wind projects and sold the company, generating a 25-fold return within three years. She then went on to help found a telecoms company, which was sold to IBM in 1987.
Nth Power now has $430 million under management and successfully exited investments through nine M&As and four IPOs since the firm started investing in 1997. Keep reading →
(Fortune Tech) Back in 2007, solar energy was one of the hottest stock sectors around. Oil prices were soaring to record highs, solar IPOs were winning warm welcomes and some stocks were rising exponentially. First Solar (FSLR) and Ascent Solar Technologies (ASTI) both rose 800% throughout the year. Then in 2008, a few months after oil prices peaked at $145 a barrel, the credit crisis hit, leaving few banks willing to lend money to finance costly solar-manufacturing plants. Demand for solar panels softened as European governments began eliminating solar subsidies. At the same time, China invested aggressively to expand the production capacity of its solar companies. The result was a rapid decline in solar-module prices. In recent months, the lean times began to take their toll. Solyndra, famously, filed for bankruptcy in September. A few weeks earlier, Evergreen Solar This article is a linkout.
The once high-flying solar power sector is headed for tough times, as a combination of slack demand and massive oversupply is leading to plummeting prices and profits for solar panel makers. The past year was already grim. The Guggenheim Solar (TAN) exchange-traded fund is down 60% since January and sits even lower than it did following the crash in 2008. Two high profile companies have gone bankrupt in the United States — government-backed Solyndra and Evergreen — and analysts anticipate more failures ahead. “Solyndra was just the beginning,” said Jessie Pichel, head of clean energy research at the investment bank Jefferies & Co. “We’re going to see a lot of companies go bankrupt.” This article is a linkout.
The end of the summer brings with it the sense, if not always the reality, of the western world returning to work.
For a lot of people in the US today, there simply is no work, as unemployment numbers and straggling economic growth continue to make clear. President Obama gathered Congress together to announce his own plan for the war on unemployment, and his suggestions met with mixed response from the energy industry. In previous speeches, Obama has singled out the energy business as a major provider of jobs; in this one, with the exception of a passing reference to an Infrastructure Bank, he largely avoided the subject. Keep reading →
A spate of bankruptcies in US solar manufacturers is not a sign of imminent industry collapse, but the inevitable result of competition in a new and evolving market, according to industry representatives.
Solar manufacturer Solyndra announced its intention to file for bankruptcy on the final day of August, following bankruptcy filings by Evergreen Solar on August 15 and SpectraWatt on August 19. The three firms’ failures prompted a flurry of commentary about the challenges facing US solar manufacturing, and prospects for the sector’s survival. Keep reading →
Following its controversial decision after the Fukushima crisis in Japan to shut down all of its nuclear power generation, Germany has been busy bolstering its renewables portfolio.
General contractor hybridsolar AG will add 60.2 MW of capacity to the 24.3 MW FinowTower solar plant, located at the former Eberswalde/Finowfurt military airport in the district of Schorfheide, northeast of Berlin, bringing the plant’s total capacity to 84.5 MW and making it the largest solar power plant in Europe. Keep reading →
With prices of panels rapidly declining, it is becoming harder for many firms to make a profit in solar power.
After months of unsuccessful attempts to save the business, Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar announced it was filing for bankruptcy on Monday. The company will be broken up into smaller units and will continue to manufacture its signature String Ribbon solar wafers, according to an Evergreen Solar statement. It is expected that financial firm ES Purchaser will buy up most of the remaining assets. Keep reading →
