More riffing from REFF
Our series of entries around Renewable Energy Financing Forum sponsored by ACORE in NY continues. The afternoon session was kicked off by US Secretary of Energy, Samuel (Sam) Bodman.
Mr. Bodman will never be accused of being a captivating speaker, but he did have information to share including 3 announcements relating to solar energy:
- A $2.5M grant to 13 cities to improve solar infrastructure
- $30M in grants for photovoltaic process research over the next 3 years
- Up to 10 incubation projects at US universities around PV research with matching private funds totaling up to $27M
Secretary Bodman repeatedly referenced his, and the administration’s belief, that government should be a supporter of renewable energy and private industry should lead and that government should provide a “stable policy framework” in which this support should occur.
The afternoon rounded out with sessions on wind and high profile deals. Following the same format as our earlier post, here are some salient points that stood out from the sessions:
- Wind is the second fastest electricity generation technology behind natural gas
- British Petroleum has entered the wind space in a big way growing from 30MW in late 2005 to over 15GW in development at present
- BP sees a global installed wind base of 125GW within 5 years
- Suzlon, an Indian turbine manufacturer, sees a $186B global wind opportunity
- Venture investment in energy was $2.4B in 2006. Q1 2007, $903M
- M&A activity for renewable energy was $41B in 2006, YTD 2007 it’s $43B
- IPO for renewable energy totaled $7.3B in market cap in 2006 and is $2.2B in 2007, however, $5.1B has been filed for 2007
The networking and reception functions were very productive with over 700 attendees of various types at the conference. There is a good mix of investors, technology providers, support services and developers at this conference. Earlier, we referenced that there was no overlap between this conference and the geothermal funding conference, that was not accurate. Representatives are here from Glitnir Bank (Arni Magnusson) and US Geothermal. Other than that, people wise, there is no overlap. Firm-wise, many of the same support services and a few of the same funding companies are in attendance.
