I kicked off my Distributech week in San Diego by touching down and heading straight for a pre-event meeting organized by the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative (SGCC) – a non-profit organization pulling together a diverse membership of utilities, vendors, other industry associations, and consultancies to share information on smart grid adoption and consumer attitudes. Today’s meeting centered on the release of the group’s new State of The Consumer Report which will be available shortly on the SGCC site. As a compendium of over 80 industry studies conducted by the likes of Accenture, Best Buy, IBM, and others it is sure to be a valuable reference document for anyone exploring the consumer side of smart grid.

What is clearly evident from the report itself and today’s discussion is that there is not one smart grid consumer – there will be tech savvy and eco-friendly early adopters, aggressive resistors, cost curious experimenters, and likely an ambivalent majority. To me, this segmentation means that smart grid consumers are, well, no different than consumers of virtually any other consumer product.  Segmentation is a way of life for marketers of everything from televisions to toothpaste. Yet, for utilities, rate payers have generally been one homogenous …

The state of Massachusetts can be characterized by internationally strong industry clusters, a significant and growing venture capitalist base, the highest R&D spending in the US, and world acclaimed universities. With that backdrop, the City of Boston is at the heart of the cleantech movement in Massachusetts. Here are the top ten reasons why Boston, Massachusetts is ready to take its place in the forefront of the cleantech revolution.

1. The New England Energy Council
Venture capitalists, major financial institutions, clean energy industries and associations have paired with local colleges and universities to become a community of nearly 150 stakeholders determined to make Boston a world-class leader in clean energy. The Council regularly convenes clean energy CEOs and provides training, education, and policy assistance to industries in the greater Boston region.

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
With support for student driven innovation, MIT’s Clean Energy Prize provides $200,000 to the number one student energy project in the nation. The prize in 2009 attracted 113 student teams from 40 different American universities with projects that ranged from insulation using husks to new solar technology.

3. The Global Warming Solutions Act
Signed in 2008 by Governor Deval Patrick, the Global Warming Solutions …

Each week our research team tracks cleantech transactions across the globe. This week we recorded 20 venture deals, 5 fund announcements, 17 M&As and 4 IPO related announcements. Below are some of the highlights. Cleantech Group subscribers can see the full roundup of all the deals here.

VC, private company and corporate investments

Over $215 million was raised by 14 cleantech companies globally. The two largest deals were:

• California-based Fulcrum BioEnergy, a developer of technology for converting municipal solid waste into ethanol, raised $75 million in Series C financing from Rustic Canyon Partners, U.S Renewables Group, and other investors.  The investment will allow the company to move forward with the construction of a $120 million garbage-to-ethanol plant.
• India-based Kiran Energy, a developer of solar power projects, reportedly raised approximately $30 million from investors New Silk Route, Bessemer Ventures, and Argonaut Ventures.  The company is in advanced stages of talks with different distributors to form JVs and plans to achieve 200 MW capacity in the next three years.

Funds

Announcements were made by 5 funds looking to raise over $1.3 billion. The top 2 were:

• GE, ConocoPhilips and NRG Energy agreed to form a joint venture fund called Energy Technology

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Each week our research team tracks cleantech transactions across the globe. This week we recorded 14 venture deals, 6 fund announcements, 24 M&As and 4 IPO related announcements. Below are some of the highlights. Cleantech Group subscribers can see the full roundup of all the deals here.

VC, private company and corporate investments

Over $310 million was raised by 14 cleantech companies globally. The two largest deals were:

• UK-based Plastic Logic, a developer of plastic semiconductors, raised $200 million in equity financing and $100 million in partial guarantees for debt financing from Rusnano, a state-owned Russian nanotech corporation, and Oak Investments. Rusnano will also invest an additional $400 million in equity and debt financing over the next few years. The investment will fund Plastic Logic’s high-volume facility in Dresden, Germany, and maintain its research and development operations in the UK, as well as fund a plastic display production facility in Zelenograd, Russia’s Silicon Valley.
• Australia-based EnviroMission, a developer of solar tower renewable energy technologies, raised $29.8 million in debt and equity from AGS Capital Group.  The investment will be used for site-specific, front-end engineering and design for its Solar Updraft Tower development in the United States.

Funds

Announcements were …