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Print Edition StoriesFriday, February 13, 2009
Inside Clean Technology
New England clean tech companies, agencies closing deals
By Mass High Tech staff
MHT reporter Efrain Viscarolasaga on NECN: Green tech brings jobs back to Mass.
NECN: New England techs lead new fuel cell markets
MHT's Cleantech Forum
In the face of talk that clean tech investment, contracts and mergers are on ice in the current economic environment, some deals are getting done in New England's clean tech sector, as reflected by these items published by Mass High Tech and MassHighTech.com in the past month.
Beacon Power Corp., a Tyngsborough-based power storage technology developer, has signed a deal with the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), potentially worth up to $3 million, to evaluate the a flywheel energy storage system for naval surface combatants.
The contract calls for system and component development of NAVSEA’s Integrated Power Systems (IPS) and its energy storage needs for ships; identify potential flywheel use; and create a final design concept outlining flywheel design models.
Beacon Power also signed a two-year agreement with the utility company National Grid. The deal enables the two companies to share data on Beacon Power’s flywheel systems, specifically the Smart Energy Matrix, and how it could operate with National Grid’s electricity transmission network.
National Grid officials said in a statement that the company is interested in the flywheel energy storage systems because of their “high efficiency, zero carbon emissions, and extremely fast response.”
The Rhode Island Renewable Energy Fund, now under the management of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp., has awarded $30,000 to the town of Jamestown to conduct a wind power feasibility study to determine the possibility of erecting and operating wind turbines in that town. The study will include identifying and preliminarily ranking the top five turbine sites in the town.
The Scuderi Group LLC, the developer of a fuel-efficient internal combustion engine, has landed $20 million in a new round of private funding. While the company did not release the names of specific investors, the new funding brings the company’s total to $35 million since its inception in 2002.
The Scuderi Group, a 12-person West Springfield company led by founder Salvatore Scuderi, has developed a new combustion process for engines based on a “split cylinder” configuration, dividing the four strokes of a standard engine over a paired combination of one (intake/compression) cylinder and one (power/exhaust) cylinder. The two cylinders are connected by a cross-over chamber with high-speed valves that allow each piston and cylinder to perform their respective functions independently.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut has signed an executive order to grow the state’s green collar jobs, which she defines as both “white and blue collar jobs in green businesses.”
The order calls for identifying opportunities to create green jobs and grow environmental industries. To do so, the Connecticut Employment and Training Commission is responsible for forming a Green Collar Jobs Council, which will include industry representatives and state officials as well as the energy workforce development consortium.
Battery technology maker Boston-Power Inc. reports it has raised $55 million in new funding, which the Westborough-based company says it will use to ramp up manufacturing, sales, marketing and research, and development efforts for its Sonata Lithium-ion batteries.
The new round — Boston-Power’s fourth — was led by Foundation Asset Management, with participation by existing backers Oak Investment Partners, Venrock, GGV Capital and Gabriel Venture Partners. This Series D round brings Boston-Power’s total funding to $125 million since it was founded in 2005.
American Superconductor Corp. of Devens has received a new order for its large-scale dynamic reactive compensation system from National Grid to use in the power company’s grid modernization project on New York’s Long Island.
According to AMSC officials, the Long Island Power Authority project is the company’s largest smart grid project, as well as one of the largest in the nation.
SiOnyx Inc., a Beverly-based maker of semiconductor material called black silicon that could improve on current solar cells, has expanded its operations with the opening of a West Coast facility and the hiring of new scientists and engineers.
The company opened an engineering office in Beaverton, Ore., and added Homayoon Haddad, former vice president of advanced sensor and pixel development for MagnaChip Semiconductor, as the SiOnyx vice president of device engineering.
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