Trilliant announced Wednesday that is it has been selected by the Republic of Ireland’s national electricity utility to provide smart grid technology for a demonstration project on the island.

The utility, ESB Networks, has launched a four-year program to upgrade the electricity infrastructure in the country. As part of that initiative, Redwood City, California-based Trilliant will supply the communications network for the test project. Trilliant’s SecureMesh Network will enable the smart meters to wirelessly send energy use data back to the utility.

Trilliant did not reveal financial details of the agreement or say how many meters would be included in the demonstration project. Presumably, if the test is successful, Trilliant would be in a strong position to become the communication network provider for a larger smart grid buildout by ESB.

Energy management company Powerit Solutions has raised $6 million in venture funding led by Siemens Venture Capital and ArcelorMittal’s clean technology fund.

Seattle-based Powerit said it would use the funding to continue product development and growth in industrial and commercial markets. The company’s energy management system is designed to help customers avoid spikes in their facilities’ energy demand, which often incurs higher electricity rates. Powerit’s control system wirelessly monitors energy usage at a facility and automatically sheds load according to a set plan.

Powerit said the funding would help it respond to a “surge in customer demand” created by new policies and incentives supporting energy efficiency and carbon reduction. The recently passed stimulus package, for example, provides more than $6 billion in grants for energy efficiency programs, much of it aimed at the building sector.

Founded in 1994, Powerit has helped more than 2,500 companies reduce their energy use.

The economy may be reeling and the solar industry may be struggling to finance projects, but Skyline Solar’s executive team still thought it was time to come out of stealth mode. The Mountain View, California-based startup announced Monday the official launch of the company and its concentrating solar photovoltaic system.

“Skyline Solar is focused on a single goal as a company—accelerating the deployment of solar energy to meaningfully offset fossil fuel consumption,” said Bob MacDonald, CEO of Skyline Solar, in a statement. “We have a laser-like focus on real-world system performance and delivering the lowest cost of energy in the industry.”

The two-year-old firm isn’t lacking for money. As part of the announcement, Skyline said that it has raised $24.6 million in a first round of venture financing led by New Enterprise Associates. The startup also has pocketed $3 million as part of the Department of Energy’s Solar America Initiative that rewarded companies whose innovations could “make solar energy cost-competitive with conventional forms of electricity.”

Skyline, which is targeting commercial and industrial customers, has developed a single-axis tracking system with a reflective rack in the shape of a trough that bounces sunrays toward silicon-based solar cells. The racks have a metal heat sink that promotes convection cooling and keeps the cells running at lower, more efficient temperatures. These features mean the cells only need about 10 percent of the silicon of conventional solar cells, according to Skyline.

The startup says it’s focused on minimizing the cost of its systems by building them out of commodity materials with well-known manufacturing processes from the automotive and photovoltaic industries. But those aims have not yet been put to the test on a large scale—Skyline has so far only built one demonstration plant, for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose, California.

Other concentrating solar companies include SolFocus and Sol3g.

With all the buzz about energy efficiency these days, it’s not surprising that a startup focused on the “demand response” market has pulled in another round of financing.

New York-based CPower, formerly known as Consumer Powerline, announced Tuesday that it raised a $10.68 million second round of funding led by Mayfield Fund.

CPower will use the funding to broaden its customer base and continue development of its technology. The bulk of the company’s business is in the demand response market. CPower finds commercial, industrial, and institutional customers who are willing to reduce their energy usage during periods of peak demand, grid emergencies, or skyrocketing wholesale electricity prices and then sells that unused power back to utilities or systems operators. CPower has over 800 megawatts of electricity under contract, according to CEO Gary Fromer.

As part of its deals, CPower sets up special communication protocols with its customers so they can quickly respond—often in less than 10 minutes—to requests to curtail power use. In some cases CPower installs devices so it can remotely control large pieces of equipment at a customer’s facility.

East Hanover, New Jersey-based Comverge and Boston, Massachusetts-based EnerNOC, both publically traded companies, are the biggest players in the demand response market, though Comverge is focused more on the residential market.

But CPower is starting to look beyond demand response. The company increasingly is expanding its offerings by helping companies generate revenue from efficiency programs, like installing new lighting or energy-saving chillers, which permanently reduce their energy usage. These companies, typically in states with renewable energy and efficiency mandates, can sell credits on special exchanges based on their permanent reduced energy use and generate revenue that exceeds the cost of their projects.

“We provide a managed service to customers who wouldn’t have the resources or expertise to get this revenue stream easily,” Mr. Fromer said.

ETV Motors, a year-old Israeli startup developing powertrains for electric vehicles, has raised $12 million in a first round of venture financing led by The Quercus Trust.

The funding will help the company with the research and development of what it calls a high-efficiency, dual-power micro-turbine that could be used to power electric vehicles. According to ETV’s Web site, turbines offer a high-powered engine in a small and light package. The company has a prototype and expects at least one model of its turbines to be “fully functional” in 2010. The startup is also working on a lithium-ion battery.

ETV said its technology is for hybrid range-extended vehicles, which typically can be plugged in for recharging and have an onboard combustion engine to kick in once the battery has expended its juice. Major automakers such as General Motors and Toyota have announced plans to bring these types of cars to market in the next couple years.

“Our micro-turbine on-board charger and 4.7V lithium-ion cathode chemistry will facilitate the coming generations of environmentally-friendly, cost-effective, light weight and safe electric vehicles,” ETV Chief Executive Dror Ben David said in a statement.

Newport Beach, California-based The Quercus Trust sees an opportunity in marketing to the plug-in hybrid industry. The leading clean-tech investment firm also has backed Hauppauge, New York-based Odyne, which develops and manufactures propulsion systems for plug-in hybrid trucks and buses.

OriginOil announced Monday that it has made what it calls a breakthrough in the production of oil from algae.

The Los Angeles-based company said it has developed a new technology for harvesting oil that is simpler than current systems and promises to drive down costs in the fledgling algae-to-oil market.

“Our process completely redefines the harvesting,” said Riggs Eckelberry, chief executive of OriginOil. “It is a dramatic difference in energy requirements. It could be an order of magnitude.”

Algae grow suspended in large volumes of water, and the oil is extracted from each cell. That oil, water and biomass must then all be separated for processing, a time-consuming and energy-intensive process. But the OriginOil technology achieves all these steps in one pass without the need for chemicals or heavy machinery.

In less than one hour, the oil, water and biomass separate by gravity, the company said.

Mr. Riggs said the company wants to be a technology provider and does not have plans to build its own commercial production facilities. The company is initially targeting five markets: biodiesel, ethanol, waste-to-energy, wastewater treatment and industrial plants with gas-fired furnaces. For the latter, Mr. Riggs said his algae could be used to recycle the carbon dioxide emitted from these plants to produce methane, which in turn would fuel the furnaces.

OriginOil has a multi-year research and development contract with the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. The two groups will co-develop computer models to better understand the energy balance of algae-based oil. After that, the lab will validate Origin’s technology and help improve it. Origin has the right to license all technology that comes out of the project.

“When the DOE validates what you’re doing, it is great for getting grants and finding partners,” Mr. Riggs said.

By 2010, he wants his technology to be in a field demonstration project.

The city of Miami launched Monday a $200 million smart-grid and renewable energy initiative that city officials said would be one of the most extensive of its kind in the country.

Under the initiative, which “proposes” to use federal economic stimulus funds, the utility Florida Power & Light will deploy more than 1 million smart meters to every home and most businesses in Miami-Dade County. These meters automatically transmit energy usage data to the utility’s back office.

“This begins the transformation of Miami into the first truly smart-grid system in the nation,” said Miami Mayor Manny Diaz at a press conference. “It is a model that supports and embodies the goals of the stimulus bill.”

General Electric will supply the smart meters and may later provide other smart control systems. Redwood City, California-based Silver Spring Networks will provide the wireless network infrastructure that the utility will use to communicate with its meters. Cisco will help design and implement a communications platform within the county’s transmission and distribution grid and provide customers with home energy management information and controls.

As part of the initiative, Florida Power said it would conduct studies around the effectiveness of different energy-saving technologies. These trials will include 1,000 households in Miami-Dade and will look at in-home energy displays to manage electricity loads, smart appliances that can switch to lower-consumption modes during peak demand periods, and demand management and demand response software that will manage consumer appliances.

An influential advisory body to the U.S. president and Congress on Wednesday released a draft report that calls the nation’s shift toward renewable energy a “critical grand challenge” and recommends more leadership at the federal level.

The report, drafted by the National Science Board, calls on the U.S. government to “develop, clearly define, and lead a nationally coordinated research, development, demonstration, deployment, and education strategy to transform the U.S. energy system.” The report says that the future prosperity and economic progress of the United States depends largely on the success of this leadership.

Among the recommendations, the board wants the establishment of a new council to coordinate and champion all federal activities in sustainable energy. The report says that there is no comprehensive strategy today, and federal agencies haven’t made significant progress in adopting sustainable energy measures in their own operations.

The board also calls for more federal money for sustainable energy R&D through the creation of a “clean energy fund.” The report does not specify how large this fund should be, but it does say the new fund should “guarantee long-term funding and commitment” to support new technologies.

The board also recommends more aggressive national policies, including targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, calls for more workforce training in sustainable energy-related fields, and wants the country to actively participate in international efforts to strengthen environmental stewardship and energy technology development.

The report, titled “Building a Sustainable Energy Future,” is in the public review and comment period until May 1 and can be found at http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/committees/se/pub_comment.jsp.

The National Science Board is the policymaking body for the National Science Foundation and advisory body to the U.S. president and Congress on science and engineering issues.

First Solar announced Wednesday it plans to build a 48 megawatt ground-mounted solar power plant in Nevada, which once installed would be the largest such facility in North America.

Tempe, Arizona-based First Solar will design, engineer, and build the photovoltaic plant for Sempra Generation, a power provider and subsidiary of San Diego, California-based Sempra Energy.

The project would expand the 10 megawatt power plant First Solar completed for Sempra in 2008 near Boulder City, Nevada, about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Once completed in 2010, the expanded facility will have a capacity of 58 megawatts.

“Sempra Generation’s decision to use First Solar in expanding the El Dorado solar plant demonstrates our ability to provide a cost-effective energy solution for utility-scale projects,” said John Carrington, First Solar executive vice president of marketing and business development, in a statement.

Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

First Solar, which makes thin-film solar cells using cadmium telluride semiconductor material, is one the world’s leading solar module manufacturers. Last month, the company announced that by year's end it would have the capacity to produce more than 1 gigawatt of modules per year—the equivalent of an average-sized nuclear power plant.

In February, the company said it had reduced its manufacturing cost for solar modules in the fourth quarter of 2008 to 98 cents per watt, a long-standing goal of the industry. At that cost, solar power becomes increasingly competitive with conventional sources of electricity.

Sempra Generation said it will own and operate the new PV power plant and sell the electricity to a utility.

California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced Tuesday that it has installed 2.3 million smart gas and electric meters, putting it on track to deploy nearly 10 million by the end of 2011.

The automated meters send usage data to the utility over the Internet, allowing customers to view their consumption online and not have to wait for their monthly bills. The meters also allow customers to take advantage of a summer program that can save them money if they reduce energy use during peak demand.

The meters save the utility money by not having to send employees out for monthly meter reader visits. The devices also give the utility a more accurate picture of the health of the grid.

San Francisco-based PG&E began installing smart meters in 2006. By the end of 2011, it plans to have installed new meters for all of its gas and electric customers in northern California.

Sunovia Energy Technologies announced Tuesday that it has been awarded a $9 million U.S. Defense Department contract to expand its solar cell manufacturing capacity.

Sarasota, Florida-based Sunovia, which was granted the award in partnership with Bolingbrook, Illinois-based EPIR Technologies, makes thin-film solar cells using cadmium telluride on silicon.

Most of Sunovia’s research and development has been funded by the Defense Department. The firm’s technology reduces the cost of infrared cameras for military applications. But recently, the company started adapting the technology for the solar market.

Sunovia, in partnership with EPIR, announced last November “substantial” improvements in their process for growing high-quality single-crystal cadmium telluride on silicon. Sunovia said this is the precursor for building high-efficiency multi-junction solar cells.

Sunovia said the latest funding will push the companies ahead of schedule for producing solar cells at one-fifth the cost per watt of today’s photovoltaic technology. The two firms have inked a deal to install 20 megawatts of solar energy in the Dominican Republic.

You’d think in these lean times water technology startups would have to beg for more venture funding. Because even when money came easy these companies only pulled in about 1 percent of all U.S. venture dollars.

But Petaluma, California-based HydroPoint is bucking that trend. Earlier this year, Chief Executive Paul Ciandrini told Red Herring that he had been approached by more than 30 venture capital firms interested in investing in his firm. Mr. Ciandrini now says that a deal was cut and that HydroPoint has secured an $8 million round of venture funding from unnamed institutional investors.

Mr. Ciandrini said the funding will be used to increase distribution, customer support and product enhancements.

HydroPoint’s main product is a technology called WeatherTRAK, which the company describes as a smart water management system. Mr. Ciandrini said that homes and businesses that use the system for their irrigation reduce their water consumption by more than 30 percent, reduce the time they spend maintaining their landscapes, and typically recoup their costs within two years.

The system works by remotely tapping into thousands of local weather stations and monitoring weather data down to the square kilometer. The system then considers the local landscape and automatically adjusts the irrigation schedule. That means if the area is getting rain, the sprinklers won’t turn on. HydroPoint has built a Web-based portal for the system to be monitored and managed remotely. It can also respond to signals from utilities to not water when there is peak demand.

Mr. Ciandrini said the company had 70 percent revenue growth in 2008, and he anticipates 100 percent growth this year. Big names like Coca-Cola, Kohl’s, and Google are using HydroPoint’s technology to reduce their water usage.

In early 2007, HydroPoint announced a $19 million round of venture financing led by RockPort Capital Partners with strong support from Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital.

Energy Optimizer uses wireless sensors and a web-based dashboard to give building managers real-time data on where energy is being used in facilities.

“The problem today is that you get very little information from your utility about energy use,” Arch Rock CEO Roland Accra said. “But information is the precursor to acting on, for example, a corporate initiative to reduce energy or a federal or state mandate to reduce energy.”

Arch Rock’s system uses Internet-based wireless sensors that are attached to a building’s circuits. The data can be sent directly to any Internet-connected device, like desktops or handheld computers. The company’s Energy Optimizer has so far been used in a handful of pilot programs.

San Francisco-based Arch Rock, which has raised $15 million in venture funding from New Energy Associates and others, is one of a growing number of startups rolling out products to help homeowners and building operators track their energy use more closely and reduce their utility bills.

San Francisco-based Greenbox Technology has built a wireless system with a web-based platform for homes. And Toronto-based REGEN Energy has built a system that wirelessly manages heating and air conditioning in buildings. These controllers communicate with each other and automatically decide when and where they can curtail energy use to drive down costs.

Companies like Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls and Morristown, New Jersey’s, Honeywell are still the big players in the building automation industry. But the incumbent technologies focus on one system at a time, like lighting, while not providing a building’s total energy picture, said George West, president of West Technology Research Solutions. The incumbents also don’t have wireless solutions and rely on proprietary communication standards, meaning their systems generally don’t interact with others in the building.

Studies have shown that people will reduce their energy demand by as much as 15 percent once they have more information about their usage patterns. But the promise of bringing more intelligence to buildings is that most of the energy use reduction could eventually be automated.

Arch Rock said its Energy Optimizer system will initially be priced at just under $10,000, which includes a one-year subscription to a hosted web-based dashboard. The price also includes a router and six sensors that together can monitor up to 18 circuits.

The Watertown, Massachusetts, startup plans to use the capital to accelerate the expansion of its lithium-ion battery making facilities in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and Novi, Michigan, and build a new factory in Michigan.

The U.S. Department of Energy has launched a partnership with some of the country’s most influential commercial real estate owners and operators to reduce the amount of energy used by buildings.

The department hopes that by working directly with major real estate companies like Hilton Hotels, MGM Grand, and The Walt Disney Company, it can speed up the adoption of new energy-saving technologies being developed at national laboratories.

DOE official Scott Hine said in a statement that technology adoption was “vital” to achieve substantial change in building energy use in the country. Currently, commercial buildings account for 18 percent of the nation’s energy use.

This marks the second alliance the department has formed in the commercial building sector. Last year, it formed a partnership with major retailers like Walmart, Target and Macy’s to work on solutions for reduce energy use.

These initiatives are part of the department’s larger goal of helping to develop market-ready, zero-energy commercial buildings by 2025.