Chinese solar firm eyes $250 million IPO

January 22, 2008 (Reuters) – Chinese solar equipment maker Qiangsheng Photovoltaic Technology plans to raise about $250 million in a Nasdaq stock market listing to fund its breakneck pace of expansion, the latest debut there by a Chinese renewable energy firm. The fledgling firm, one of the first to make cells and panels using emerging thin-film technology, aims to boost capacity to 500 megawatts by 2010, even though its first production line will come onstream only this month with a capacity of 25 megawatts, Chairman Sha Xiaolin told Reuters in a telephone interview.

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Solar EnerTech raises $21.4 million in private placement

January 15, 2008 (Xinhua-PRNewswire) Solar EnerTech Corp. today announced that on January 11, 2008, the Company sold 24.3 million shares of its common stock and 24.3 million Series C Warrants to purchase shares of common stock for an aggregate purchase price of $21.4 million in a private placement offering to accredited investors. The exercise price of the warrants is $1.00 per share. The warrants are exercisable for a period of 5 years from the date of issuance of the warrants.

China announces plastic bag ban

January 9, 2008 (BBC) – The Chinese government says it is banning shops from handing out free plastic bags from June this year, in a bid to curb pollution. Production of ultra-thin plastic bags will also be banned, the State Council said in a statement.

Instead, people will be encouraged to use baskets or reusable cloth bags for their shopping, the council said.

Hong Kong Exchange plans emissions trading center

January 16, 2008 (Forbes) – Sitting right at the doorstep of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, China, top officials at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange do not need any more evidence to support their optimism about the market potential of a new initiative for a trading center for emissions-related products. All they need do is look out the windows of their harborfront office, to a hazy horizon regularly clouded by pollution and smog. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange, a listed company that doubles as a market regulator, has hired consultants to look at the possibility of introducing trades of carbon emissions-related products and is moving to draw up a concrete plan by the year end. According to a new policy direction set forth by its board, it will build on its existing business and expertise in initial public offerings, exchange traded funds and index-linked products to “focus on environmental and greenhouse gases markets.”

China Solar Energy Industry Research and Forecast, 2008-2010

January 11, 2008 (EnergyAsia) – A new study, “China Solar Energy Industry Research and Forecast 2008-2010” has just been released, said online retailer Research and Markets Inc. China is expected to emerge as one of the greatest solar energy production bases in the world after 2008. Conditions are already in place in China for the large scale development and exploitation of solar energy.

Macquarie hires head of renewables

January 16, 2008 (FinanceAsia.com) – Macquarie Group has appointed Anton Rohner as head of renewables in Asia, with the aim of expanding its business in a region where the renewable energy market is valued at more than $20 billion.The bank projects the market will grow by 15% to 20% annually in the next five years. Among the Asian countries, China and India are two of the world’s top five renewable energy markets, along with Germany, Spain and the US. China plans to have 30,000 megawatts of wind-generated electricity capacity by 2020, which represents massive growth but is still small compared with the country’s total installed electricity generating capacity of around 710,000MW at the end of 2007. India already has an installed wind power capacity of 6,000MW.

“We see a groundswell of interest in renewable and sustainable energy from the rising affluence in developing markets in Asia and this presents us with huge opportunities,” says Andrew Low, Asia head of Macquarie Capital Advisers. “We see increased interest in clean energy in China and India.”

Green Fund Eyes Opportunities in Asia

January 14, 2008 (Asia Private Equity Review) – The UK-based Aloe Private Equity announced the launch of Green Investment Asia Sustainability Fund I (‘Green Asia Fund’) which is expected to achieve its final closing in April this year, meeting its target of €30 million (US$41.1 million). Green Asia Fund focuses on seeking investment opportunities in the list of “certified developing countries” from the International Finance Corp. It will also invest alongside Aloe Environment Fund 2 which has recently successfully raised €113.8 million. The latter has a geographic target on China and India.

Goldman Sachs and CDH Join Forces in Solar Energy Co.

Jan 14, 2008 (SinoCast via COMTEX) Shandong Himin Solar Energy Group Co, Ltd. is to speed up its IPO with the help of international investment companies. The private solar water heater and vacuum tube producer signed a letter of intent with Goldman Sachs, and CDH Investments on January 10, 2008, according to which its two partners will first inject USD$100 million into the company.

2007: Did We Reach the Tipping Point?

January 7, 2008 (Renewable Energy Access) – At the beginning of each year, as the renewable energy industry looks back on its progress over the previous 12 months, the phrase “tipping point” always seems to enter the discussion. But how will we know when renewables have truly hit that tipping point?Will one quarter of the world’s electricity come from renewable resources? Will more investment go into clean energy than into the fossil energy industries? There’s no agreed upon standard for how to define a turning tide, but one thing is certain: 2007 clearly proved that there is a major change underway in how the world produces and consumes energy.

“If 2007 isn’t the tipping point, we are close to that,” says Janet Sawin, Director of the Energy and Climate Change program at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, DC. “This has been a truly remarkable year, and we’re seeing impressive development figures worldwide.”

According to a REN21 2007 Renewables Global Status Report due out in February, there are now 237 gigawatts (GW) of electrical generation capacity from renewable resources online around the world.

When breaking that total capacity down among technologies, wind leads with 93 GW of total installed capacity; small hydro has 73 GW; biomass has 44 GW; geothermal has 10 GW; and PV has just under 8 GW of total installed capacity. While renewables still only make up around 5.5% of the world’s 4,300 GW of total electrical generation capacity, the REN21 report concludes that the industry “has clearly become mainstream” over the last decade.

China has made active response to climate challenge

December 24, 2007 (United Nations Resident Coordinator in China, Khalid Malik) – In outgoing 2007, almost all important intergovernmental panels have so far focused their core topics for discussion on climate change, and this year will surely go down into the annuals of the world history as a crucial year.Internationally, a great deal of talks or discussions globally acknowledge that China would replace the United States as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gas in the next decade. People, nevertheless, do not known much about the unremitting, continuous efforts and contributions China has so far made in dealing with climate challenges. China was expected to invest 10 billion US dollars this year on the research and development of renewable energies, and was thus cited as the global No. 2 in term of the input made in this sphere, only next to Germany.

At a recent summit of East Asian Leaders in Singapore, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to reduce energy consumption (per unit of GDP) by 20 percent over the coming five years. This pledge of Wen’s is more or less the same with the commitment of the EU member states to reducing their greenhouse gases emission by 20 percent by the year 2020.