Another significant funding for the energy conservation crowd has been announced this morning, with ReGen Power Systems getting $5 million for an engine that can convert waste industrial heat into power. That may sound a bit boring, but the investment and technology are a harbinger of big changes to come.

Everyone has experienced waste heat from electricity-driven machines — take your common electrical oven for example. The oven exists to cook things, whether atop its burners or inside. Either way it does it, the majority of the heat goes not to the food, but to the air and environment around the oven. Unless you need a warm kitchen, most of the electricity you just used was wasted.

Scale that up a few hundred times, and you’ve got a typical industrial process, along with its massive heat losses. Cooling towers exist just to get rid of all the excess. Of course, engineers have been aware for decades that they could turn that heat back into electricity if they liked, but the process never seemed to be worth it, at least in the United States — in Europe, with higher energy prices and a longer conservation tradition, some big plants do install waste heat recyclers.

But with prices set to rise, and worries over global warming, most industries are changing their minds. That’s providing openings for startups. Recycled Energy Development (RED) is one of the more developed companies, has worked on over $2 billion worth of projects according to its webpage, while just two days ago newcomer ElectraTherm reportedly raised $2.6 million in a first funding.

ReGen, also, is a newcomer; this funding is its first, and the company is still working on its designs. The company has a prototype 10 kilowatt engine that it will use to test out the concept, with a larger 500kW engine yet to come. That’s about 10 times the size of ElectraTherm’s first production unit, but that’s one of the encouraging things about the influx of new ventures; the heat recyclers they’re building aren’t just for the largest, hottest smokestacks, but will instead address nearly all industries. Ultimately, that could save gigawatts of energy, and generate billions of dollars in revenue yearly.

The $5 million funding was led by 21Ventures and the Quercus Trust. ReGen is based in New Salem, Mass.

EnerG2 Inc., an ultracapacitor startup that has kept quiet until now, is launching today with the official announcement that it has raised $8.5 million in its first round of financing. Founded in 2003, it has spent five years developing electrode materials that it claims can boost the performance of ultracapacitors, devices that are useful in electric cars and smaller electronic devices.

Unlike batteries, which store electricity chemically, ultracapacitors store energy as electrical fields and physically separate the positive and negative charges with an insulator. Some describe ultracapacitors as “mechanical batteries“, attractive for their ability to deliver large bursts of power, charge and discharge quickly and efficiently and last through many more cycles than batteries, as well as tolerate changes in temperature, shocks and vibration. And where a traditional battery lasts about 1,000 cycles (one charge and discharge), an ultracapacitor could last 1 million cycles or more, according to Rick Luebbe, EnerG2’s chief executive.

But low energy density, or the energy stored per kilogram, has long been a shortcoming of ultracapacitors compared to batteries. So a power tool that might run for 30 minutes on a lithium-ion battery and take two hours to charge –- and need replacing every few years – might run for only five or 10 minutes on a similarly-sized ultracapacitor, but would charge in 60 or 80 seconds and last the life of the tool, Luebbe said.

EnerG2 thinks it can help make ultracapacitors more attractive by boosting their performance and making them cheaper, both on a dollars-per-kilowatt and dollars-per-watt-hour basis, he said. The company didn’t say how much it expects to cut costs, but Luebbe said the electrode materials, the company’s specialty, are one of the largest cost components.

Working with technology initially developed at the University of Washingon, EnerG2 has taken the pure activated carbon typically used in today’s ultracapacitor electrodes, the plates that hold the electrical fields, and restructured it at the nano level, increasing its surface area and making it more porous so that ions can flow more easily, he said.

That material can already give electrodes up to five times the power density, or double the energy density of current electrode materials, Luebbe claims. And even when the material is optimized for one attribute, like power density, it can maintain the energy density of conventional materials –- the energy density doesn’t drop off precipitously when power density increases, he said.

Despite the improvements, EnerG2 isn’t targeting ultracapacitor applications that compete head-on with batteries, at least at first. Even with its new materials, ultracapacitors won’t approach the energy densities of batteries, so the company has set its sights on applications where other attributes, such as power density, cycle life or fast charging, are more important.

Instead, there are many applications to go after where ultracapacitors already have a place, such as electric rail systems that capture the energy released when a train brakes coming into a station and uses the energy to help start the train up again. That requires an energy-storage device to charge and discharge so many times that no battery can handle it, Luebbe said.

Industrial applications involving kinetic energy are another natural fit, he said. For example, systems that turn the motion of cranes, forklifts or elevators into electricity could take advantage of a storage device like ultracapacitors, again because of their ability to charge and discharge rapidly over and over again.

Still, ultracapacitors’ low energy density limits their market, said Brian Barnett, vice president of technology for TIAX LLC, a technology development and consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass.

“Capacitors have difficulty [reaching more than] 5 watt-hours a kilogram, and lithium-ions today can reach 20 or maybe 30 times that or more,” he said, speaking roughly. “There’s a big gap here, and as lithium-ions are able to do higher and higher power, it will be difficult for capacitors to find their appropriate niche.”

Aside from the industrial and electric-rail applications, EnerG2 plans to sell materials for ultracapacitors in hybrid-electric vehicles, consumer electronics, power tools and backup power in data centers, telco switching stations and even the grid, he said.

It should have plenty of potential customers. Big companies making ultracpacitors now include Panasonic Corp. and Okamura Laboratory Inc. in Japan and NessCap Co. in South Korea. The United States’ Maxwell Technologies is also going after the transportation market, along with Apowercap Technologies and Eestor.

EnerG2’s next step is to get the materials accepted into its ultracapacitor customers’ manufacturing systems, Luebbe said, adding that he hopes to see the first shipments in the second quarter of 2009; he says the company already has the ability to make “fairly good amounts” of electrode material. Later, it also plans to develop new materials for other energy-storage devices, including lithium-ion batteries, as well as natural-gas, methane and hydrogen storage.

OVP Venture Partners and Firelake Capital Management led EnerG2’s round. Washington Research Foundation’s WRF Capital, the Sustainability Investment Fund and members of the Northwest Energy Angels also invested in the Seattle-based company.

EnerG2 Inc., an ultracapacitor startup that has kept quiet until now, is launching today with the official announcement that it has raised $8.5 million in its first round of financing. Founded in 2003, it has spent five years developing electrode materials that it claims can boost the performance of ultracapacitors, devices that are useful in electric cars and smaller electronic devices.

Unlike batteries, which store electricity chemically, ultracapacitors store energy as electrical fields and physically separate the positive and negative charges with an insulator. Some describe ultracapacitors as “mechanical batteries“, attractive for their ability to deliver large bursts of power, charge and discharge quickly and efficiently and last through many more cycles than batteries, as well as tolerate changes in temperature, shocks and vibration. And where a traditional battery lasts about 1,000 cycles (one charge and discharge), an ultracapacitor could last 1 million cycles or more, according to Rick Luebbe, EnerG2’s chief executive.

But low energy density, or the energy stored per kilogram, has long been a shortcoming of ultracapacitors compared to batteries. So a power tool that might run for 30 minutes on a lithium-ion battery and take two hours to charge –- and need replacing every few years – might run for only five or 10 minutes on a similarly-sized ultracapacitor, but would charge in 60 or 80 seconds and last the life of the tool, Luebbe said.

EnerG2 thinks it can help make ultracapacitors more attractive by boosting their performance and making them cheaper, both on a dollars-per-kilowatt and dollars-per-watt-hour basis, he said. The company didn’t say how much it expects to cut costs, but Luebbe said the electrode materials, the company’s specialty, are one of the largest cost components.

Working with technology initially developed at the University of Washingon, EnerG2 has taken the pure activated carbon typically used in today’s ultracapacitor electrodes, the plates that hold the electrical fields, and restructured it at the nano level, increasing its surface area and making it more porous so that ions can flow more easily, he said.

That material can already give electrodes up to five times the power density, or double the energy density of current electrode materials, Luebbe claims. And even when the material is optimized for one attribute, like power density, it can maintain the energy density of conventional materials –- the energy density doesn’t drop off precipitously when power density increases, he said.

Despite the improvements, EnerG2 isn’t targeting ultracapacitor applications that compete head-on with batteries, at least at first. Even with its new materials, ultracapacitors won’t approach the energy densities of batteries, so the company has set its sights on applications where other attributes, such as power density, cycle life or fast charging, are more important.

Instead, there are many applications to go after where ultracapacitors already have a place, such as electric rail systems that capture the energy released when a train brakes coming into a station and uses the energy to help start the train up again. That requires an energy-storage device to charge and discharge so many times that no battery can handle it, Luebbe said.

Industrial applications involving kinetic energy are another natural fit, he said. For example, systems that turn the motion of cranes, forklifts or elevators into electricity could take advantage of a storage device like ultracapacitors, again because of their ability to charge and discharge rapidly over and over again.

Still, ultracapacitors’ low energy density limits their market, said Brian Barnett, vice president of technology for TIAX LLC, a technology development and consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass.

“Capacitors have difficulty [reaching more than] 5 watt-hours a kilogram, and lithium-ions today can reach 20 or maybe 30 times that or more,” he said, speaking roughly. “There’s a big gap here, and as lithium-ions are able to do higher and higher power, it will be difficult for capacitors to find their appropriate niche.”

Aside from the industrial and electric-rail applications, EnerG2 plans to sell materials for ultracapacitors in hybrid-electric vehicles, consumer electronics, power tools and backup power in data centers, telco switching stations and even the grid, he said.

It should have plenty of potential customers. Big companies making ultracpacitors now include Panasonic Corp. and Okamura Laboratory Inc. in Japan and NessCap Co. in South Korea. The United States’ Maxwell Technologies is also going after the transportation market, along with Apowercap Technologies and Eestor.

EnerG2’s next step is to get the materials accepted into its ultracapacitor customers’ manufacturing systems, Luebbe said, adding that he hopes to see the first shipments in the second quarter of 2009; he says the company already has the ability to make “fairly good amounts” of electrode material. Later, it also plans to develop new materials for other energy-storage devices, including lithium-ion batteries, as well as natural-gas, methane and hydrogen storage.

OVP Venture Partners and Firelake Capital Management led EnerG2’s round. Washington Research Foundation’s WRF Capital, the Sustainability Investment Fund and members of the Northwest Energy Angels also invested in the Seattle-based company.

The trimmed down, one-size-fits-all automobile chassis Gordon Murray Design is building isn’t as impressive as, say, a Tesla Roadster or Aptera Typ-1. But the United Kingdom automaker’s plan to revamp the auto industry and boost fuel efficiency is nevertheless getting some attention.

Modern cars are designed and built much the same way as the first mass-produced vehicles, barring some broad advances: Robotics, computer-aided design software, international supply chains. What has stayed the same is the overall concept of making a unique, costly body for every car, as well as certain materials that have remained fairly constant, primarily steel.

Gordon Murray’s approach is to build a single lightweight carbon-fiber chassis that can be produced by small factories and shipped in flat-packed containers around the world. The chassis, although small, can serve as the centerpoint for a number of vehicle designs, from tiny city efficiencies to a small van, and any standard combustion drivetrain, hybrid design or a full electric vehicle.

The company, which bears the name of its founder and lead designer, has been slowly pushing out details of its plan for several months. Perhaps the most interesting is that the company claims to not need any more investment than the $10 million-plus that it took from Mohr Davidow Ventures, a Silicon Valley firm. Contrast that with a company like Tesla, which long ago topped $100 million and seems to have an unquenchable thirst for more.

That’s not an indictment of Tesla; car manufacturing is a nine- and ten-figure investment, at least among big companied like Ford and Toyota, so startups can only be expected to lay out similar amounts of money. But Gordon Murray is working to create not only a chassis, but entire car designs that can be assembled by non-vehicle manufacturers. The company will provide licensing agreements for all of its designs, and leave the costly manufacturing to the international conglomerates that have the capital for it.

The idea might work, if Murray can provide complete blueprints for the vehicles — not only the chassis, but the other parts as well. The beauty of the plan is that existing manufacturing facilities that are idle or under-utilized could be re-engineered to produce vehicles based on the designs. Incidentally, that’s an idea that’s gaining currency in the cleantech world as a whole; Infinia, for example, a solar power startup, also plans to repurpose manufacturing.

Murray’s initial design is the T25, a tiny, 70 mile-per-gallon car similar to the Smart, which is planned for first production a year to two years out. The company also just won a significant award for its work so far, from the UK’s Autocar magazine.

The trimmed down, one-size-fits-all automobile chassis Gordon Murray Design is building isn’t as impressive as, say, a Tesla Roadster or Aptera Typ-1. But the United Kingdom automaker’s plan to revamp the auto industry and boost fuel efficiency is nevertheless getting some attention.

Modern cars are designed and built much the same way as the first mass-produced vehicles, barring some broad advances: Robotics, computer-aided design software, international supply chains. What has stayed the same is the overall concept of making a unique, costly body for every car, as well as certain materials that have remained fairly constant, primarily steel.

Gordon Murray’s approach is to build a single lightweight carbon-fiber chassis that can be produced by small factories and shipped in flat-packed containers around the world. The chassis, although small, can serve as the centerpoint for a number of vehicle designs, from tiny city efficiencies to a small van, and any standard combustion drivetrain, hybrid design or a full electric vehicle.

The company, which bears the name of its founder and lead designer, has been slowly pushing out details of its plan for several months. Perhaps the most interesting is that the company claims to not need any more investment than the $10 million-plus that it took from Mohr Davidow Ventures, a Silicon Valley firm. Contrast that with a company like Tesla, which long ago topped $100 million and seems to have an unquenchable thirst for more.

That’s not an indictment of Tesla; car manufacturing is a nine- and ten-figure investment, at least among big companied like Ford and Toyota, so startups can only be expected to lay out similar amounts of money. But Gordon Murray is working to create not only a chassis, but entire car designs that can be assembled by non-vehicle manufacturers. The company will provide licensing agreements for all of its designs, and leave the costly manufacturing to the international conglomerates that have the capital for it.

The idea might work, if Murray can provide complete blueprints for the vehicles — not only the chassis, but the other parts as well. The beauty of the plan is that existing manufacturing facilities that are idle or under-utilized could be re-engineered to produce vehicles based on the designs. Incidentally, that’s an idea that’s gaining currency in the cleantech world as a whole; Infinia, for example, a solar power startup, also plans to repurpose manufacturing.

Murray’s initial design is the T25, a tiny, 70 mile-per-gallon car similar to the Smart, which is planned for first production a year to two years out. The company also just won a significant award for its work so far, from the UK’s Autocar magazine.

Concentrating photovoltaic (CVP) maker SolFocus has a long uphill climb to compete with standard solar panels, the flat silicon-based arrays most people are familiar with. Standard PV is well understood, with predictable costs. Yet numbers SolFocus just released for its newest product line suggest that PV makers may have reason to worry.

As I guessed a couple weeks ago when the company announced a $100 million deal for its panels, the newest generation of SolFocus panels average 25 percent efficiency at converting sunlight to electricity. That’s a significant jump over the company’s 18 percent first generation product, but an even larger advantage over the average PV panel, which gets about 15 percent.

While SolFocus won’t release exact numbers for how cost-effective its panels are — a more important metric — the company’s VP of marketing, Nancy Hartsoch, was willing to give me an idea of how the new generation stacks up versus alternatives. The panels themselves, she says, are approaching dollar per watt parity with silicon PV, meaning the cost to install them.

However, once installed, if you go by the above numbers, a SolFocus panel is about 66 percent more efficient than the same PV panel.

While silicon PV is slowly improving, it doesn’t look like current products will hit 25 percent efficiency anytime soon, perhaps ever. And in the meantime, SolFocus is working to milk even more efficiency out of its own systems. Hartsoch says later generations are projected to top 30 percent efficiency, likely within three to five years.

These numbers become more meaningful when you look at how quickly costs for each product will decline. Silicon PV is dropping in price about 5 percent a year. Hartsoch says that SolFocus will bring prices down 10 to 15 percent yearly.

There are some associated costs that come with SolFocus panels, like the tracking systems to keep them aimed at the sun. But the story in the long run is how much electricity from the panels costs. If SolFocus — and other CPV manufacturers — can prove their systems are durable and reliable, they have a much stronger sales pitch.

The other issue is how quickly CPV production can be scaled up. The answer is, no more quickly than other technologies. SolFocus is expecting to hit 200 megawatts of yearly capacity by 2010, and 400MW the next year, starting from almost no capacity at the current moment. That’s as quickly as they can move, although scale may come more rapidly afterwards.

Thin-film solar, the other growing market that silicon PV makers like Suntech have to worry about, is moving at a similar speed, although it’s a few years ahead, development-wise, of CPV.

As with most renewable energy, it takes time for these markets to develop. But as we move into the next decade, the equation looks to be changing to favor the newcomers. Of course, in time, such so-called second-gen offerings will have to look out for technologies that are even further out, like nanotech-engineered solar panels and thin-film concentrating systems.

SolFocus, by the way, is working on raising a $60 million venture round. The company has taken $93 million to date. The company is based in Mountain View, Calif. and Madrid, Spain.

Concentrating photovoltaic (CVP) maker SolFocus has a long uphill climb to compete with standard solar panels, the flat silicon-based arrays most people are familiar with. Standard PV is well understood, with predictable costs. Yet numbers SolFocus just released for its newest product line suggest that PV makers may have reason to worry.

As I guessed a couple weeks ago when the company announced a $100 million deal for its panels, the newest generation of SolFocus panels average 25 percent efficiency at converting sunlight to electricity. That’s a significant jump over the company’s 18 percent first generation product, but an even larger advantage over the average PV panel, which gets about 15 percent.

While SolFocus won’t release exact numbers for how cost-effective its panels are — a more important metric — the company’s VP of marketing, Nancy Hartsoch, was willing to give me an idea of how the new generation stacks up versus alternatives. The panels themselves, she says, are approaching dollar per watt parity with silicon PV, meaning the cost to install them.

However, once installed, if you go by the above numbers, a SolFocus panel is about 66 percent more efficient than the same PV panel.

While silicon PV is slowly improving, it doesn’t look like current products will hit 25 percent efficiency anytime soon, perhaps ever. And in the meantime, SolFocus is working to milk even more efficiency out of its own systems. Hartsoch says later generations are projected to top 30 percent efficiency, likely within three to five years.

These numbers become more meaningful when you look at how quickly costs for each product will decline. Silicon PV is dropping in price about 5 percent a year. Hartsoch says that SolFocus will bring prices down 10 to 15 percent yearly.

There are some associated costs that come with SolFocus panels, like the tracking systems to keep them aimed at the sun. But the story in the long run is how much electricity from the panels costs. If SolFocus — and other CPV manufacturers — can prove their systems are durable and reliable, they have a much stronger sales pitch.

The other issue is how quickly CPV production can be scaled up. The answer is, no more quickly than other technologies. SolFocus is expecting to hit 200 megawatts of yearly capacity by 2010, and 400MW the next year, starting from almost no capacity at the current moment. That’s as quickly as they can move, although scale may come more rapidly afterwards.

Thin-film solar, the other growing market that silicon PV makers like Suntech have to worry about, is moving at a similar speed, although it’s a few years ahead, development-wise, of CPV.

As with most renewable energy, it takes time for these markets to develop. But as we move into the next decade, the equation looks to be changing to favor the newcomers. Of course, in time, such so-called second-gen offerings will have to look out for technologies that are even further out, like nanotech-engineered solar panels and thin-film concentrating systems.

SolFocus, by the way, is working on raising a $60 million venture round. The company has taken $93 million to date. The company is based in Mountain View, Calif. and Madrid, Spain.

Concentrating photovoltaic (CVP) maker SolFocus has a long uphill climb to compete with standard solar panels, the flat silicon-based arrays most people are familiar with. Standard PV is well understood, with predictable costs. Yet numbers SolFocus just released for its newest product line suggest that PV makers may have reason to worry.

As I guessed a couple weeks ago when the company announced a $100 million deal for its panels, the newest generation of SolFocus panels average 25 percent efficiency at converting sunlight to electricity. That’s a significant jump over the company’s 18 percent first generation product, but an even larger advantage over the average PV panel, which gets about 15 percent.

While SolFocus won’t release exact numbers for how cost-effective its panels are — a more important metric — the company’s VP of marketing, Nancy Hartsoch, was willing to give me an idea of how the new generation stacks up versus alternatives. The panels themselves, she says, are approaching dollar per watt parity with silicon PV, meaning the cost to install them.

However, once installed, if you go by the above numbers, a SolFocus panel is about 66 percent more efficient than the same PV panel.

While silicon PV is slowly improving, it doesn’t look like current products will hit 25 percent efficiency anytime soon, perhaps ever. And in the meantime, SolFocus is working to milk even more efficiency out of its own systems. Hartsoch says later generations are projected to top 30 percent efficiency, likely within three to five years.

These numbers become more meaningful when you look at how quickly costs for each product will decline. Silicon PV is dropping in price about 5 percent a year. Hartsoch says that SolFocus will bring prices down 10 to 15 percent yearly.

There are some associated costs that come with SolFocus panels, like the tracking systems to keep them aimed at the sun. But the story in the long run is how much electricity from the panels costs. If SolFocus — and other CPV manufacturers — can prove their systems are durable and reliable, they have a much stronger sales pitch.

The other issue is how quickly CPV production can be scaled up. The answer is, no more quickly than other technologies. SolFocus is expecting to hit 200 megawatts of yearly capacity by 2010, and 400MW the next year, starting from almost no capacity at the current moment. That’s as quickly as they can move, although scale may come more rapidly afterwards.

Thin-film solar, the other growing market that silicon PV makers like Suntech have to worry about, is moving at a similar speed, although it’s a few years ahead, development-wise, of CPV.

As with most renewable energy, it takes time for these markets to develop. But as we move into the next decade, the equation looks to be changing to favor the newcomers. Of course, in time, such so-called second-gen offerings will have to look out for technologies that are even further out, like nanotech-engineered solar panels and thin-film concentrating systems.

SolFocus, by the way, is working on raising a $60 million venture round. The company has taken $93 million to date. The company is based in Mountain View, Calif. and Madrid, Spain.