Smart Energy News

Santa Barbara, Calif. – Champlin Windpower, a wind energy development company, has raised $9 million in a venture capital round, which it plans to eventually total $50 million, according to a new filing by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Founded in 2006, Champlin focuses on acquiring wind resource rights and developing wind energy projects in the North America.

The company is owned as a joint venture with Good Energies, a renewable energy investment firm that is a subsidiary of COFRA, which is a European-based, family-held company.

Champlin its affiliates currently have in excess of 4,500 MW of new wind energy projects under development in the western U.S.

Champlin Windpower website

Champlin’s new SEC filing

Washington – Elia, a Belgian electrical transmission system operator, announced it has acquired a 10% stake in the first segment of the Atlantic Wind Connection, the planned development of an offshore backbone in the U.S., which will enable the connection of 6,000 megawatts of offshore wind produced off the coasts of several East Coast states.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

By investing in the project, Elia is partnering with Internet giant Google, Marubeni, and Good Energies, the well-financed developer of a network of electric vehicle recharging stations.

As planned, the Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC) will enable the integration of offshore wind into the PJM1 interconnection system off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

The backbone is expected to be as long as 345 miles and its development will be divided into five segments. In addition to the 10% stake that Elia has acquired in the first segment, the firm has also acquired 5% stakes in the four other sections.

Google and Better Place reportedly each own 37.5% of the whole AWC project, which has a total estimated value of about $5 billion, according to reports.

Atlantic Wind Connection website

Elia website

Louisville, Colo. — Chesapeake Energy, a major producer of natural gas based in Oklahoma City, has agreed to pay $155 million for a 50% ownership stake in Sundrop Fuels, a Louisville-based developer of gasification-based biofuels.

Sundrop Fuels also announced that Oak Investment Partners, one of its current investors, has committed to invest $20 million alongside Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK). Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers is also an investor in the company.

Sundrop plans to start construction next year on its first commercial-scale biorefinery, which is expected to produce more than 40 million gallons of transportation fuel annually. The facility will combine Sundrop’s “RP Reactor” technology with ExxonMobil’s methanol-to-gasoline process.

Sundrop’s technology uses an ultrahigh-temperature heat transfer process to gasify cellulosic feedstock into synthesis gas, which is then converted into biobased “green gasoline” and other “drop-in” transportation biofuels for use in standard automobiles, diesel engines and aircraft through the existing fuels distribution infrastructure. The company says its high-efficiency radiant particle technology is more than 20 times faster than conventional convection gasification methods.

Sundrop said it expects to launch production at its first large-scale, 200-million gallon per year biorefinery in 2016.

Sundrop Fuels website

Chesapeake Energy website

Hartford, Conn. – United Technologies Corp. (UTC), a U.S.-based conglomerate, has agreed to pay $112 million to acquire the 51% stake that it does not already own in Clipper Windpower, a U.K.-based manufacturer of wind turbines. UTC currently owns a 49% stake in Clipper, for which it paid $270 million in January.

Clipper’s stock (LSE: CWP) had declined 71% this year before the buyout offer from UTC (NYSE: UTX).

Clipper has a turbine manufacturing plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and research and development facilities in Carpinteria, Calif., and Blyth Harbor, U.K. The company was founded in 2001. It has a current market valuation of $167 million and employs around 770 people. The company had 2009 revenues of about $740 million.

Last February, Clipper announced it will construct a 43,000-square-foot offshore wind turbine blade manufacturing facility, which will be used to develop and build blades for the Britannia Project, a 10-megawatt, offshore wind turbine prototype, which is scheduled for deployment in late 2012.

Clipper Windpower website

Mountain View, Calif. – Google has announced that it will invest in an offshore Mid-Atlantic electrical transmission backbone running from New Jersey to Virginia that will be able to connect 6,000 megawatts of wind turbines, enough to serve about 1.9 million households, according to the company.

Called the Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC) the backbone will be built around offshore power hubs that will collect the power from multiple offshore wind farms and deliver it through sub-sea cables to the land-based transmission system.

The AWC project is led by an independent transmission company, Trans-Elect, and is financed by Google, Good Energies and Marubeni Corp., with Google investing 37.5% of the equity in this initial development stage.

The Mid-Atlantic region offers a high level offshore wind potential in relatively shallow waters, making it easier to install turbines 10-15 miles offshore, where they can take advantage of stronger winds and are virtually out of sight from land, Google said.

Google blog

Wikipedia entry on AWC