Business Wire (18JAN22): Formic Technologies, a provider of turnkey robotic solutions to American manufacturers, has raised $26.5 million in a Series A financing led by Lux Capital with participation from Initialized Capital, Correlation Ventures, Lorimer Ventures, One Planet VC, and other strategic investors. In addition, Formic has secured access to more than $100 million of debt capital to fund equipment purchases. Read more here and check out Wired's story about Formic here.
Business Wire (16FEB21): Highland Electric Transportation, a provider of turnkey fleet solutions
delivering the latest in zero-emission technologies to school districts and
fleet managers, has raised $253MM of corporate equity to accelerate its
growth. The financing was led by Vision Ridge Partners with participation by
Fontinalis Partners and existing investors. Read more here
Business Wire (4JAN21): AMP Robotics Corp. (“AMP”), a pioneer in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics for the waste industry, has raised $55 million in corporate equity in a Series B financing, led by XN with participation from new investors Valor Equity Partners and GV as well as existing investors Sequoia Capital, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, Congruent Ventures, and Closed Loop Partners. This new round of funding follows a $16 million Series A financing led by Sequoia Capital in November 2019. Read more here
Techcrunch (14NOV19): The problem of how to find the potential treasure trove hidden in millions of pounds of trash is getting a high-tech answer as investors, led by Sequoia Capital, funnel $16 million into the recycling robots built by Denver-based AMP Robotics. Read more here
Bloomberg (25OCT18): Activist Ubben sees "utility of the future" on islands; Hawaii electric bills highest in U.S. due to imported oil. ValueAct Capital Management has taken a stake in Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. and will push the utility to accelerate its use of renewable energy and end its dependence on imported oil. Read more here
ABC News (4NOV21): Recycling on a large scale has always proved to be a challenging endeavor, especially as the production of plastic surged exponentially after the 1970s. But new technology made to streamline the process may help the U.S. make strides in eliminating the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills. Watch it here
Fast Company (4MAY21): Projects that harness the power of data, machine learning, or artificial intelligence to understand the world and empower change. Read more here
Bloomberg (24FEB21): A school system outside Washington is poised to become the nation’s biggest operator of electric school buses. The Board of Education in Maryland’s Montgomery County voted unanimously on Tuesday evening to approve a 16-year, $169 million contract to lease 326 buses, part of a plan that could result in the county replacing its entire 1,422-bus fleet over the next two decades. The deal represents the largest municipal government order of any kind for buses, according to Monique Harris, a spokeswoman for Advanced Energy Economy, a business association that promotes clean energy use...Highland will provide buses, install charging facilities at the county’s bus depots and train drivers. The company will also provide maintenance and manage the charging operation. Read more here
Forbes (12NOV20): They are coming—for your trash. Sorting through 67 million tons of glass, plastic and paper is dirty, low-paid, mind-numbing work. Matanya Horowitz’s AMP Robotics wants to take the humans off the job. Read more here
Commonwealth Magazine (29AUG20): Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan for creating a more resilient, sustainable economy is a proposal that deserves wider attention. Under the heading of “position[ing] the American auto industry to win in the 21st century,” Biden proposes a goal of all American-made buses being zero-emission by 2030, starting with “converting all 500,000 school buses in the country to zero emissions.” Practically, that means the next generation of yellow school buses would be electric. That is good news for parents, for communities, and for our economy. Read more here
Politico (14JUL20): Artificial intelligence has already revolutionized cars, electronics and manufacturing. Now it’s helping humans sort their trash. The problem of sorting different recyclable materials—metals, glass, paper, and plastic—has become a major problem in the industry. Nationally, only about 35 percent of waste deposited in recycling bins is ever processed and reused—the rest winds up in landfills or incinerators, largely because it’s too difficult and expensive to sort the materials correctly. Human sorters don’t stay on the job long because of the poor working conditions. Read more here
Forbes (3JUL20): Artificial intelligence is beginning to be usefully deployed in almost every industry from customer call centers and finance to drug research. Yet the field is also plagued by relentless hype, opaque jargon and esoteric technology making it difficult for outsiders identify the most interesting companies. To cut through the spin, Forbes partnered with venture firms Sequoia Capital and Meritech Capital to create our second annual AI 50, a list of private, U.S.-based companies that are using artificial intelligence in meaningful business-oriented ways...AMP Robotics makes robots that identify and sort materials. Read more here
Resource Recycling (22OCT19): A Florida company leveraging 14 robotic sorters is among the first recycling facilities to use the technology on fiber lines, boosting the value of paper bales. “We’ve definitely realized the upside to having them with our end-market pricing,” said John Hansen, co-owner of Single Stream Recyclers (SSR). “What we thought would happen has really happened.” Sarasota, Fla.-based SSR sports 14 robotic sorting arms connected to 10 visioning systems, which identify items on the belt based on their appearance. That’s more systems under one roof than any other known MRF in North America. The robots were provided by Denver-based software company AMP Robotics. Read more here
Financial Times (1JUL20): Technology enables unpicking of everything from product logos to valuable car components. When China restricted the importation of recyclable waste products in 2018, many western companies turned to robotic technologies to strengthen their processing capabilities. “The ban exposed how vulnerable the current infrastructure for recycling is,” says Chris Wirth, vice-president of marketing and business development for AMP Robotics, a Denver-based industrial recycling artificial intelligence company. To recycle in a cost-effective, comprehensive and safe way, goods must be broken down into their constituent commodities to be sold on, in a process that has been likened to “unscrambling an egg”... AI-enabled robotics can identify items based on visual cues such as logos, colour, shape and texture, sorting them and taking them apart. Read more here
New York Times (10APR20): The recycling industry was already struggling before the pandemic. Now, an increasing number of cities are suspending recycling services, partly out of fear that workers might contract the coronavirus from one another while sorting through used water bottles, food containers and boxes. One solution: Let robots do the job. Since the coronavirus took hold in the United States last month, AMP Robotics has seen a “significant” increase in orders for its robots that use artificial intelligence to sift through recycled material, weeding out trash. Read more here
Schoolbusfleet.com (3MAR20): Today Proterra, a leading innovator in heavy-duty electric transportation, announced that the Thomas Built Buses Inc.’s Saf-T-Liner® C2 Jouley electric school bus powered by Proterra® electric vehicle technology and the Proterra 60kW charging system were selected by Highland Electric Transportation for deployment with the Beverly Public Schools, in Beverly, Massachusetts. The project represents the first all-electric school bus in Beverly and the first Thomas Built all-electric school bus in New England. Read more here
Utilitydive.com (18JUL19): Hawaiian Electric Co. (HECO) has submitted to state regulators its final proposed renewables solicitation, laying out how it plans to acquire a range of non-emitting energy resources over the next five years to replace coal and oil-fired power plants. Read more here
AEE Blog (12APR22): As Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine drags on, it’s important to realize the role our energy choices are playing in the conflict. Our nation’s addiction to oil is financing violent autocrats, like Vladimir Putin, giving them the resources to wage wars abroad and oppress citizens at home. Congress and the White House have reacted by sanctioning Russia’s economy and banning fossil fuel imports from Russia to eliminate America as one of their customers, but it does not put Putin out of business. The best way for America to bankrupt Putin and other petro-dictators is by slashing oil demand here and around the world. Read more here
Greentech Media (29APR20): Preserving jobs today. Creating U.S. manufacturing jobs tomorrow. Saving money for consumers. Making America a global leader in clean energy. That’s what this smart, no-cost change in federal rules would accomplish. Congress should do it now. Read more here
Utility Dive (24MAR20): As the nation confronts the coronavirus crisis, protecting human health and safety, mitigating the financial impact on people facing job loss or disruption, and addressing the disruption of those industries that are most affected by this health crisis must be the priority. Many of the 3.5 million workers in the advanced energy industry have jobs on the line right now...there is one simple, no-cost fix that Congress could enact now to keep a large part of the advanced energy industry on track: direct payment of federal incentives for advanced energy development. Read more here
Cal Matters (10DEC19): The wildfires and blackouts that have blighted our state are causing many Californians to question utility motivations, the effectiveness of regulators to protect citizens’ interests, and, ironically, the clean energy and grid investments that mitigate wildfire risk and improve electricity system reliability. Read more here
Greentech Media (27MAR17): When I moved to California to co-found Sunrun after fighting in Afghanistan, the solar industry was a small band of true believers -- no more than 5,000 strong. My first political act was to join Vote Solar, which sent me a now-beloved t-shirt. My first lobbying meeting was at the California PUC, where I asked Polly Shaw to make the residential PPA eligible for the residential California Solar Initiative rebate, not the commercial one. A decade later, that small band has expanded to 270,000 Americans, who together have helped establish solar as the biggest source of new energy in the U.S... Just as coal dominated the 19th century and oil dominated the 20th, the fundamentals convince me that this is the solar century. No single country’s policies can stop solar from becoming the dominant source of energy in this century. If a national market disappeared today, then it would drive down the global cost of solar, increasing demand elsewhere. The sun will rise -- we just need to make sure it is shining on the American solar industry. Read more he
Greentech Media (6SEP16): Solar Power International 2016 is fast approaching. This year is a study in contrasts. On one hand, it will be the largest solar show in America as our industry continues to grow. On the other hand, the show is in Nevada, a state where local policymakers have made poor decisions regarding distributed solar deployment. And, ironically, we owe two Nevadans -- U.S. Senators Harry Reid and Dean Heller -- a special thanks and continued support because they are the champions who helped win the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) extension last year by working alongside the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and you... Independent of business model, technology type, position in the value chain, or customer type served, the solar industry and our individual companies will grow faster and more profitably when we work together to achieve SEIA priorities Read more here
Washington Post & SEIA Blog (2AUG16): There has never been stronger level of adoption of solar among medium and low income communities than there is today, but you might not know that reading some stories these days. Read more here
Wall Street Journal (29OCT15): In “This Child Doesn’t Need a Solar Panel” (op-ed, Oct. 22), Bjorn Lomborg, a political scientist by training, presents readers with a false choice that pits investment in climate security against investments in food, water and health security. Read more here
SEIA Blog (26JAN15): Recently, I met with several Senators and other legislators to discuss the solar industry. The vast majority of them do not know that there is strong bipartisan support for solar. In the run-up to 2017, it is vital that every legislator knows people of all political persuasions support solar. Read more here
SEIA Blog (21JAN15): Several Wall Street investors asked me at a recent conference about the effect of low oil prices on the solar industry's prospects. The investors erroneously believed that cheap oil would make solar less competitive. I wanted to correct that misunderstanding before it made its way from Wall Street to Capitol Hill, where it could affect not only solar stocks, but solar policy. Is there a correlation between oil prices and solar stocks? The answer is no, even though you’d never know that by looking at the stock market. Read more here
SEIA Blog (3SEP13): The U.S. solar industry is booming. "U.S. [Residential] Installation Frequency Hits One Every Four Minutes," according to a recent article in PV-tech.org. That puts the US residential solar industry on track to install 128,000 systems in 2013, according to GTM Research (Q213). We have come a long way since 2007 when I sold the first residential solar power purchase agreement to a homeowner in Redwood City, CA. To keep our industry growing more than 50% annually we need to increase financing liquidity and ensure fair access to the grid. Read more here