Clean Sweep 12

A round-up of recent news in clean technology and cleantech investment.

Deals
Solar CHP developer HelioDynamics has secured £600k further funding from Low Carbon Accelerator. The latest tranche is the third from AIM-listed LCA, which now holds 35% of the company with options on further rounds.
Cambridge-based HelioDynamics produces sun-tracking solar concentrators which both generate electricity and heat liquid-filled pipes. The firm claims its system delivers 35 times the energy per solar cell area of conventional photovoltaic units.

The electric car is alive and well, going by two new US deals. LA-based Venture Vehicles has raised a $6m first round from investors including NGEN Partners and Dutch group DVC Technologies. Venture's electric and hybrid tricycles are based on DVC's petrol-driven Carver One runarounds.
Still in California, Phoenix Motorcars has raised an undisclosed round (reported to be around $15m) from Kleiner Perkins, Virgin Fuels and AES Corp. The firm produces all-electric fleet vehicles.

Continuing consolidation in the world of cleantech blogs! The Cleantech Group has acquired trade blog Inside Greentech. The deal comes a few weeks after the Discovery Channel's acquisition of environmental blog Treehugger.
IG's Dallas Kachan, who'll be heading the combined Cleantech Media venture, notes:
some might say this deal marks a clear resolution, even a vindication, of the ol' greentech vs. cleantech debate.
In choosing our original name, we at Inside Greentech acknowledge we took a gamble, but this process couldn't help but convince me, personally, that in picking the greentech moniker, we hitched our wagon to the wrong horse.
Elsewhere, Greentech Media is preparing to launch in the next few weeks.


Policy news
The UK government will miss its renewables electricity target for 2010 and 2015 by wide margins, according to a new report by Cambridge Econometrics. Renewables' contribution to national electricity generation will barely reach 5% by 2010, well short of the 10% target. According to the group's projections, accelerating renewables development will take its share to 12.5% by 2015 (short of the 15% target) and 19% by 2020 (almost hitting the 20% target for that year).
Policies to give incentivs to renewable energy sources, particularly offshore wind, are 'urgently needed', the report concludes: However, as the proposed changes require primary legislation, it is unfortunate for the government’s 10% target that they can only be introduced in April 2009 at the earliest.