These are the types of panels that you might see on the back of cell phones, for example. Light and thin equals much broader uses for the cells, which means more potential energy produced from the sun.

Most people know GE for light bulbs, but they are much more than that. “Over the last decade, through technology investment, GE has become one of the world’s major wind turbine manufacturers, and our investment in high-tech solar products will help us continue to grow our position in the renewable energy industry,” said Victor Abate, vice president of GE’s renewable energy business.

In other solar news, Google has invested roughly $5 million in a German 18.7-megawatt solar power plant. It is Google’s first investment in clean technology outside of the United States.

The solar power plant occupies around 116 acres and can generate enough power for around 5,000 homes. More than 70 percent of the panels installed at the plant are manufactured in Germany.

Hat tip to Green Tech Media and Venture Beat’s Green Beat that do great jobs on the money that flows into the space.

Cleantech saw $7.8 Billion in 2010 (the most post-credit bubble), but that was somewhat tempered with slower third and fourth quarters.

“Venture funds are still in a cautious place” as they continue to try to raise money for their own funds, said Sheerez Haji, CEO of Cleantech Group. That makes it hard for early-stage startups, as investors look for later-stage companies where “the technology risk has been taken care of,” he said.

Greentech mentions that December was a big month, however. There were more than 40 solar, smart grid, efficiency, lighting, biofuels, wind and recycling firms that raised more than $700M in VC in December.

A couple of interesting other highlights:

++ OPower, the home energy-efficiency startup, closed on their round C with $50 million led by two of Silicon Valley’s premier VC firms — Kleiner Perkins and Accel Partners, along with New Enterprise Associates. OPower is focused on customer engagement and behavior modification, and is currently providing tens of thousands of homes with in-home energy data and efficiency advice via paper reports or online. The platform is described as advanced customer engagement.

They got a visit from Obama earlier this year with respect to clean jobs.

More on OPower’s $50M raise here.

See our earlier discussion using energy data to curb usage behavior: New Electric Bill could Drive Better Usage

++ Energy efficiency continues to be the hottest segment with 7 deals for $162 million in the fourth quarter per E&Y.

++ Solar saw $150 million in 10 deals.

Ernst & Young itself seems bullish on cleantech’s future. “This quarter reflects the ongoing volatility in cleantech investment that we have observed over the past two years, depending on the presence of the very large transactions we see in cleantech,” said Jay Spencer, Ernst & Young’s Americas cleantech director, in a company statement. “However, a number [of] factors point to the continuing strength in the U.S. cleantech sector, including growth in energy efficiency investments and corporate involvement throughout multiple industries — from utilities to technology to consumer products.”

Don’t forget that you can follow us on Twitter @greensquaredcom.

One caveat: the survey was of only 48 people who are in charge of sustainability for their companies. I think that sample size is too small. And, given these folks’ role in the organization, I am afraid their viewpoint is a bit slanted so to speak. But there are lessons to be learned.

My takeaways included:

+ “The green workforce is the general workforce.” – they believed that sustainability would be integrated into existing roles and job descriptions as a prerequisite for employability: Jobs in the future, respondents thought, will require people to bring a certain basic level of familiarity with sustainability issues and competence in skills related to sustainability to the table.

Interesting. I’ve never heard it put quite that way, but I agree with the premise wholeheartedly.

+ “Sustainable products can be competitive – with the right marketplace approach.”

Thumbs up from me.

+ “Sustainability’s bottom-line results might be better if you broaden your view of ROI.” – But to improve its performance, a company needs to do more than reap an immediate financial ROI on its sustainability initiatives. It also needs to consider managing risk, building its brand and reputation, complying with regulatory requirements, and investing in developing future products and services that will be viable in a world where sustainability plays a greater role in driving buying decisions.

There are definitely qualitative benefits that should be considered that are difficult to incllude in your CFO’s spreadsheet.

+ Primary owner of sustainability efforts? COO was 6%, Head of Environmental Health and Safety 6%, Board of Directors 4%, CFO 2%, other = 91%.

Two things: 1) It’s odd that Deloitte did not list Chief Sustainability Officer as one of the options (they were part of the others), and 2) quite obviously the multiple people selected as an owner leads to a lack of accountability, which is not good for results.

+ There is a clear lack of understanding between these sustainability owners and the ARRA funds that are available to them.

That’s bad news for policy makers and even worse news for those heading up these sustainability efforts. I would have guessed the sustainability folks would have been more aggressive in understanding the grants, tax credits, tax deductions, and rebates that are available to them and their projects.

+ Energy efficiency was the across-the-board winner as the most important environmental issue to the business.

EE rated 9 on a scale from 1 to 10 in importance and was the leader in every business sector. Wow, that’s impressive and surprising at the same time. Efficiency does not get near the publicity as other answers like alternative energy and transportation. Someone has been listening and reading this blog.

Google initially announced its intentions with PowerMeter in early 2009.

Cisco has also recently announced its intentions to be in the Home Energy Management space.

Below is a picture of the Cisco product.

The installations were to be performed by a company call SunRun. On Tuesday, June 29th, SunRun announced it closed a Series C round of funding for $55 million led by Sequoia Capital and joined by existing investors Accel Partners and Foundation Capital.

For those of you not wise to the VC world, Sequoia is the biggest and baddest Silicon Valley VC that there is. You may have heard of prior early stage investments like Google, YouTube, Apple, Yahoo!, and Cisco, among others.

Original investor, Accel Partners, is bigtime too with investments in Facebook, Veritas, and comscore.

Similarly, a recent report from Matter Network states that Goldman Sachs has begun covering the solar sector, including First Solar and SunPower.

We’ve talked quite a bit on this blog about green investment, so if you’d like read more here.

Underlying image CC licensed by Flickr user supafly.

Green Squared admission… I am a Top Chef fan.

So, I was particularly intrigued that Top Chef Master Rick Bayless had two of the highest certifications with Frontera Grill and Topolobampo.

I love the notion that they are trying to aggregate data on the energy savings that are being retrofitted.

More interesting to me is the discussion further into the article that touches on what might be Deutsche Bank’s ultimate motivation.

Mr. Hattem, who said Deutsche Bank would have no proprietary stake in the data, hopes that lenders will not only finance more retrofits as a result of the project, but also use the information to create a new securitizations market.

“The idea here is that if underwriters can determine a predictable savings from retrofits,” he said, “then they can create a financial instrument backed by these savings to sell on the open market.”

Now this type of thinking will jump start the retrofit business as capital for the improvement projects has always been the biggest impediment.

I also found this quote from a project manager at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and a member of the advisory committee spot on:

“There is an almost universal lack of understanding of building energy usage,” said Luke Falk.

I agree wholeheartedly, Luke. More building owners and managers need to wrap their heads around that usage and controlling the costs surrounding it.

If you forgot what PACE financing is, check out our earlier blog post titled, “What is PACE financing?”.

A recent study from Johnson Controls estimates that today’s nascent U.S. commercial PACE market could represent around $18 billion each year.

As these guys aptly asked, how far will the PACE model spread and how deeply will it affect the business marketplace is today an open question.

Why?

Well, we only recommend retrofit projects that payback in a short time frame in operating savings. Those operating savings result in increased Net Operating Income (NOI) for commercial building owners. That increased NOI results in increased property value.

How?

The income approach is one of three primary approaches to appraising commercial properties. In the income approach to appraisal, the value is determined on the stream of NOI that an investor will receive as a result of owning the property. As such, the retrofit that lowers operating costs, increases NOI, and increases appraised value.

There are multiple studies supporting this benefit in the real world.

In anticipation of the day, I offer you the following articles for good reading:

Green leader Whole Foods plans to go greener
The Company has plans to reduce its energy consumption 25 percent per square foot during the next five years.

Save energy and money by retrofitting lighting
Retrofits using fluorescent technologies reduce lighting energy consumption (kWh) and lighting demand (kW) as much as 50 percent.

It also catches me up on a bunch of stuff that I wanted to blog about, but ran out of time!