Premier bilan énergétique 1990-2008 pour la Bretagne

Sep 18, 2009 05:55:56 GMT Partager

L'Observatoire de l'énergie et des gaz à effet de serre en Bretagne a été créé début 2009 afin de répondre aux enjeux énergétiques de la région et d'obtenir une connaissance plus précise des consommations et des productions d’énergie.

A ce titre, l'Observatoire publie son premier bilan énergétique 1990-2008 pour la Bretagne sous la forme d'une brochure de 20 pages.

En s'appuyant sur les données de ses partenaires, l’Observatoire diffuse « les chiffres clés de l’énergie – édition 2009 » un document téléchargeable à cette adresse (www.bretagne-environnement.org)

La consommation d'énergie régionale :

La consommation finale de la Bretagne (7 Mtep en 2008) représente 4,4% de la consommation nationale pour 5% de la population. Lʼintensité énergétique en Bretagne est de 2,26 tep/ habitant en 2007 contre 2,61 tep/ habitant en France. La Bretagne reste encore moins énergivore que la moyenne nationale mais son intensité a progressé 3 fois plus vite ces 20 dernières années.

Le fioul et les carburants restent la première énergie avec 52% de la consommation devant l'électricité, 22%, qui progresse encore de 4,4% par rapport à 2007. Malgré un doublement du gaz naturel depuis 1990, il ne dépasse pas 16% de la consommation. Le bois, 7%, et le chauffage urbain, moins de 1%, complètent le bouquet énergétique.

Cette situation est le reflet de la structure des consommateurs dʼénergie en Bretagne :

• Un habitat plutôt diffus et donc assez consommateur de fioul, associé au tertiaire, il représente 43% de la consommation finale : lʼélectricité est la première énergie la plus consommée devant les produits pétroliers.

• Les déplacements et les flux de marchandises constituent le deuxième secteur consommateur, avec 37% de la consommation finale : plus de 90% de lʼénergie consommée par le transport lʼest par le transport routier.

• Une industrie moins énergivore que la moyenne française, très orientée vers lʼagroalimentaire et avec une industrie de base peu développée. Elle représente 14% de la consommation finale.

• Une agriculture qui, suite au développement de lʼélevage intensif et de la culture sous serre, occupe une place importante, 6% de la consommation finale, contre 2% en France : 35% de lʼénergie est consommée par les serres, 34 % par les cultures et 23% par lʼélevage (porcs et volailles)

L'électricité en Bretagne :

Avec plus de 70 % depuis 1990, la Bretagne affiche une croissance soutenue de la consommation nette dʼélectricité, plus élevée que la tendance nationale qui affiche 46 % de croissance. Avec près de 92 % dʼapprovisionnement hors Bretagne, la Bretagne reste très fragile quant à lʼalimentation de son réseau électrique. De 2002 à 2009, la consommation de pointe a progressé de 20%.

Lʼannée 2009 a connu un record de pointe de consommation le 7 janvier 2009 à 10h00 avec 4353 MW appelés sur le réseau.

Les énergies renouvelables :

8,4% de la consommation finale est constitué dʼénergies renouvelables en 2008, dominées par le bois bûche (56%), suivis par les agrocarburants (25%) et lʼélectricité hydraulique et éolienne
(18%). En dehors des agrocarburants, la Bretagne produit lʼensemble des énergies renouvelables quʼelle consomme.

(*) Mtep : millions de tonnes équivalent pétrole

Des pompes à hydrogène dans toute l'Allemagne

Sep 18, 2009 07:08:18 GMT Partager

Le 10 septembre 2009, huit industriels se sont réunis pour signer un "Memorandum of Understanding" (MoU) avec le Ministère fédéral du transport allemand (BMVBS), afin d'encourager la construction de pompes à hydrogène sur le territoire allemand.

Le consortium regroupe des industriels des domaines de l'automobile, du pétrole, du gaz et de l'énergie. "Notre objectif est de mettre en place un approvisionnement le plus généralisé possible sur le territoire allemand, de façon à pouvoir y introduire des véhicules alimentés par des piles à combustibles en quantités industrielles dès 2015", a affirmé le Ministre du transport Wolfgang Tiefensee à l'occasion de la signature du MoU à Berlin.

Les partenaires du projet sont Daimler, EnBW, Linde, OMV, Shell, Total, Vattenfall et la société nationale pour l'hydrogène et les piles à combustibles (NOW GmbH [1]). En parallèle, les constructeurs automobiles Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda Motor, Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors, Renault, Nissan ainsi que Toyota ont signé une déclaration d'intention pour la commercialisation de véhicules alimentés par des piles à combustibles. Cette alliance unique couvre plus de 50% de l'ensemble du marché de l'automobile en terme de constructeurs.

Le Ministre Wolfgang Tiefensee s'est réjoui au vu de l'alliance de potentiels concurrents, qui marque selon lui une étape dans l'histoire technologique de l'automobile : "Après plus de 100 ans de moteur à essence et de dominance du pétrole, nous nous trouvons devant un changement radical dans le domaine du transport. L'Allemagne doit devenir un marché leader dans les technologies de propulsion de façon à [..] créer de nouveaux emplois d'avenir. C'est en développant à temps des solutions et des technologies adéquates que nous pourrons trouver des acheteurs et des marchés. La signature de cet accord industriel montre que l'Allemagne est déjà leader dans le domaine des technologies de l'hydrogène et des piles à combustibles".

Les 500 millions d'euros de soutien du BMVBS proviennent du deuxième plan de relance du Gouvernement fédéral en faveur de l'électromobilité ; les batteries constituent une priorité dans le domaine. Le projet comprend un financement de 15 millions d'euros pour la mise en place de 25 pompes à hydrogène. Le programme d'innovation national pour les technologies de l'hydrogène et les piles à combustible (NIP) du BMVBS est quant à lui doté d'un total de 1,4 milliard d'euros [2].

Selon Tiefensee, il n'existe aucun autre programme d'une telle ampleur en Europe. "Notre objectif est de continuer à promouvoir conjointement l'électromobilité basée sur les batteries et les piles à combustibles."

Le MoU contient des étapes de transposition industrielle et des objectifs tels que la mise en place de normes et de standards communs.


[1] Le NOW est la société chargé de la gestion et de la coordination du programme d'innovation nationale pour l'hydrogène et les piles à combustible (NIP).

[2] "Piles à combustible : lancement d'un programme fédéral d'1 milliard d'euros sur 10 ans - création d'un organisme dédié"


BE Allemagne numéro 451 (16/09/2009) - Ambassade de France en Allemagne / ADIT - http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/60502.htm

What the Looming Lithium Squeeze Means for Electric Car Batteries

By Josie Garthwaite

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Posted January 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 am in Automotive, Energy

Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere — in your phone, laptop, and by this time next year, maybe your car. The technology is slated for GM’sChevy Volt, Toyota’s plug-in Prius, and electric versions of the Daimler Smart and BMW Mini.

Until recently, lithium went primarily into ceramics and glass. Now batteries make up one-fifth of the world’s end-use market for the mineral — a share that will only grow if the auto industry goes where lithium-ion startups like ActaCell, A123 Systems and Imara are betting it will. But shortages could stop an emerging industry in its tracks — or dramatically reshape it — within a decade: Mitsubishi estimates that lithium demand will outstrip supply as early as 2015.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s mineral commodity specialist on lithium, Brian Jaskula, offers a more conservative estimate, forecasting that demand will begin to drive lithium prices up in the next 10 to 15 years. But the signs are clear: Lithium, which now costs less than a buck per kilogram, will not stay cheap for long.

This reality has put Bolivia’s lithium-rich salt flats in automakers’ sights. The country has more than half of the planet’s total lithium deposits in the brine beneath those plains. There’s just one hitch: The Bolivian government is none too keen on giving up its resource to foreign miners.

According to Time, Mitsubishi and Toyota (one of the only major automakers that produces its own batteries) have both broached talks about lithium development with Bolivian officials, with no luck. Lacking the infrastructure to manufacture batteries, Jaskula said, it will take Bolivia years to build out the industry it hopes will jump-start the national economy.

But politics and trade negotiations hardly tell the whole story. Enter: Innovation. In the looming lithium squeeze, battery makers whose technologies use less of the mineral could enjoy an advantage — just as thin-film solar became the hot new thing when polysilicon shortages shook the photovoltaic industry last year.

This means the Chevy Volt may be in for a redesign. As is, the Volt battery uses a relatively high load of lithium carbonate for the amount of power in its battery: 1.4 kilograms per kilowatt-hour. At current prices ($8/kg, up from $0.50 to $1.50 a few years ago), that works out to only about $180-worth of the raw material in every car. But if a supply squeeze sends lithium prices through the roof — and causes fully-loaded batteries to add more than the current $10,000 or so to a car’s total cost — lithium-heavy chemistry could be a luxury GM can’t afford.

According to Jaskula, competing designs offer the same amount of power for less than a third of the lithium. For low-margin electric vehicles like the $9,000 model recently announced by India’s Reva, rising lithium prices could be a deal breaker.

Higher lithium prices could also give the nascent U.S. battery industry a steeper climb to the top. The U.S. consumes more lithium than any other country, despite having only 760,000 tons of the world’s 13.8 million tons of identified lithium resources (those of known quantity, quality and grade), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. While most U.S. lithium imports now come from Chile and Argentina (69 and 29 percent, respectively) China has brought new supply online in the last few years. In a peak-lithium world, that could put Asia’s already-leading battery makers one more step ahead.

Better Place Connects With Microsoft, Intel for Electric Vehicle Software

Electric car charging startup Better Place has long preached its vision of “Car 2.0″, in which the next generation of cars will be networked — both to the power grid and to communication networks — and will have the ease and functionality of our consumer electronics. And this morning at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Better Place has unveiled software that will help deliver that vision, and will be partly developed by partners Microsoft, Intel and German auto company Contintental AG.

Better Place has created a system called “AutOS” (codename) to run inside the vehicle, enabling the cars to crunch energy calculations, deliver an “energy plan” for each driver, and find the closest charging and battery swap station. The cars will all have an “always-on connection” enabling the Better Place network to connect with the vehicle for a variety of reasons (updates, billing, etc).

Continental will make a head unit for Better Place, which will use Microsoft’s “Windows Embedded” software and will be powered by Intel’s Atom processor. Better Place says that because the in-vehicle software is based on an open architecture from the trio, third party developers will be able to build applications on top of AutOS “like the innovations that have sprung from the Apple iPhone.”

Outside of the vehicle, Better Place has long discussed that it would be using sophisticated software to manage the overall network and charging infrastructure. Functions of that software include “smart charging,” or managing the rate at which the electric vehicles are charged, and working with utilities to do so (see our list of 10 electric car smart charging players to watch). There’s also a system that shows the availability of charging and battery switch stations, how charged the drivers battery is, how available clean power is in the driver’s area, traffic patterns and driving habits and patterns.

Better Place is one of a handful of car companies electric vehicle infrastructure players that are looking to emulate the computing development ecosystem and mobile phone. Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith has told us he sees smartphones as the ultimate model for green cars. Nissan has created a system called EV IT for electric vehicles, which it’s kicking off with the 2010 LEAF electric sedan. The EV IT system uses an onboard transmitting unit connected through mobile networks to a global data center, and Nissan also built an iPhone app for the system to let drivers remotely monitor and control vehicle charging. Like Better Place, Nissan plans to use its EV software to enable drivers will be able to view the driving radius within range of their battery charge level on a navigation map, and also find detailed information about available charging stations within range.

A Mad Dash for Smart-Grid Cash

A Mad Dash for Smart-Grid Cash

By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF

By the time the late August application deadline had expired, a Department of Energy program to distribute $615 million to fund projects demonstrating smart-grid technology had attracted 140 proposals requesting a total of $2.3 billion.

“The response is very encouraging,” said Jen Stutsman, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department. “We expect some very competitive projects.”

With companies required to chip in 50 percent of the cost, the $615 million in grants will support at least $1.2 billion in smart-grid projects.

The term “smart grid” covers a number of approaches to modernizing the nation’s aging electrical infrastructure (see video above). Innovations run the gamut, from home thermostats that automatically adjust in response to overall demands on the grid, to advances in power transmission and energy storage, which will help integrate resources like wind and solar into the nation’s electrical mix.

The aim of the Energy Department program — part of the $3.9 billion in stimulus funds targeting the nation’s electrical system — is to take smart-grid technologies out of the laboratory and test their wide-scale viability and cost-effectiveness.

So far, the Department of Energy is keeping details of the proposals confidential, but a number of the nation’s largest utilities, including American Electric Power, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison, have publicized their applications.

Defense contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are also in the mix, in partnership with utilities to provide security for the digital communication network at the heart of many smart-grid technologies, as well as other technical expertise.

(The green energy blog Earth2Tech.com has compiled a list of companies applying for funds.)

Several proposed demonstration projects seek to build a narrow, top-to-bottom smart-grid system — what Paul De Martini, a vice president of advanced technology at Southern California Edison, called “a deep vertical slice of a smart grid.”

That company’s $40 million grant proposal, planned for Irvine, Calif., incorporates smart meters, solar panels, home energy storage and plug-in electric vehicles. It also includes “self-healing” transmission circuits and other advances in grid-level power distribution. “We have an opportunity to see how all of these will really work together in a single system,” Mr. De Martini said.

Pilot projects that help consumers manage energy use within their homes – by installing devices like programmable communicating thermostats, which can respond to systemwide changes in electrical demand – could yield some promising results, said Sunil Sharan, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former director of a smart-grid initiative at General Electric.

“If you asked me what is realistic, I would say in-home energy management technology,” Mr. Sharan said.

Energy storage is another area of interest for the smart-grid demonstration grant program. Devising cost-effective, reliable and scalable energy storage is seen as a major challenge for utilities, as larger and larger sources of intermittent energy, like wind and solar, come online.

“Energy storage is pretty tricky,” said Mr. Sharan, who added that federal funding was unlikely to be enough to tackle the problem.

Still, storage proposals abound. Several companies are exploring compressed air energy storage, in which air is pumped underground at high pressure and released later to generate power.

And Southern California Edison has applied for an additional $25 million from the Department of Energy to build the world’s largest lithium-ion battery.

In Lithium’s Long Shadow: Other Battery Tech Is Still Key

Lithium, the key mineral for lithium-ion batteries used in many consumer electronics, computers and upcoming electric vehicles, is a limited resource residing in large quantities below Bolivia’s salt flats (among other places). That fact has helped create buzz about the chemistry, electrifying it with political controversy and fears about “peak lithium” (see our take on the looming lithium squeeze here). But while lithium-ion has seized the limelight of late, it’s only one of several battery chemistries that will have key roles to play in the transition to a cleaner transportation system and power grid.

Lying in lithium’s shadow are technologies such as lead acid batteries, which have a long history in automotive applications and consumer electronics but are getting an upgrade from startups such as Firefly Energy, as well as lithium-air, an experimental technology being backed by IBM. While many automakers now agree that lithium-ion holds the most promise for at least the first few generations of electric vehicles, the risk of having so much attention focused on one chemistry is that it can obscure the need and opportunity for a variety of energy storage technologies — for electric vehicles, hybrids, grid buffering and other smart grid applications.

Given how long this sector has been largely ignored, there’s a lot of room for innovation. Fast-moving companies will be able to snap up funds pouring into the space. “We’ve been looking at the energy storage space for quite a few years,” Peter Wagner, a venture capitalist with Accel Partners, told us for a recent GigaOM Pro article (subscription required) on how to break into the energy storage market. While his team is excited about the opportunity, Wagner says they haven’t seen a play close enough to large-scale deployment to convince them the timing is right for venture capital.

The U.S. government, however, is getting involved big time. It became one of the largest battery investors in the country this year by way of the stimulus package, with some of the biggest awards in the Department of Energy’s recent round of battery manufacturing grant initiative going to lithium-ion battery projects by LG Chem, EnerDel, Saft, Dow Kokam and A123Systems. But significant funds are also going toward nickel-cobalt metal and lead-acid manufacturing under the program.

Nickel-metal hydride batteries have served Toyota and Honda well, so far, in their hybrid models, but they’re expensive. At this point the tech could also face further price increases in the event of a shortage of the metals known as rare-earth elements, brought on through politics or simple resource depletion.

More alternative technologies are also now on deck. Some startups, notably PowerGenix, are banking on nickel-zinc to ultimately replace nickel-metal hydride. An eight-year-old venture based in San Diego, Calif., PowerGenix hopes to eventually market its batteries (so far deployed commercially only for power tool and scooters) for vehicles, but it has no designs on competing directly with lithium-ion — CEO Dan Squiller has told us he expects lithium-ion to dominate the electric vehicle market, while lower-cost, higher-energy density nickel-zinc will be the tech of choice for parallel hybrid vehicles like the Prius.

Computing giant IBM, meanwhile, has taken a gamble on the experimental battery technology lithium metal-air, starting with a three-year, multimillion dollar R&D effort (with several partners) utilizing IBM’s nanotech and supercomputer resources. Ultimately, however, the goal is to commercialize a device with at least 10 times the energy density of today’s batteries.

IBM’s Winfried Wilcke, Senior Manager of Nanoscale Science & Technology, who’s heading up the project, told us recently that lithium air represents “the only system that has a chance to be as good as gasoline” and make a significant dent in transportation fuel.

The research firm Freedonia Group issued a dim outlook for time-tested lead as a battery material earlier this year, but some venture capitalists and entrepreneurs still see room for innovation. David Gelbaum’s Quercus Trust, for example, has backed lead-acid battery startup Firefly Energy (targeting the hybrid market) and lead-carbon battery developer Axion Power, which is working to blend ultracapacitor tech into a low-cost lead 2.0 device that could have applications in after-market vehicle conversions and grid buffering.

As Brian Jaskula, a mineral commodities specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey told us: “Lithium is the element of the month, but something else may come along.”

Message from Frankfurt: Hydrogen’s Out, EVs Are In & Software Is Key

One day down, a dozen more to go: At the end of the biennial Frankfurt Motor Show’s opening day, we have a snapshot of how much the auto industry has changed in recent years (to start, only 753 companies showed up this year, compared with more than 1,050 in 2007), and a glimpse of where it’s heading. The last few international auto shows (notably in Detroit and Geneva) have displayed automakers competing to flaunt the greenest, fastest and most futuristic vehicles in their lineups while also trying to appear frugal in a way befitting the gloomy state of their industry and the economy.

The Frankfurt show, however, suggests some larger trends: The time has come to get practical and urgent about reducing vehicle emissions, and deep pockets and software smarts will be crucial in determining which companies emerge as leaders in the next generation of smarter vehicles with lower emissions.

Perhaps the biggest sign that there’s new urgency and seriousness about reducing vehicle emissions is the relatively low profile of hydrogen cars. As Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said earlier this year, “We asked ourselves, ‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, or 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was ‘no.’” Automakers have been touting the technology pretty heavily this month. But while Mercedes-Benz plans to lease 100 hydrogen fuel cell cars in the U.S. next year, at Frankfurt this week the emphasis for larger-scale deployments is on hybrids and electric vehicles.

In July, Ford stressed the importance of hybrids and fuel sippers in its lineup for a full financial turnaround. And at Frankfurt on Tuesday, Ford’s approach to practicality (in the face of tighter fuel-efficiency standards coming quickly down the pike from Washington), centered on giving the ole internal combustion engine vehicle an MPG makeover. The company’s big announcements included the launch of the C-Max minivan (which, as the LA Times Up to Speed blog puts it, is a supermini “in the plus-sized, butter-not-margarine North American market…To Europeans, such cars are average-sized”) and a new, smaller version of its EcoBoost engine, which the company claims cuts fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by up to 20 percent.

Other automakers are being more ambitious. France-based Renault plowed ahead with its quest for domination of the global electric vehicle market,unveiling four new or revised models. One of those models, the Fluence, highlights the important role that software and technology partners will play for the companies competing in a growing field of EV makers in the coming decade. The Fluence comes as the first vehicle slated for production (in 2011) that has been designed to work with infrastructure startup Better Place’s battery swap system, and it’s loaded with Better Place’s new AutOS computing platform.

Whether or not other automakers decide to join Better Place’s network, they will have to solve many of the problems the startup is tackling with the new system — enabling the cars to crunch energy calculations, deliver an “energy plan” for each driver, and find the closest charging and battery swap stations, for example — if the electric concepts shown this week at Frankfurt really roll out at mass scale. The system brings together technology from Continental, Microsoft, Intel and Flextronics. We wouldn’t be surprised if next year, we see even more tech companies hitting the auto show circuit.

IBM Launches Software to Act as Smart Grid Glue for Startups

It’s always been hard to explain IBM’s role in the smart grid — the computing company has its hands in dozens of utility smart grid deals by way of software that can act as a facilitator for smart grid buildouts. This morning IBM detailed a bit more about how it’s acting as a sort of glue between utilities and third-party smart grid vendors, with the announcement of new software called “Solution Architecture for Energy and Utilities Framework (SAFE).”

Any smart grid firm — from a smart meter data management software maker to a home area energy dashboard maker — can build applications and services to be compatible with IBM’s SAFE software, and utilities can easily and quickly integrate the third-party tool into their networks, says IBM. Companies like ESRI, SISCO, Retriever Communications, Trilliant, BPL Global, Coulomb Technologies, eMeter, Enterprise Information Management, Itron, OSIsoft and PowerSense have already built their tools to be compatible with SAFE. Trilliant CEO Andy White emphasized in a statement that it’s critical for smart grid software to be easily and quickly scaled up and standards-compliant.

IBM’s SAFE could be particularly helpful for young startups. The software can offer these companies a standard software platform to build upon, enabling them to focus on their valuable intellectual property. IBM’s announcement quotes Lee Burrows, a partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners, which has invested in home energy management startup Tendril, as saying: “VantagePoint sees great value in our portfolio companies teaming with established industry leaders like IBM.”

IBM’s software can also help take the risk out of a utility doing a deal with an unknown and tiny startup. Utilities generally like to work with big companies, but given the industry is so nascent, many of them are working with relative newbies, and IBM’s software can help add some needed weight to the equation.

Of course, many startups and smart grid firms won’t want to build their products based on IBM’s SAFE and will want to create their own baseline smart grid software that can act as a standard. And many companies are big enough that they don’t need the weight of IBM when they are making a utility deal. But we look forward to seeing which startups decide to go with SAFE and which decide to make their own way.

How the Stimulus Funds Could Hinder A Smart Grid Buildout

While there will be close to $4 billion in stimulus funds allocated for the smart grid buildout to utilities and tech vendors, some executives are worried that the stimulus funds could actually cause quite a few problems for smart grid technology vendors. Those were the thoughts of some execs at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference in Sausalito, Calif. on Wednesday.

Utilities have moved more slowly recently, waiting for the funds to be allocated (likely not until mid-October or early November) before doing deals with tech vendors, pointed out Cree Edwards, the CEO of smart meter data software maker eMeter. It has slowed the process down a bit, acknowledged Adrian Tuck, the CEO of energy management startup Tendril.

Frank Ramirez, CEO of thermal energy storage company Ice Energy took the worries a step further. He said that when the funds are allocated, he thought that lawsuits would follow after decisions were made. The big problem is the fact that all of these funds are being allocated by “well-meaning bureaucrats” tasked with choosing technology leaders, said Ramirez. Given the nascent nature of the technology and the size of the funds, it’s not something politicians are necessarily equipped to deal with.

Weighing through those applications and technologies will be no easy task for anyone. According to the New York Times, there were more than 140 proposals, requesting a total of $2.3 billion, for just the $615 million to fund smart grid demonstration projects. That’s not including all the other applications for the additional $3 billion.

Tendril’s Tuck pointed out, though, that the stimulus funds, have brought the idea of the need for a smarter grid to a lot more utilities and made the “pie” a whole lot bigger. The notion that the stimulus funds will spur a smart grid buildout has been the predominant feeling overall from the industry, in most interviews I’ve done. While I’m not sure if lawsuits will follow the decisions, the slowdown is clearly temporary and will be cleared up when decisions are made in the coming weeks. Now the overall question remains: Will the DOE make the right choices when doling out the money?

PHOTOS: The Best Electric & Hybrid Cars From the Frankfurt Motor Show

For a cross section of the electric and hybrid vehicles that automakers have either in the pipeline for production or on deck for conceptual development in the next few years, you can’t beat Frankfurt, Germany this week. From Hyundai’s first ever plug-in hybrid concept (a potential Chevy Volt challenger) to the Department of Energy-backed Model S sedan in the works from Tesla Motors, the Frankfurt Motor Show has brought us images of a future electric and hybrid auto industry like never before. Here are some of our favorites from the event.

Audi e-tron

Audi e-tron

BMW Vision EfficientDynamics hybrid

Fisker Karma

Ford Focus BEV

Hyndai HND-4

Renault Fluence

Renault Kangoo

Tesla Model S

Smart Fortwo ED

Reva NXR

VW L1

VW E-Up!

VW E-Up!

A123Systems Zeroes In On IPO, Sets Terms Finally

Josie GarthwaiteSep 09, 2009 17:01:05 GMT Partager

The road to an initial public offering has been a long haul for startup A123Systems — it initially filed to go public just over a year ago, shortly before stock markets began to plummet. This morning, the Massachusetts-based lithium-ion battery maker has finally set the terms for its IPO in a new filing with the SEC, proposing to sell 25 million common shares at $8 to $9.50 per share. Individual shareholders expect to sell an additional 680,500 shares.

While A123 has yet to turn a profit, the company has been in the money this summer, snagging a whopping $249 million grant from the Department of Energy last month to help it carry out a plan for setting up commercial manufacturing in the United States. The company has raised more than $350 million from private investors, and A123’s offering (set by underwriters including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs) would raise between $200 million and $237.5 million in the IPO, up from the $175 million it initially filed to raise in 2008.

That’s not much of an uptick, considering how much has changed for A123 since its initial filing (in addition to winning the DOE grant, the companysecured a supply deal with Chrysler), and also how much capital A123 is going to need for its planned expansion. Despite hefty boosts from the U.S. and Michigan governments, the company doesn’t expect its U.S. buildout to come cheaply.

Under the battery grant initiative, A123 has noted it “will be required to spend up to $1 of our own funds for every incentive dollar we receive.” Under a second DOE program — the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Initiative — through which A123 hopes to secure $235 million in direct loans, the company would have to spend $1 of its own funds for every $4 it borrows because of cost sharing requirements.

As panelists at the recent AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford noted, “going public is a huge branding event” that does a lot to raise a startup’s profile. Having bagged the DOE grant in a program that heavily favors larger, more established corporations ahead of startups, the eight-year-old company is not exactly under the radar. But A123 still remains a small fish in a pond that includes Johnson Controls, LG Chem, Delphi and Saft.

The visibility that A123 has gained, and disclosures it’s been required to provide as part of its move toward an IPO, may have helped its case with the DOE. At the same time, last month’s $249 million vote of confidence from the government may have provided one last push for A123 to go through with its public offering.

A123’s IPO will be one of the only venture backed cleantech startups to go public after the recent market deep freeze, and could serve to thaw the public markets for other cleantech startups if it gets a good response — or even deliver the blockbuster IPO year that investor Steve Westly has forecast.