Week in Renewables: Slow Motion Legislation, Solar Acquisitions

The renewable energy industry, ever hopeful of firm deadlines and assured business prospects, seems doomed to disappointment. Progress on climate change legislation is dragging, with the United States preoccupied with health care issues and the international community shuffling its feet over a new treaty.

BNET’s Kirsten Korosec covered the climate bill’s forced move by Sen. Barbara Boxer out of a Senate environmental committee this Friday. It was a small victory that may cause problems in the long run; all pretense of bipartisanship on the bill is now gone. Grist suggests out that Senate Republicans have become the “party of slow” by pushing for more information than ordinary.

Blocking and delaying aren’t tactics restricted to the Republican camp. Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer chose this week to raise a stink over a proposed wind farm in Texas, because the backer, who is asking for Federal clean-energy funds, is a Chinese company. It’s not clear where the farm will end up, but the uproar will at least push it back.

The various delays in the U.S. have metastasized into the international community as well, removing any pretense of urgency, at least on a legislative level. Top Democrats had hoped to pass a bill in the U.S. by December, when a global climate change treaty was to be agreed on at the Copenhagen summit.

Now negotiators have agreed to make Copenhagen is a waypost on the road to a full agreement next year. It seems that for the moment, politicians are content to kick the can further down the road.

There was some bright news this week for cleantech companies, though. The U.S. Department of the Interior has begun fast-tracking some applications, starting with a group of six solar and wind farms in California. Separately, a 440 megawatt plant planned by BrightSource Energy moved closer to the start of construction.

Also in California, First Solar is continuing the project acquisition spree it started in March with Optisolar. This time it has bought a planned 177 megawatt solar farm from Ausra, a solar thermal company. The project was announced back in November 2007, one of the first large solar farms planned for the state.

Two more acquisitions. First, Applied Materials purchased failed solar startup Advent Solar, which could help make Applied’s own solar cells thinner and more efficient. Applied sells its solar cell manufacturing equipment to other companies equipment to other companies, so each step forward its products take is significant news for companies that want to buy into the market without developing their own technology.

Second, Quercus Trust bought Applied Solar, which sounds related to Applied Materials but isn’t. Quercus, a venture fund run by a rather secretive math genius, will use the acquisition toward its own entry into the growing building-integrated photovoltaics market, which could put solar cells into your window panes or roof tiles.