On the GreenBeat: MiaSolé to raise $100 million ahead of IPO, Amyris shoots for $122 million

MiaSolé aims to raise $100 million in sixth-round funding in advance of a 2011 IPO, according to Green Tech Media. The article cites a report from Birchmere Ventures, which names Morgan Stanley as the underwriter for the thin-film solar panel maker’s planned IPO. Thin-film has lagged in producing efficiency rates equal to that of its crystalline silicon counterparts – and Applied Materials abandoned its thin-film efforts this year. Key is MiaSolé’s claim (and the confidence of its backers) that it can produce solar panels at a competitive efficiency (15.5 percent) and price (70 cents per watt) by the end of 2012.

Biofuel company Amyris upped its fundraising goal to $122 million from $100 million in its IPO plans and estimates an initial offering price of $18 – $20 per share. The company amended its S-1 filing and said it expects net proceeds of near $90 million. The capital is needed to produce biofuels on a larger scale. As Earth2Tech notes, the news is rare in a year that hasn’t been kind to cleantech IPOs — both Solyndra and Trony Solar yanked its IPO plans earlier this year.

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Solazyme has landed a deal to produce another 150,000 gallons of algae fuel for the U.S. Navy. The company has already delivered 20,000 gallons to the Navy, which wants to transfer half of its energy usage to renewable sources by 2020.

SunRun announced its residential solar service is now available in Hawaii, the seventh state in the company’s expansion. Hawaii is shaping up to be a plum market for a lot of cleantech companies. It’s small, and its relative isolation means that power is expensive thanks to the costs of importing coal and oil, making solar a competitive option for SunRun’s target market. Hawaii also has a state initiative that aims to transfer 70 percent of the state’s energy use over to renewable energy by 2030.

Philadelphia is launching a $1.5 million pilot project that will capture kinetic energy from subway trains’ braking and store it in a battery. The experiment is expected to save the city half a million dollars a year in energy costs. The energy generated from trains could be resold to the grid, or used to reduce energy costs during peak hours. Smart grid company Viridity earned a $900,000 grant for the project.