GE, Chevron investing big-time in clean technology

General Electric invests more into clean technologies than any other company.

The company’s yearly allotment for Ecomagination, its cleantech investment arm, totals $1 billion, and GE says it’s on track to raise the number to $1.5 billion by 2010. Compare that to the mere $844 million invested in U.S. clean-technology companies by the entire venture capital establishment last quarter, which is at record levels.

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The GE money will go to both new research and existing projects, as well as partnerships with universities and labs, GE says. Areas of investment include renewable energy, fuel efficiency, lighting and water purification (look here for summaries.)

GE can maintain its investment flow into Ecomagination because the division is actually bringing in revenues — about $12 billion since it was opened in 2005. Like Chevron, which recently opened its fourth venture fund, the company also uses the companies and technologies it invests in for internal projects.

Chevron’s focus is broader than just clean-tech: The company is also investing in oil and gas and information technology ventures. About a third of the $75 million it has set aside will go to clean-tech.

The fund’s new director, Trond Unneland, said Chevron is mainly interested in technologies that can assist its own oil and gas operations, like a San Joaquin Valley project where solar panels help turn water to steam for use in oil reclamation.

Between its first three funds, Chevron has invested about $170 million, seeing an internal benefit of $50 million from increased efficiency and cost savings, it says. Asked whether the company planned on helping the companies it invests in develop in the outside world, Unneland said: “Our primary goal is [internal] technology transfers, but financial returns are important as well.”

So with their slightly different focus, where do giant companies fall in the venture capital spectrum? Aside from their focus on technologies they can use for themselves, they may also be more risk-averse than traditional VCs investing in cleantech, like Vinod Khosla.

Khosla Ventures has bet on a number of controversial projects, including one we reported on recently: Calera, which claims to be able to suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to produce concrete.

By comparison, GE invests in projects like building cleaner coal plants or working on advanced desalination technology. Chevron, for its part, has put money into Brightsource, the photovoltaic steam-generation startup, and Konarka, a maker of so-called “power plastic”.

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