As 2009 drew to a close, solar companies faced uncertainty as to whether the new year would bring recovery or a continuation of challenges stemming from oversupply and difficult financing. But Rhone Resch, head of the trade group Solar Energy Industries Association, or SEIA, expressed optimism this morning in a press call held along with leaders of the wind, hydropower, biomass and geothermal industries.

“I’m hopeful that 2010 will be the year that we actually break a gigawatt for just the photovoltaic industry alone,” he said. “We all thought 2009 was going to be a dreadful year in terms of installations and jobs,” and yet the sector created nearly 20,000 jobs. “We are just starting to regain our foothold to become a leading country in solar. This was not by accident,” he said, but largely because of provisions in the Recovery Act.

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Former hedge-funder-turned-greentech investor and philanthropist David Gelbaum has taken on a new role, as CEO of Entech Solar. A developer of concentrating solar modules and a daylighting system that’s scheduled to launch early this year, Entech Solar got its official start in 2008. That’s when solar installer WorldWater & Solar Technology acquired a 25-year-old development-focused firm called Entech, Inc. — in a deal that Gelbaum’s secretive Quercus Trust helped finance with a $35 million investment.

This move into the executive role for Gelbaum, who was already Chairman and a major shareholder for Entech Solar, comes on the heels of a rough year for the investor. In December 2009, he revealed that “a shift in my financial circumstances” had forced him to rein in philanthropic donations to organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, Sierra Club and Iraq-Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund of the California Community Foundation.

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Two years: That’s how long a new “blue ribbon” commission assembled by the Department of Energy has to finalize a report that will look at a path forward for nuclear energy in the U.S. power supply. Created under an executive order from President Obama, the 15-person commission announced today plans to “conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.”

In other words, the group is charged with tackling the controversial question of how to deal with nuclear fuel and waste in a safe and environmentally responsible way — delivering an interim report with recommendations within 18 months and a final report six months later. That report is meant to include advice on how to store, process and dispose of nuclear fuel and waste from both nuclear and civilian use. Former Congressman Lee Hamilton, who served as Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission and will co-chair the nuclear commission, said in a call with reporters today his team will be “open to all options,” whether “interim or permanent.”

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Harvest Power, which builds, owns and operates facilities to turn yard clippings and other organic waste into renewable energy and composted soil, announced today that it is partnering with Waste Management, a leading waste services company, to expand its organics recycling operations. As part of the agreement, Waste Management — along with returning venture backers Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Munich Venture Partners — has invested an undisclosed amount into the Waltham, Mass.-based startup.

The partnership with Waste Management represents a major milestone for Harvest Power, which was founded in 2008 and so far has just one facility up and running: its Fraser Richmond plant near Vancouver, Canada. The deal gives Harvest Power a well-established partner in the waste businesses, and it paves the way for the startup to access organic waste (feedstock for its recycling processes) from Waste Management’s operations across the United States and Canada. Waste Management serves more than 20 million customers through a network of 367 collection operations, 273 active landfill disposal sites and 134 recycling plants.

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If you know one fuel cell startup, it might be Bloom Energy — the secretive 8-year-old company with at least $250 million in financing. But another startup, 7-year-old ClearEdge Power, has begun to rack up customers for its $50,000 fuel cell device  – and it’s just raised another $11 million in equity financing, according to a filing with the SEC.

This new funding — which comes in addition to $15 million that ClearEdge secured as part of this round in August 2009 – brings the startup’s latest round to $26 million. ClearEdge’s regulatory filing, submitted on Friday, also shows an uptick in revenue, to between $1 million and $5 million, up from the $1 million or less indicated on the August filing.

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A new agreement between the U.S. Navy and the Department of Agriculture may offer a boost to developers of fuels derived from plants, and other greentech firms vying for military contracts. The two departments have agreed to work together — and with private partners — to “encourage the development of advanced biofuels and other renewable energy systems,” as part of an effort to bring more alternative fuels into the Navy and Marine Corps’ energy supply, and generally support the Obama administration’s clean energy goals.

The Navy, which has delivered funding and partnerships to startups including Ocean Power Tech (for testing and an advanced version of the firm’s PowerBuoy) and Widetronix (for silicon-carbide based wafer tech used in electronic devices), pledged recently in a separate announcement to consider the energy efficiency and “energy footprint,” among other factors, when awarding contracts, and the department reiterated that plan Thursday.

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The Department of Energy announced $12 million in funding Wednesday for the development of cutting-edge, low-cost photovoltaic technology — and in the process pulled back the curtain a bit on the secretive solar startup Alta Devices. The stealth-mode company, which has funding from venture firms including Kleiner Perkins and Technology Partners, snagged a grant for up to $3 million today for work on low-cost, high-efficiency (more than 20 percent) photovoltaic modules with compound semiconductor materials.

While these funds come through the government’s Photovoltaic Technology Incubator Program — intended for early stage, pre-commercial tech — Alta Devices expects to enter the market as early as next year. According to this job posting for an executive position at the company, Alta make its thin film solar cells using manufacturing equipment that are “compatible” with rigid modules as well as roll-to-roll processing, and it’s keen on developing partnerships with electric utilities.

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If you own a home or business out West and have been scrounging for the cash to install a solar system on your roof this year, California utility Pacific Gas & Electric and solar installer and financier SolarCity might be able to help. Pacific Venture Capital, the investment arm of PG&E’s parent company, plans to provide $60 million in tax equity financing for SolarCity to install an estimated 1,000 solar systems at homes and businesses in 2010 — primarily in California, the country’s largest solar market, but also in Arizona and Colorado — the companies announced today.

PG&E and SolarCity, a Foster City, Calif.-based startup founded in 2006 and backed by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and JP Morgan, are calling the deal the first investment of its kind by a utility holding company, and the first collaboration of its kind between a utility holding company and a power provider. It’s more common for a bank to invest in tax equity — basically buying clean energy tax credits to shelter otherwise taxable income. 

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For a while there, it looked like 2010 might be the first banner year for solar stocks since 2007. It still could be, although this week is showing that, if solar does make a comeback this year, it’s not going to happen with out some sudden and stomach-churning setbacks.

The first week or so of a calendar year can be an interesting — if not always accurate — gauge of how investors are feeling about a sector of stocks. Some of the bigger names in solar energy saw a healthy gain in their share prices amid strong volume, signaling a renewed confidence among investors. As of the end of trading Monday, Solarfun was up 36 percent, while Yingli Green Energy and JA Solar were both up 18 percent. Overall, the Claymore/MAC Solar Energy Index was up 11 percent after the first six days of trading, compared with a 1 percent gain in the Nasdaq.

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Two years ago energy baron T. Boone Pickens had visions of building the world’s largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, starting with a $2 billion order of wind turbines from General Electric. That project was put on hold indefinitely last year, but there are new details on it from the Dallas Morning News this morning: Pickens’ Mesa Power will still buy the turbines from GE, but the order has been cut by more than half (to 300 turbines, down from 667) and will now go toward wind projects it plans to build in Canada and Minnesota.

This latest change of plans highlights a choke point for renewable energy projects: transmission. (See GigaOM Pro’s “Renewable Energy Charging Up Electrical Transmission Tech,” sub. req’d.) According to the Dallas Morning News, Pickens said yesterday at an America’s Future Series event in Texas that the Panhandle will not have transmission lines to carry electricity from the project when he’s slated to begin taking deliveries of the turbines next year. After transmission lines get built, he said he will also build a wind farm in the region, but it’s unclear when or how big that might be.

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