A startup out of MIT called 1366 Technologies, which is developing new ways to manufacture and design silicon-based solar cells, has moved out of the lab and into a pilot facility and plans to show off next week its work on a solar cell architecture that measures 6 inches by 6 inches. 1366 Tech CEO Frank van Mierlo tells us that the architecture “is the last proving point before commercial production.” And to move into commercial manufacturing van Mierlo tells us that the company plans to raise a round of $50 million in funding later this year.

1366 Tech was founded in 2007 by van Mierlo and MIT Professor Emanuel Sachs. Sachs is well-known for developing the string ribbon solar manufacturing technology, which has brought down the cost and raised the efficiency of solar panel production and has been the key to Evergreen Solar’s success. In March, 1366 Tech started talking about its technology and announced that it had raised $12.4 million in funding from North Bridge Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners.

The company’s innovation is a new solar cell architecture with a silicon crystal surface that keeps light bouncing around inside the cell until it’s absorbed. “We do a better job of capturing and and trapping light and converting it to electricity,” van Mierlo explained. That can lead to solar cells with a 19 percent efficiency rate and a manufacturing cost some 25 percent lower than traditional multi-crystalline solar cells. Many solar companies have been turning to alternative non-silicon materials to create cells, as there’s been a shortage of silicon over the past couple of years and the price of silicon has been high. 1366 Tech has been working on new ways to use standard silicon, which could end up being a smart bet as the silicon supply shortage looks to be easing up over the next few months, and the price of silicon will likely be coming down soon.

Commercial and residential solar installer Standard Solar has raised $8.5 million in second-round funding, the company said yesterday. The Gaithersburg, Md.-based startup currently operates in Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C., but plans to use this funding to expand throughout the mid-Atlantic region over the next two years.

With the recent extension of the investment tax credit, smaller players in the commercial and residential solar market are reacting quickly. Standard Solar tells us that even on the day that the ITC was passed, they noticed an uptick in calls about solar installations. The “land grab” for residential and commercial customers is back in effect.

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SkyFuel officially launched its low cost trough-shaped solar concentrators, dubbed SkyTrough, at an event in Colorado today. Parabolic troughs are an older solar technology, and while most are made out of glass, SkyFuel’s are made from the company’s own ReflecTech film material — sort of like mylar but sturdier — which it says can deliver the “world’s highest performance, lowest cost utility-scale solar power system.” The trough system, which we wrote about earlier this month, concentrates sun light onto a liquid-filled tube, which heats up and powers a steam turbine to produce electricity.

Claiming the world’s best performing, lowest-cost utility solar system is a bold statement, especially considering there’s so many competing solar thermal companies out there right now (see our list 11 Solar Thermal Companies Powering Up). In fact SkyFuel is making a lot of strong statements, trying to make a splash; they have been much quieter than many of their competitors up to this point. SkyFuel also says that its system “features the largest parabolic trough modules ever built,” at 375 feet long and 20 feet tall, and the company’s aluminum frame makes the system “30 percent lighter per unit of mirror area than even the best of the previous utility-scale parabolic collectors.”

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Ausra has been one of the most high-profile solar startups to get backing from Silicon Valley, but being funded by cleantech heavyweights Khosla, Kleiner and most recently Al Gore’s investment group doesn’t necessarily shield it from the uncertainty of the financial markets. Like many of its cleantech peers, the company has to consider what it will do if the financial markets don’t calm down over the next year.

If all goes well in the financial markets next year, Ausra’s executive VP and chief commercial officer, Glen Davis, says the company will raise project financing to build a solar plant that could cost between $600 million and $800 million; California utility PG&E has committed to buy the solar power from that plant in a power purchase agreement. Ausra could theoretically start construction on that plant in the second half of next year and have it initially producing power 12 to 15 months later — if everything falls into place. While the current financial downturn won’t necessarily effect the timeline of the project that will sell power to PG&E, raising financing and keeping on schedule could prove difficult depending on the markets, Davis says.

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A technology developed at Ohio University to grow algae in efficient bioreactors has been licensed by Atlanta-based startup Green Bios Technology, the university said this morning. The developer of the algae bioreactor, Ohio University Professor of Mechanical Engineering David Bayless, told us that the reactor and light transmission design can increase algae growth by 20 to 50 percent compared to more traditional bioreactors. Bayless, who has been working on the technology for a good 11 years, told us this morning that it’s been a long road and he felt like a proud parent now that the tech was going to reach the market.

Bioreactors are closed environments that house the elements that stimulate algae to grow, including water, CO₂ and sun light. Some companies grow their algae in open ponds, which is cheaper, but bioreactors enable algae-growers to closely control the process. In his lab Bayless has been able to deliver increases in productivity by tweaking the light management, fluid transport and reactor architecture.

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LS9, a startup using synthetic biology to produce a renewable petroleum product, says it has secured Bill Haywood as its CEO to lead the company’s transition from research and development into production. The three-year-old company has been led by President Bob Walsh, who joined in July 2007, and before that Doug Cameron had the role of acting CEO, who at the time was also the Chief Scientific Officer at Khosla Ventures (though has since joined Piper Jaffray as Chief Science Advisor. LS9 is based in South San Francisco (update: recently moved from San Carlos, Calif.), and has raised at least $20 million from Khosla Ventures, Flagship Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Update: We had a long chat with Haywood, who says the company is planning on creating a demonstration facility in the later half of 2010 that will be able to produce 2.5 million gallons of biofuel per year. LS9 will also be looking to raise a funding round of $75 million to $100 million in the first or second quarter of 2009.

LS9 is one of several biofuel startups using synthetic biology and genetics to develop biofuels that are more energy-dense than current first generation biofuels, require less energy to produce and can be distributed through the existing petroleum infrastructure. LS9 makes microbes that can convert fatty acids into hydrocarbon-based biocrudes and industrial chemicals. Other startups with similar aims include Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomics and Amyris Biotechnologies.

We haven’t heard much from LS9 over the past year, and likely it was heads-down proving the technology worked. Now that Haywood has joined, the company says it will be shifting into commercial production. Haywood was previously senior VP of refining for Tesoro Petroleum, and he has more than 30 years of experience in the fuels manufacturing business.

Secretive thin-film solar startup Solyndra unveiled for the first time today its solar module design for commercial rooftops and funding totaling more than $600 million. The company says its design can cut the cost of installing solar rooftops in half and reduce installation time by a third.

The design wraps the photovoltaic copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) compound around a series of tubes until they resemble a row of black, fluorescent lights. Each module is curved to catch the maximum amount of light from any direction, so the panels don’t need to be carefully angled and laboriously secured like traditional PV panels. Check out the manufacturing and installation video after the jump to see how it all works.

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Cellulosic ethanol startup Mascoma announced today that it has raised $49.5 million to build its first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Of the funds, $26 million is in the form of a previously announced grant from the Department of Energy, while the remaining $23.5 million is from the state of Michigan. Boston-based Mascoma says it is in the process of getting permits for the plant, with construction likely to start at the Kinross, Mich., site within a year and ethanol production expected another 18 months later.

Using wood chips as its feedstock, the plant is forecast to produce 20 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol a year in its first phase, a number that could subsequently double. But first Mascoma still needs to raise “hundreds of millions of dollars” more, CEO Bruce Jamerson said on a conference call.

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Thin-film solar startup Konarka today opened its new manufacturing plant in New Bedford, Mass., which will have a production capacity of 1 gigawatt per year. The 250,000-square-foot plant was previously an advanced printing facility for Polaroid, so Konarka has retrofitted much of the old printing equipment for solar fabrication and hired the technology and process engineering teams from Polaroid. The company plans to hire more than 100 additional employees as production increases toward capacity over the next 2-3 years.

The printing press is already humming and commercial production of Lowell, Mass.-based Konarka’s branded organic photovoltaic “Power Plastic” will begin in earnest in the first quarter of 2009, the company tells us. Konarka’s special sauce lies with its organic solar panels, which it says are able to absorb a much wider spectrum of light than other thin films, allowing for higher efficiencies and even indoor applications. Now that it’s manufacturing product, Konarka joins Nanosolar, the poster child of thin-film solar that started inking panels on a 1-gigawatt, $1.65-million solar printer late last year.

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Silver Spring Networks, a startup working to build the next generation of the smart power grid, says this morning that i’s raising $75 million, led by the green VC folks at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Founded in 2002, Silver Spring is a mature startup and this funding comes from Kleiner’s Green Growth Fund, which is reserved to help companies that have gained initial traction scale up; the rest of the round will include existing investors Foundation Capital, JVB Properties and Northgate Capital.

Silver Spring is kind of like Cisco for the power grid, and through its Internet Protocol-based hardware and software is helping utilities provide smart meter and demand response services to energy users. As the demand for electricity grows and utilities add more renewable energy, the power grid will need to increase its intelligence to manage energy loads and accommodate both clean power — like solar and wind — as well as plug-in vehicles.

So it’s not surprising that VC are pouring money into smart grid technology plays. According to the Cleantech Group, smart grid startups brought in a record $202 million in the third quarter of 2008, which included $120 million for Gridpoint, $40 million for Trilliant, $23 million for BPL Global, and $18.5 million for Eka Systems. (Silver Spring is also one of our 25 startups to watch in our Smart Energy Home briefing, check it out here). In Silver Spring’s funding release, Kleiner Partner John Doerr said, “Implementation of the Smart Grid is one of the most important clean technology initiatives of the coming decade.”