Mintz Levin Energy Technology

Energy Technology Connections Newsletter

Your Law Firm Link to Industry News

February 2016

A Note from the Editors

Our February edition of Energy Technology Connections brings you recent industry highlights, the latest news from Capitol Hill, and a list of upcoming energy industry events. In Leaders in the News, we profile our friends at Oasys Water for their work in the wastewater recovery sphere, along with Mintz Levin’s own Tom Burton for his role as a member of Big Path Capital’s SmarterMoney Review+ Selection Committee. Our Innovator Profile highlights Greentech Media, a company focused on providing comprehensive news and market analysis for the energy industry. For event highlights, we feature two upcoming events that we are excited to be part of, including the 2016 World Energy Innovation Forum taking place at the Tesla Motors manufacturing facility and NECEC’s “Working with the Press in an Evolving Media Landscape.” Lastly, our Washington Update highlights the Senate debate over a bipartisan energy bill among other domestic and international energy issues.

We are thrilled to be a part of The 2016 World Energy Innovation Forum, which brings together the who’s-who of the energy innovation sector, including leading investors, Fortune 500 executives, technologists, policy-makers, and entrepreneurs, for two days of high-level presentations, conversations, and networking. This year’s event will take place at Tesla’s 5.5 million square foot Bay Area manufacturing facility, which produces the critically acclaimed Model S sedan and the newly released Model X and is regarded as a leading epicenter of cleantech innovation. The two-day Forum, which will be kicked off by Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, marries the best in thought-provoking discussion with the best in industry networking in the most exciting venue in the industry. Attendees will get a much coveted look at Tesla’s award-winning facility as well as a chance to test drive a Tesla.

For links to industry grant opportunities and stories from the business, policy, and research sectors of the energy and clean technology industry, please see our Energy Navigator.

You can subscribe to our Energy Tech Matters blog here.

Contents

Leaders in the News:

Oasys Water

This month, we are featuring our client Oasys Water, the leading provider of integrated forward osmosis systems for high recovery industrial desalination. The company transforms high salinity wastewater into reusable, fresh water resources. Oasys boasts 90% or higher water recovery with no feed water boiling, low capital costs, low maintenance requirements, and fantastic results that include potable water and high quality brine.

How do they do it? Oasys uses a patented membrane-based forward osmosis process. They have engineered a semi-permeable membrane with a draw solution that elegantly separates salt from water without the use of high pressure, energy intensive hydraulic pumps. Even better, the Oasys system can be powered by electricity, low-pressure steam, or heat from a variety of sustainable sources. This allows Oasys to produce fresh water while minimizing the cost and the use of energy or chemicals. The company focuses mainly on wastewater in the energy and natural resource markets, specializing in power generation, shale oil and gas, metals and mining, and zero liquid discharge.

Oasys’s ClearFlo Water Transformation Solutions are used around the world, including the ClearFlo Membrane Brine Concentrator (MBC)^TM and the ClearFlo Complete systems. Encompassing forward osmosis technology, the ClearFlo MBC treats industrial produced water and wastewater with salinities three to five times that of seawater. Last fall, Oasys introduced the ClearFlo Complete system, which simplifies the zero liquid discharge (ZLD) effort by increasing the amount of water that can be recovered from a crystallizer by membrane processes. And on the horizon in 2016, we can expect more innovative solutions for some of the world’s most difficult waters.

Given the incredible potential for this sort of technology, it’s no wonder others have noticed. Last summer, Oasys was mentioned in the Boston Business Journal as part of Massachusetts’s “robust water technology scene.” In addition, researcher Zachary Helm was recently featured in a Boston Globe article highlighting the company’s technology and aspirations to recycle industrial wastewater. As international concerns about water waste continue to make headlines, Oasys’s solutions are sure to be at the forefront of these discussions. Keep up the good work!

Big Path Capital’s SmarterMoney+ Review

This month we’d also like to highlight Big Path Capital’s SmarterMoney+ Review, which featured Mintz Levin’s own Tom Burton as a member of the publication’s Selection Committee for the special edition it released at the 2016 Investor Summit on Climate Risk at the United Nations. The special edition of the review, entitled “Top 10 Smartest Reports on the Intersection of Climate Change and Finance,” is a compendium of the most significant recent papers addressing climate change and finance. These papers highlight not only the risks that climate change presents, but also the opportunities associated with the transition to a lower-carbon economy. Tom and other leading impact investors, climate specialists, and energy experts on the Selection Committee surveyed a wide range of articles and reports in the field and selected their top choices to create the SmarterMoney+ Review special edition. The publication is available online here. Congratulations to Tom and the others who helped put this excellent compilation of thought leadership together!

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Innovator Profile: Greentech Media

February’s Innovator Profile features Greentech Media, a company dedicated to delivering business-to-business news, market analysis, and conferences for the clean energy industry. Through the sharing of information and insight, the company strives to build a common culture throughout the greentech industry, which in turn helps promote idea sharing, communication, and innovation that will change the industry going forward.

Founded in 2007, Greentech Media’s business model has been multifaceted from the start. On the one hand, it functions as a classic business-to-business media company, providing industry news and company highlights for clean energy players. Yet it is more than just a media company — it has its own market research arm, GTM Research, which provides analysis and advisory services for those seeking a better understanding of the clean energy markets. The third and final part of the Greentech model is an events arm, which combines the work done by the two other branches into industry conferences held throughout the year that provide opportunities for industry players to learn from one another alongside the Greentech team.

This three-pronged approach allows Greentech Media to provide some of the most comprehensive clean energy coverage available — a valuable service in an industry where rapid, often uneven growth has made it difficult to identify all of the trends, growth spurts, and stumbling blocks inherent in the industry’s present and future. Its GTM Research products — ranging from subscription-based market intelligence services to ad hoc market research reports — help give subscribers a data-driven view of clean energy’s past, present, and future. Greentech Media’s news articles, meanwhile, often incorporate GTM Research data to help guide readers to the technologies and companies that could revolutionize the market and, incidentally, help save the world.

As one might expect of a company poised at the forefront of the burgeoning green energy industry, the year ahead looks to be a busy one for Greentech Media. On the events front, it will be hosting its first ever tradeshow, in addition to five scheduled conferences. Be on the lookout for more information on these events coming up in 2016. In addition to its free news, Greentech Media has also launched GTM Squared, a paid membership to premium news content, podcasts, and special features on policy, technology evolution, and venture capital. You can find Greentech Media’s news coverage here, and GTM Research’s analysis here. Congratulations to Greentech Media for its fantastic work facilitating innovation and collaboration in the clean energy industry!

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Event Highlights

2016 World Energy Innovation Forum

Mintz Levin is returning as a sponsor of the World Energy Innovation Forum being held at the Tesla Motors manufacturing facility on May 4–5, 2016 in Fremont, California. The two-day Forum, focused on clean technology and alternative energy, marries the best in thought-provoking discussion with the best in industry networking in the most exciting venue in the industry. Attendees will get a much coveted look at Tesla’s award-winning facility as part of a special VIP tour of the manufacturing floor, as well as a chance to test drive a Tesla. In addition — and even more exciting — attendees will have the extraordinary opportunity to hear first-hand from Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, who will help kick off this year’s Forum. In addition to Elon, the Forum will feature many other leaders in the energy innovation sector, all of whom will take to the podium to address the pivotal energy issues and opportunities of our time.

As a Forum sponsor, we are able to offer you a discount to the event. Register online before March 15 with the discount code MINTZ750 to receive $750 off the general registration rate. To register, click here. Please be sure to reserve your spot at the Forum ASAP, as the last event sold out.

Working with the Press in an Evolving Media Landscape

Mintz Levin is excited to host a panel organized by NECEC’s PR Committee entitled, “Working with the Press in an Evolving Media Landscape,” on Tuesday, March 15 from 8:30 to 10:30 am. Not long ago newspapers and magazines were considered the go-to resource for information. Now in our instant-gratification economy, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and other social media channels play a much larger role in how the media shares information and news with the general public. As businesses work to successfully and consistently share their stories, it’s essential to understand how the media works. What kinds of stories are they looking for? How can you research their past coverage to understand their future stories? What channels and platforms do they want to be pitched on? Why should they care about your pitch?

During this panel, attendees will hear from top-tier journalists who will share their candid feedback about how to effectively work with them. The panelists will discuss the current status of the media landscape and where they see it going in the next five years. They’ll provide details about how they prefer to engage with businesses and PR professionals, and take your burning questions.

For more information, click here.

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Washington Update

Congress has spent much of the new year focused on a bipartisan energy bill; however, progress on that bill has been put on hold following a disagreement over federal aid to address the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The bill would have been the first broad bipartisan energy package in nearly 10 years. The Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 (S. 2012), which cleared, 18-4, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last summer, includes, among other things, language to increase energy efficiency, renewable energy, energy infrastructure, and grid security, as well as to impose deadlines on the Department of Energy to make final decisions on natural gas exports, permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and expedite the licensing process for hydropower projects.

The floor debate on the bill lasted two weeks and offered substantial opportunity for senators to file a wide-ranging and lengthy list of amendments. Ultimately, debate on the measure came to a halt when senators could not agree on the size and scope of an aid package offered by Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Gary Peters (D-MI) to help Flint, Michigan. The senators sought to include language in the measure to provide about $600 million in federal funds to address pipe replacement and for lead-impacted health costs. Several of their Republican colleagues preferred to add $50 million in offset, direct federal funding, and $550 million in loan guarantees as needed. As a result, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) February 4 cloture votes on the energy bill — both the underlying bill and the manager’s amendment — failed. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) worked diligently the past several days to get the measure back on track by having it move separately from the Flint measure, but the energy bill is not likely to move forward at least until the next work period, when the upper chamber may return to it.

President Obama, meanwhile, released his fiscal year 2017 budget request on February 9, which includes $32.5 billion for the Department of Energy. The request calls on the agency to increase clean energy efforts and spending, including $7.7 billion for clean energy across several agencies, about 76% of which would go to the DOE for vehicle and building efficiency programs, weatherization, and ARPA-E. The budget request seeks $8.27 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency, down 3.8% from last year’s request, but 6% more than what Congress allocated in the fiscal year 2016 budget. It also seeks $235 million for the agency’s climate programs, an almost 50% increase from the 2016 enacted levels. The budget request proposes separately a $1.65 billion fund over the next decade to pay for climate infrastructure projects.

The budget proposal would reduce fossil fuel energy program funding, repeal oil and gas industry tax breaks, and create a $10.25 per barrel tax on oil that would be used to fund clean transportation programs. Mentioning multiple times that climate change is a significant global threat, the budget request includes $1.3 billion in international climate change assistance through the Global Climate Change Initiative, including $750 million for the Green Climate Fund and $12.5 million for climate insurance initiatives President Obama pledged in Paris last year to help small island nations join the global climate agreement. Congressional budget hearings are already under way.

On the executive agency front, on January 27 the Department of Energy awarded $2.85 million for four projects to advance renewable energy technologies at federal facilities. The Federal Energy Management Program’s Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies program announcement is aimed at increasing photovoltaic and biomass generation, and the total investment, as cost shared with industry, amounts to almost $75 million.

The Supreme Court put the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan on hold on February 9, ruling that the EPA cannot enforce the plan until legal challenges are resolved. Twenty-nine states and state agencies as well as numerous industry groups had filed petitions January 26 with the Supreme Court asking the court to reverse the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s January 21 decision not to stay the Clean Power Plan. The group contended that the plan should be stayed because it presents significant legal issues that will eventually be presented to the high court. The circuit court has scheduled oral argument in the lawsuits for June 2 and potentially June 3. Petitioners were required to submit no more than two opening briefs by February 19, with briefs from supporting intervenors and amici due by February 23. The agency’s brief is due by March 28, with intervenors due March 29 and amici due April 1. Petitioner reply briefs are due by April 15.

Internationally, on January 27 United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged world leaders to sign the Paris climate agreement in New York City on Earth Day, April 22. The secretary general is holding a high level session that day to open the climate agreement to signatures, and countries have until April 21 of next year to sign it. The secretary general also called on the private sector to quickly increase its renewable energy investments, doubling them by 2020.

In state news, on January 29 the California Public Utilities Commission extended the state’s net metering program for another four years. Existing solar owners will maintain the right to sell excess power back to the grid for four years and new owners will be able to participate in the program after paying a one-time fee.

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