Mumbai-based rooftop solar company SolarSquare has acquired PV Diagnostics, a company with expertise in the utility-scale solar power sector, to significantly enhance the quality and efficiency of its residential solar installations throughout India.
PV Diagnostics is a consultancy solutions provider in the solar industry, offering a range of services across the photovoltaic value chain. The company boasts an industry experience of 8 GW, having collaborated with leading renewable energy developers such as Tata Power, Adani, and Renew Power.
The integration of PV Diagnostics’ utility-scale proficiency with SolarSquare’s residential rooftop solar solutions is expected to establish new benchmarks in terms of quality and performance for home solar installations.
The company will leverage PV Diagonostics’ expertise in best quality module sourcing, diagnostics, and technology stack to deploy good quality and long-lasting residential solar installations.
The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
PV Diagnostics will maintain its commitment to the utility-scale solar market, ensuring the continuity of its existing services post-acquisition.
The company’s founders, including solar industry veteran Prakash Suratkar, Pranav Maheshwari, Atul Kumar Jain, and Ayush Mahajan, all alums of IIT Bombay, are expected to bring expertise to the table. Their collective experience extends to advising multiple private equities in significant solar portfolio acquisitions across the country.
Prakash Suratkar, CEO of PV Diagnostics, said: “Joining forces with SolarSquare is not just a strategic decision but also a move inspired by the quality mindset of SolarSquare’s founders. Their dedication to excellence and consumer-centric approach resonated deeply with us at PVD. This inspiration has been a driving force in our decision to unite with SolarSquare, and we are excited to bring our utility-scale expertise to the residential solar market.”
SolarSquare said the acquisition aligns with its commitment to innovation and sustainability, further solidifying its position as a leader in India’s solar energy sector.
Shreya Mishra, CEO of SolarSquare, expressed her vision for the collaboration: “The acquisition of PV Diagnostics is a pivotal move towards our goal of building top-tier, consumer-centric solar solutions. PVD’s experience in ensuring the highest quality standards in large-scale solar projects will be very useful in elevating our residential offerings. Together, we aim to redefine the solar landscape in India.”
In November, SolarSquare raised ₹1 billion ($12.8 million) as part of its series A funding round led by Elevation Capital and U.S.-based climate-focused fund Lowercarbon Capital.
The fundraise came short of four months after the start-up raised $4 million in a seed funding round led by Good Capital.
Financing deal expected to fuel Levio’s acquisition strategy.
Levio has secured a $125-million commitment from the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) to support the Québec City-based digital consultancy firm’s acquisition strategy.
According to a report from The Globe and Mail, CDPQ is Levio’s first external investor, and is taking a minority stake in the company. Per The Globe, the funding is being provided via an equity line, from which Levio can draw as it completes more acquisitions.
The firm claims to have over 200 customers, including the Canadian Space Agency, Morgan Stanley, and Desjardins.
Founded in 2014 by president François Dion, Levio supports institutional and corporate customers in planning, managing and executing large-scale digital transformation programs. Levio’s website offers consulting services across several sectors, including insurance, financial services, telecommunications, aerospace, and healthcare.
“Digital transformation is central to the sustainability and productivity of organizations, and this partnership is perfectly in line with our investment priorities and supports the company’s growth,” Kim Thomassin, executive vice-president and head of Québec at CDPQ, said in a statement.
Levio said it plans to expand in North America following this fundraise. In addition to acquiring more firms, Levio hopes to increase its geographic footprint, improve its offering, and develop new business practices.
The company has grown significantly in its ten years, and has placed on several lists for its rapid revenue growth. Last year, Levio ranked 168th on The Globe and Mail’s Canada’s Top Growing Companies list, with 288 percent year-over-year revenue growth in 2022.
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The firm claims to have over 200 customers, including Defence Canada, the Canadian Space Agency, Desjardins, and Morgan Stanley. Levio oversees 2,000 consultants working out of 12 offices across Canada, the United States (US), France, India, and Morocco.
Acquisitions have played a key role in Levio’s growth from the beginning. The company said it has a “dozen acquisitions under its belt,” and this includes Canadian consultancies such as Montréal-based Soljit (acquired in 2023), Toronto-based Indellient (acquired in 2022), and Montréal-based Landry & Associates in (acquired in 2021).
In a statement, Dion said the firm’s last decade has been characterized by “strong, organic growth, complemented by strategic acquisitions.”
“With the arrival of CDPQ as a partner, we are looking to increase our rate of expansion to achieve our company acquisition strategy by associating with successful entrepreneurs, primarily in Canada and the US. This agreement provides us with significant financial leverage to continue building partnerships with our clients to execute large-scale digital transformations.”
LANSING, Mich. — Reduce, reuse and recycle — that’s a mission for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA announced its largest recycling investment in 30 years this past November, placing funding in the hands of Michigan tribes and the Michigan Recycling Coalition.
FOX 17 spoke with Nena Shaw, the Director of the Resource Conservation and Sustainability Division within EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management, about these recent efforts.
One of the questions that FOX 17 asked Shaw was why the EPA wanted to invest in recycling infrastructure.
“I think what I always go back to is in 2017, China issued the National Sword Policy, and they basically stopped taking our trash,” said Shaw. “The minute that happened, recyclables and plastics and other things started piling up in ports and in areas around the country. I think folks realized, wow, we need to think about this differently.”
Since then, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has been intent on improving our national recycling system.
“It really was November of 2021, when we announced and launched our national recycling strategy,” said Shaw. “Part one of building a circular economy for all, on the exact same day that the President signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”
That law provided funding through grants to implement a strategy.
“It’s the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, that provided $275 million for solid waste infrastructure for recycling grants,” said Shaw. “That meant that we got $55 million a year for five years to help improve the system throughout the country.”
Of that funding, four Michigan tribes and intertribal consortia received grants to improve their recycling and waste management systems.
The Bay Mills Indian Community received $970,000 to increase recycling and waste diversion rates, in addition to reduce contamination. The Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians received $1,084,454 to increase post-consumer materials management, including the diversion of municipal solid waste from the landfill. That includes helping to expand and improve the Gun Lake Casino food waste management and diversion through the operation of a large-scale food waste digester.
The Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians received $240,000 to promote source reduction and increase waste diversion rates throughout the Little Traverse Bay Bands community. The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan received $1,499,856 to increase its capacity to collect recycled materials.
All-in-all, over $3.7 Million went towards Michigan tribes and intertribal consortia.
The Michigan Recycling Coalition also received funding for their recycling education and outreach programs. The Michigan Recycling Coalition received $1,821,887 to develop and deliver a comprehensive, best practice education and outreach program to train targeted recycling professionals. Those professionals will learn about and develop CBSM-based education strategies.
When talking to Katie Fournier, the Michigan Recycling Coalition Education Program Coordinator, she said that this grant also helps them add new staff members to their organization. She also said that this was a completely new territory for them, and that they had never received funding from the EPA at this level.
“We’re going to have so much bigger of an impact on the ground by providing financial support for communities,” said Fournier. “As well as the tools and resources that they will need to level up their recycling education, with messaging that’s really tailor made to each individual community, and their unique perspectives and behaviors.”
The Michigan Recycling Coalition’s mission is to foster sustainability by leading, educating, and mobilizing business, government, non-profit, and individuals to advance their own and collective resource use and recovery initiatives. That’s according to their website.
Katie Fournier told FOX 17 that waste is always going to be a part of our day-to-day lives, but her organization wants people to learn the value of recycling, and how to do it the right way.
“There’s been this kind of shift in attitudes towards recycling or almost like a loss in faith that the process is really working. So it’s so important to have an organization like ours that’s purely mission based or nonprofit, and really knows the importance of conservation,” said Fournier. “To demystify the process and communicate, how to recycle properly, and then how those materials are used at the end of their life to the benefit of the local Michigan economy and the planet.”
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told FOX 17 that it goes beyond one organization or one community. Nena Shaw told FOX 17, “communities, companies, nonprofits, you name it, it is going to take all of us.” In addition to recycling, the EPA says that we need to focus on reusing and reducing. Their recycling strategy focuses on a circular economy.
A circular economy keeps materials and products in circulation for as long as possible.
“It’s really thinking about materials use and redesigning those materials and products to be less resource intensive, and recapturing the waste as a resource to manufacture new materials and products,” said Shaw.
It’s an opportunity for companies to really think about the products they make, and for consumers to really think about the products they consume.
On Earth Day of 2023, the EPA announced a draft of the national strategy to prevent plastic pollution, which builds off their their National Recycling Strategy. The EPA received over 91,000 comments from the public on the prevention of plastic pollution. “We all know that plastic has created challenges for individuals, communities, states, countries, and even internationally,” said Shaw.
The EPA is also working on a strategy to reduce food loss and waste. They are accepting comments from the public on that strategy through February 3.
“We’re just so excited to be able to get money in the hands of communities, to help them solve these challenges and really manage their waste, increase their recycling, and reduce climate change and environmental justice issues,” said Shaw.
When FOX 17 spoke with Katie Fournier, she said that it’s never too late to change our habits when it comes to recycling and composting.
Jacobs has been awarded the contract for a geothermal engineering and feasibility study for a geothermal project in Lakeview, Oregon.
The town of Lakeview in Oregon has awarded their Oregon Department of Energy, Community Renewable Energy Grant to engineering group Jacobs to conduct design and engineering for a planned expansion of an existing geothermal heating network. The contract was awarded in November 2023 following an RFP that was announced a few months prior.
The Town of Lakeview is one of 39 recipients selected by the Oregon Department of Energy to receive Community Renewable Energy Grant Program funds. The program supports the planning and construction of renewable energy or energy resilience projects. The Town of Lakeview was awarded $100,000.
As part of this grant, Jacobs secures $50,000 designated for design and engineering consulting fees. $30,000 has been allocated to Interconnection Studies, with the remaining $20,000 earmarked for administrative expenditures. This allocation underlines a concerted effort to ensure comprehensive coverage across diverse aspects of this initiative.
The collaboration between the Town of Lakeview and Jacobs signifies a progressive stride toward developing a comprehensive understanding of geothermal energy resources and demand models. This strategic venture will analyze geothermal temperatures, pressures, and flow rates, culminating in a forward-thinking Geothermal Strategy Development.
A pivotal aspect of this venture lies in community engagement, as stakeholders and local businesses will be actively involved in exploring the vast potential of geothermal opportunities and their implications for economic development in Lakeview. This project serves as a guiding playbook, addressing intricate climate change challenges with sustainable geothermal solutions, positioning Lakeview at the forefront of environmentally conscious development.
With this strategic alliance, Lakeview and Jacobs aim to pave the way for a brighter, greener future, leveraging the power of geothermal energy to foster sustainable growth and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Project summary
Conceptually, the project will test Hammersley Well which is an existing geothermal well. The flow and temperatures from that test will dictate the design and connection of one existing geothermal district at the Lakeview Department of Corrections facility to a geothermal district in the Lakeview core, including businesses, industrial processes, and residential communities.
The Town currently supplies all the heat to the Warner Creek Correctional Facility, Lake District Hospital, Lake School District #7, Dr. Mark Davis DDS building and the Head Start Building. The system will expand the existing Geothermal Warner Creek Correctional Facility by interconnecting piping and well service buildings.
The result will be an engineering feasibility study that connects all future and existing thermal energy networks, offsetting more than 70% of Lakeview, Oregon’s space conditioning heat demand. This will offset the high cost and carbon-intensive incumbent fuel – propane, lifting a rural community from the grips of energy poverty.
Source: Town of Lakeview
Quantinuum’s technologies are used today by companies including Airbus, BMW Group, Honeywell, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Mitsui, and Thales. In collaboration, these organizations are exploring how to engineer and scale quantum capabilities to help solve problems — from designing and manufacturing hydrogen cell batteries for transportation, to developing materials to sequester carbon safely from the atmosphere to support the world’s energy transition. Quantinuum is also working to develop Quantum Natural Language Processing, which will help enable the next generation of AI to be scalable and fit for purpose.
According to Honeywell, Quantinuum will use the funds to accelerate the path toward universal fault-tolerant quantum computers and extend Quantinuum’s software offering to enhance commercial applicability.
This capital raise represents Quantinuum’s first equity funding round since the company formed through the merger of Cambridge Quantum Computing and Honeywell Quantum Solutions in November 2021.
This investment brings the total capital raised by Quantinuum since inception to approximately $625 million.