Abound Solar, a manufacturer of CdTe photovoltaic modules and beneficiary of $400 million in DOE loans, has appointed Craig Witsoe President & CEO, replacing Tom Tiller, who will become Board Chairman. Tiller leaves because of "unexpected issues in our family." Witsoe comes to Abound after three years as CEO of Lineage Power, now GE Power Electronics. Rumors of Tiller forming a DOE loan assistance consultancy with Brian Harrison and Jonathan Silver are not true.
Clean Power Finance (CPF), a provider of services and financing for the solar market with funding from Kleiner Perkins and Google, appointed Nicholas Mack as Senior VP General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Mack joins Clean Power Finance from Sungevity, a residential solar finance provider. He was still listed on the Sungevity website as of Friday. Robert “Nat” Kreamer, co-founder of SunRun, is now the CEO of CPF, while former CPF CEO Joseph Brakohiapa is now Chief Commercial Officer. Former Chairman and founder of the firm Gary Kremen is now listed as an advisor.
Robert Koch, former venture investor at NGEN, has joined the board of PV Evolution Labs (PVEL), a solar panel test lab. He joins Dan Shugar of Solaria on the board.
IControl Networks, a home energy monitoring firm, placed Robert Hagerty as the firm's new CEO, replacing co-CEOs Jim Johnson and Paul Dawes, both of whom will remain with iControl as "Executive Officers." Hagerty was formerly the CEO at Polycom. Investors in iControl include Charles River Ventures, Cisco, Comcast Ventures, Intel Capital, the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers iFund, Rogers Communications, and Tyco International. It's a pretty big hire for iControl, which has raised more than $100 million in VC.
Ener1's CEO, Charles Gassenheimer, has been replaced by Christopher Cowger, the firm's President. Gassenheimer is also no longer on the board of directors of this troubled battery firm.
EnOcean, an energy harvesting wireless sensor firm in the building and industrial automation market, named Laurent Giai-Miniet, a 20-year Texas Instruments veteran, as its new CEO.
Hyperion Power named David Carlson as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Nuclear Officer. Hyperion, one of the few VC-funded nuclear startups, is looking to develop a small 25-megawatt nuclear reactor for isolated communities and remote industrial operations.
Ashutosh Misra, Senior VP at troubled CIGS solar firm Ascent Solar (Nasdaq : ASTI), has left the firm, which has made major strategic changes amid new financing.