Solectria Renewables, a U.S. solar inverter manufacturer, grew its workforce by 65 percent in 2011 and looks to expand by 50 percent in 2012. Solectria Renewables claims to be the leading U.S.-based grid-tied photovoltaic inverter manufacturer for residential, commercial and utility-scale solar installations.
Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) saw two high-level engineers leave the electric vehicle manufacturer, according to Bloomberg. Share price fell on the news that Peter Rawlinson, VP and chief engineer, and Nick Sampson, who guided vehicle and chassis engineering, were leaving the Elon Musk-led firm.
Brian Stone, a long-time senior employee of Nanosolar, is no longer with the company. (Credit a commenter on GigaOm for pointing this out.) Stone was the VP of Sales and Marketing at the CIGS thin-film roll-to-roll firm. We've learned that Stone has joined C3 -- Tom Siebel's Energy Resource Management software company -- to lead the Products division.
BrightSource Energy, the solar thermal power tower firm, named Richard Kelly as chairman of the board of directors. Kelly served as the CEO of utility Xcel.
Jan van Dokkum, a partner at KPCB, has been named interim CEO for Amonix, according to a press release. Van Dokkum held leadership positions at UTC Power's on-site power generation group and at Siemens Power Transmission & Distribution.
Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.
His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.