Energy-focused investment firm EnerTech Capital has announced Scott Ungerer is to become chairman of a new working group for the National Smart Grid Interoperability Panel. He will lead the planning and implementation of the transition of the SGIP from a fully government-funded entity toward a privately-funded organization. PRESS RELEASE EnerTech Capital is pleased to announce [...]

Six-year-old CalStar Products, a Caledonia, Wis., company that makes low-energy, low-CO2 masonry products, has brought aboard Joel Rood as its CEO. Prior to joining CalStar, Rood was GM for CertainTeed Canada. CalStar is funded by the venture firms Nth Power, Westly Group, Foundation Capital, and EnerTech Capital. PRESS RELEASE: Joel Rood, a 15-year veteran of the building [...]

Current said it received funding of $13 million with new investors Business Media China AG and Espírito Santo Ventures joining existing investors Associated Partners, EnerTech Capital and Goldman Sachs in the round. PRESS RELEASE CURRENT Receives New Funding, Expands in Europe and Asia New Management Team Will Support Accelerated Growth Germantown, Md., September 13, 2011 [...]

FilterBoxx Water & Environmental Corp. has raised $9 million from XPV Capital and EnerTech Capital. The money will be used to expand into emerging areas, including tailings pond treatment and offshore oil and gas water treatment. Formed in 2001, FilterBoxx is a provider of packaged potable water and wastewater treatment systems to drilling, mining and pipeline camps, small municipalities, resorts and aboriginal communities.

Tangent Energy Solutions, which is backed by EnerTech Capital, has added three independent directors to its board: Nora Mead Brownell, Richard Grigg, and Donald Kendall. Grigg most recently served as President of FirstEnergy Utilities. Brownell is a former commissioner for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. Kendall has a background in power and energy industry financing. Tangent Energy is based in Kennett Square, Penn.

CalStar Products, Inc., a Newark, Calif.-based green building materials business, closed a $15 Million equity investment led by Nth Power. The round included new investors The Westly Group and Clearpoint Capital as well as continuing investors Foundation Capital and EnerTech Capital.

Last week, I posted an item on peHUB about how VC-backed CalStar Products is finding a plethora of Ph.D.s in Silicon Valley to draw from for its R&D.

The Newark, Calif.-based startup is developing a chemical process to make a “green brick” that it says creates 0.2 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions during the manufacturing process, compared to a traditional clay brick fired in a kiln, which produces about 1.3 pounds of CO2. CEO Mike Kane, who joined the company earlier this year from Atlanta, says that he’s never worked with so many Ph.D.s before.

In this week’s PE Week, subscribers can read my story of how the company is in the midst of raising a $15 million Series C round of venture funding, which will include participation from returning investors Foundation Capital and EnerTech Capital.

Kane says he hope to wrap up fund-raising before the end of the year, which will be just in time for the company to open its first manufacturing plant in Wisconsin to service the brick-heavy geography of the Midwest.

Silicon Valley has been the center of a lot of tech innovation. And at first glance, it seems an unlikely place to redo the common brick. But earlier this week I spent time at the Newark, Calif.-based R&D facility of CalStar Products, a VC-backed startup that uses a chemical process to make a “green brick” [...]