High oil prices and an array of government incentives are leading to soaring rates of investment in renewable energy, according to the United Nations' annual "Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment" report.

The UN report calculates global investment capital flows into renewable energy companies reached $100 billion for the first time in history last year. More than $30 billion of the total was the result of mergers and acquisitions led by investment banks such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

The huge investment flows mean that IPO's, largely dormant since the heady days of the technology boom nearly a decade ago, are now re-emerging. A trio of solar companies went public with impressive returns in 2007, including JA Solar, Trina Solar and Solarfun Power Holdings.

Texas electricity customers looking to switch to a renewable energy plan can now shop and compare green power at ElectricityTexas.com. Texas' top electricity companies offer several options to purchase clean, pollution-free power derived from 100 percent renewable resources--giving Texans the advantage of going green with environmentally-friendly options at competitive prices.

America's renewable energy industries are thriving at a time of unprecedented market volatility -- and wind and solar companies in particular are among the few bright spots in the current gloom over Wall Street.

Wall Street's JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs and the big utilities have been buying up renewable energy companies in a scramble to get a piece of the record-breaking growth. More than a half-dozen firms have been taken private, including names such as Noble Environmental, Zilkha and Community Energy.

U.S. wind energy companies collectively invested $9 billion dollars in 2007 building 5244 MW of new wind power facilities -- a new record according to the American Wind Energy Association and enough additional energy to supply 1.5 million homes.

U.S. solar companies are also growing at their fastest pace in history -- more than 324 MW of new capacity was added last year, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association.

Intel will purchase more than 1.3 billion kilowatt hours a year of renewable energy certificates as part of a multi-faceted approach to reduce its impact on the environment, making Intel the single-largest corporate purchaser of green power in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The company said it hoped the record-setting purchase would help stimulate the market for green power, which should lead to additional generating capacity and ultimately, lower costs.

The purchase placed Intel at the top of EPA’s latest Green Power Partners Top 25 list, and also at the No. 1 spot on EPA’s Fortune 500 Green Power Partners list. The EPA’s Green Power Partnership program encourages and recognizes voluntary green power purchases as a way to reduce the impact of conventional electricity use.

The push for renewable energy standards is quickly becoming one of the greatest combatants against global warming in this generation. One of the simplest and most affordable ways to positively impact the ecosystem and conserve natural resources is by switching to a green energy plan.

GreenEnergyChoice.com, an online resource for ordering green energy from leading electricity and natural gas providers, is offering the following essential reasons for customers to make the switch to renewable energy today:

• Renewable energy is 100 percent non-polluting and sustainable, generating power from natural, renewable sources such as wind, water and the sun.
• During the twentieth century, nearly 3.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide has been added to the earth's atmosphere annually, a 35 percent increase since the Industrial Revolution. As demand for electricity increases, so does consumption of fossil fuels, increasing the amount of greenhouse emitted into the Earth's atmosphere.
• Renewable energy resources are developed in the United States, which in turn helps the economy by lessening the demand on foreign fuels.
• Interruption in service and additional installation or equipment is not required to power a home with electricity derived from renewable resources.
• Renewable energy rates are very competitive with traditional rate plans using fossil fuel power, so customers can enjoy the positive environmental benefits without stressful pocket strains.

Below is a conversation between Michael Moe, CEO of ThinkEquity Partners, and Stacey Delo from the ThinkGreen conference about investments in renewable energy, alternative fuels and other clean technology.

HP has formed relationships with renewable energy providers, SunPower Corp. in the United States and Airtricity in Ireland, as part of the company's strategy to reduce its global carbon footprint.

Under a power purchase agreement with SunPower, HP will install its first-ever, large-scale solar power installation at its San Diego facility.

HP's contract with Airtricity, a renewable energy company developing and operating wind farms across Europe and North America, is for the supply of renewable wind energy to a number of its facilities in Ireland for fiscal year 2008. The electricity supplied by Airtricity is generated by both onshore and offshore wind farms.

Google is starting a new strategic initiative to develop electricity from renewable energy sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal. The newly created initiative, coined the Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal (or RE<C), will focus initially on advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, enhanced geothermal systems and other potential breakthrough technologies. Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal is hiring engineers and energy experts to lead its research and development work, which will begin with a significant effort on solar thermal technology, and will also investigate enhanced geothermal systems and other areas. In 2008, Google expects to spend tens of millions on research and development and related investments in renewable energy. As part of its capital planning process, the company also anticipates investing hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy projects which generate positive returns.

"We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centers," said Larry Page, Google Co-founder and President of Products. "We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale, and produce it cheaper than from coal."