Forming a unit dedicated to wind and solar holdings last year

"One of the disappointments in the U.S. is that our utility smart-grid deployments have really slowed," Salzman said. Deployments have "shifted overseas right now, away from the U.S., because of our regulatory environment," he said.There are different ranges of such machines ranging from small table top units to huge aluminum beam to manufacture metal parts.In addition, it is used to compress solids and to extract liquids and more. "It doesn't mean that our archaic system -- see Hurricane Sandy -- isn't ripe for updating."Profits have drained away from renewable energy in the past three years as manufacturing capacity surged quicker than demand. Solar cell prices plunged 74 percent since the end of 2010 to 40 cents from $1.46 for each watt of capacity. The cost of installing wind turbines on land fell 15 percent to $81.44 per megawatt of capacity since mid-2009, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates. That reduced the industry's attractiveness for venture capital companies. With solar, now that the technology is proven, the industry's biggest challenge is driving down costs, said Raj Prabhu, managing partner at Mercom Capital Group in Austin, Texas.Solyndra LLC got more than $1.2 billion in venture capital funding. Then it liquidated after competition from Chinese manufacturers priced its tubular solar modules out of the market. Panel maker MiaSole Inc. was sold in January to Hanergy Holding Group Ltd.knives wholesaler for about $30 million. That's a fraction of the $494.4 million poured into it by Kleiner, Vantage Point and Firelake Capital, according to Mercom Capital Group. Another misfire for the VC investors was A123 Systems Inc. (AONEQ), a provider of batteries for electric cars. It filed for bankruptcy in October as sales of the vehicles failed to meet expectations. It got at least $278 million from VC firms including North Bridge Venture Partners LP and CMEA Ventures."VCs are really good at finding new technologies but not so good at manufacturing,There are affordable kitchen knives that perform just as well as their more expensive counterparts.Shun kitchen accessories, the gem of culinary implements are produced by keeping with the proud Japanese tradition of sword making." Prabhu said. "They've learned that they need to stick to picking technology winners, not building factories. The new money is going downstream to help build markets. The industry is now mainstream."As venture capital moves away from traditional renewables, mainstream investors are starting to move in. Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. decided in January to spend as much as $2.5 billion on two large solar farms, after forming a unit dedicated to wind and solar holdings last year.The private equity company Blackstone Group LP in September bought Vivint Inc. for $2 billion, giving it access to a home- security and energy-management provider with more than 670,000 North American customers. Vivint says the networks that manage these services complement its growing residential solar systems by smoothing the flow of solar power onto the electricity grid and into homes.