The latest move on that front comes from Simple Energy, the software startup that connects utility customers to energy savings via social media and contests. On Monday, the San Diego, Calif.-based startup announced that Bud Vos, former CTO of Comverge, was joining as CTO and senior vice president of utility sales.

Vos has a long track record at the head of Comverge’s effort to convert its commercial and residential demand response programs to next-generation software platforms that allow them to connect to the greater smart grid. He’s also got the utility relationships from Comverge’s longstanding demand response contracts.

Comverge, of course, has been less than successful in making the transition from the old-school, pager and radio-operated direct load control model to the new smart meter-enabled, customer behavior-driven paths to energy efficiency. In March, Comverge sold itself to private equity firm H.I.G. Capital for $ 49 million, a fraction of the market share it commanded from its 2007 IPO until just last year.

Part of Comverge’s problem stemmed from a 2010 smart thermostat recall in Texas that stifled its residential demand response business growth. Even without recall problems, though, the number of smart grid-connected thermostats out in the market hasn’t grown nearly as fast as backers of the technology have hoped it might, although we’ve seen some sizable pilots emerge.

But Simple Energy’s approach to homeowner energy efficiency needs only a home Internet connection and a utility data feed — and while smart meters help, they aren’t necessary. Opower, Efficiency 2.0 and Tendril are some other startups with similar approaches to getting utility customers involved in their energy use. The first two have shied away from pricey in-home gadgets, while Tendril has backed away from its attempts to get them adopted by utilities, for the most part.

Some other noteworthy green jobs news of last week:

- MEMC, maker of polysilicon and silicon wafers for the chip and solar industries and owner of SunEdison, announced Thursday that CFO Mark Murphy had resigned to return to his previous employer, Praxair. Murphy will be replaced by Brian Wuebbels, a five-year veteran of MEMC who formerly worked at Honeywell and General Electric.

MEMC had reported disappointing first-quarter results the previous week, and news of Murphy’s departure drove down its already-sagging share price even further late last week. He’s not the first MEMC executive to leave — Ken Hannah, president of its solar energy business, left the company on May 6 to become the CFO of J.C. Penney In April the company had to issue a statement to refute rumors that CEO Ahmad Chatila was leaving.

- Pythagoras Solar, the Israeli startup with a transparent solar module technology, last week hired Andrew Jensen as president of North American operations. Jensen, who previously spent a decade with Cardinal Glass, will be working with partners such as Guardian Industries, which wants to get the solar window product into building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) markets.

- Oree, the planar LED lighting company, has put board chairman Peter van Strijp in the CEO position, replacing founder and CEO Eran Fine. The Israel-based maker of super-thin “LightCell” materials has been seeking channel partners for its technology, and presumably van Strijp, a former CEO of Philips Solid State Lighting business group, can offer entrée to those potential partners.

- Biofuel startup ZeaChem announced Tuesday that it had hired Peter Chessbrough as its new CEO, replacing Andy Victor, who stepped down to become vice president of finance. Chessbrolugh previously served as CFO of Denver-based IT consulting services company Ciber. The Lakewood, Colo.-based company hasn’t made much news lately on its plans to bring its genetically modified organism, derived from microbes from termite guts, to converting cellulosic materials like wood and straw into precursors for biofuels. While it’s on a short list of companies the U.S. government is hoping will ramp up production to meet its 2012 cellulosic biofuel mandates, nobody’s holding their breath waiting for that figure to be reached.

- EnerG2, maker of carbon nanomaterials for energy storage applications, landed a high-profile board member earlier this month. That’s Bob Lutz, the former executive vice chairman of General Motors who introduced the Chevy Volt as the first mass-manufactured plug-in hybrid car in the United States.

Lutz said in a prepared statement that he’s looking to EnerG2 to provide the breakthroughs the automotive industry needs to lower the costs and improve the performance of energy storage systems that can make the electric car a future mass-market reality. EnerG2 recently opened its first factory in Albany, Ore., though it hasn’t named customers for its materials yet.

- One final note comes from the crossover between the green technology space and the information technology space. Gary Bloom, the former CEO of eMeter who led the San Mateo, Calif.-based startup’s sale to Siemens last year, has been named CEO of MarkLogic, a big data applications firm. Bloom is also the former CEO of Veritas Software and a high-level executive at Oracle and Symantec, so he’s returning to his roots after his 20-month stint bringing eMeter to the point of sale.

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It’s the first disclosed venture capital round for the London-based software startup. Braemar Energy Ventures led the Series A round, in partnership with Dutch-based Chrysalix SET and UK-based Hermes GPE.

Sefaira was founded in 2009 with the idea of speeding up today's teeth-grindingly slow green building design process, CEO Mads Jensen said in a Wednesday interview. Today’s software can take hours to process changes in a complex model, he said, leaving engineers sitting around waiting for their own servers (or a consultant in another office) to crunch the latest set of new variables.

Sefaira takes that data processing load to the cloud, and has set a goal of performing the most complex calculations its customers can throw at it in 10 seconds or less, Jensen said. That changes a slow-moving design process into one that “helps you explore the data in an immersive way,” he said.

In late 2011, Sefaira rolled out the first version of its cloud-based “physics engine” to about 30 test customers, including architecture and engineering firms, ESCOs and efficiency retrofit companies, as well as a few utilities, Jensen said. While he wouldn’t name any customers, he did say that Sefaira hopes to bring a commercial product to market by mid-2012.  

Think of it as the SimCity-fication of green building design. Much like a video game, super-fast data processing allows engineers to play with designs on the fly, or salespeople to plug in customer questions — what’s the cost and energy difference for several choices of window glazing, on cloudy and sunny days? — and get results in near-real-time during presentations.

One of the startup’s early targets was Google SketchUp, Jensen said. Sefaira has worked closely with the 3D modeling platform, with the idea of extending its relatively simple analytical functionality to a scale that could support real, physics-based models of energy flow, water and waste usage, and other sustainability metrics.  

Faster modeling can also help in the build phase of a project, with different building materials and design choices plugging into the model to more accurately reflect reality. Sefaira is also working with some of its unnamed customers on assisting green retrofit design tools, or the software that helps utilities examine their customers’ building and energy data to target efficiency incentives at the most wasteful buildings, Jensen said.

While there are a number of software startups tackling discrete chunks of the building energy efficiency conundrum, Autodesk is far and away the leader in green building design IT. It’s been launching version after version of its sustainability design and analysis software, and also helps utilities with smart grid deployments.

But the kinds of performance upgrades that Sefaira brings to the table aren’t a threat to Autodesk, as much as they are an opportunity. We’re going to see a flowering of new IT to support the green building, renewable energy and smart grid industries, and one key set of challenges will be around handling the massive amounts of data these projects create, in a model as close to reality as possible. Speeding up that process should help everyone.

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Jigar Shah has stepped down from his role as CEO at greentech think tank Carbon War Room. José María Figueres Olsen, the former president of Costa Rica, is now the President of Sir Richard Branson's Carbon War Room, which looks to accelerate profitable climate-change solutions.

The other ego has left the building

Kevin Surace, the man who since 2008 has led Serious on an ever-changing set of business strategies — green building materials, energy efficiency software, project financing — is no longer CEO. He lost the job in February, and is now listed as chairman and co-founder, while Marc Porat, co-founder of Serious and a handful of other Silicon Valley green startups, has taken the helm.

From today's Term Sheet by Dan Primack

Brian Walsh has stepped down as a principal with energy-focused VC firm Nth Power, in order to join Nth Power portfolio company Tempronics as a vice president. He’s the second Nth Power principal to leave in recent months (Matt Price departed last October).

Babcock & Wilcox

Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) (NYSE: BWC) has appointed E. James (Jim) Ferland as President and CEO of the 150-year-old energy engineering firm with conventional, nuclear, and renewable energy divisions. Ferland was most recently the President of the Americas division at Westinghouse Electric Company. 

Liquid-filled LED bulbs replace incandescents

Switch Lighting, funded by VantagePoint Capital, builds LED bulbs and just added five people to its executive ranks, including new CFO Daniel Macsherry and new EVP of Business Development Bill Lenihan. 

Electric Vehicles for Police Forces

T3 Motion (NYSE AMEX:TTTM), a very small-cap builder of specialty electric vehicles for police and law enforcement fleets, appointed Rod Keller, Jr. as CEO.

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Jigar Shah has stepped down from his role as CEO at greentech think tank Carbon War Room. José María Figueres Olsen, the former president of Costa Rica, is now the President of Sir Richard Branson's Carbon War Room, which looks to accelerate profitable climate-change solutions.

The other ego has left the building

Kevin Surace, the man who since 2008 has led Serious on an ever-changing set of business strategies — green building materials, energy efficiency software, project financing — is no longer CEO. He lost the job in February, and is now listed as chairman and co-founder, while Marc Porat, co-founder of Serious and a handful of other Silicon Valley green startups, has taken the helm.

From today's Term Sheet by Dan Primack

Brian Walsh has stepped down as a principal with energy-focused VC firm Nth Power, in order to join Nth Power portfolio company Tempronics as a vice president. He’s the second Nth Power principal to leave in recent months (Matt Price departed last October).

Babcock & Wilcox

Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) (NYSE: BWC) has appointed E. James (Jim) Ferland as President and CEO of the 150-year-old energy engineering firm with conventional, nuclear, and renewable energy divisions. Ferland was most recently the President of the Americas division at Westinghouse Electric Company. 

Liquid-filled LED bulbs replace incandescents

Switch Lighting, funded by VantagePoint Capital, builds LED bulbs and just added five people to its executive ranks, including new CFO Daniel Macsherry and new EVP of Business Development Bill Lenihan. 

Electric Vehicles for Police Forces

T3 Motion (NYSE AMEX:TTTM), a very small-cap builder of specialty electric vehicles for police and law enforcement fleets, appointed Rod Keller, Jr. as CEO.

Go Green

Jigar Shah has stepped down from his role as CEO at greentech think tank Carbon War Room. José María Figueres Olsen, the former President of Costa Rica, is now the President of Sir Richard Branson's Carbon War Room which looks to accelerate profitable climate-change solutions.

The other ego has left the building

Kevin Surace, the man who since 2008 has led Serious on an ever-changing set of business strategies — green building materials, energy efficiency software, project financing — is no longer CEO. He lost the job in February, and is now listed as chairman and co-founder, while Marc Porat, co-founder of Serious and a handful of other Silicon Valley green startups, has taken the helm.

From today's Term Sheet by Dan Primack

Brian Walsh has stepped down as a principal with energy-focused VC firm Nth Power, in order to join Nth Power portfolio company Tempronics as a vice president. He’s the second Nth Power principal to leave in recent months (Matt Price departed last October).

Babcock & Wilcox

Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) (NYSE: BWC) has appointed E. James (Jim) Ferland as President and CEO of the 150-year-old energy engineering firm with conventional, nuclear, and renewable energy divisions. Ferland was most recently the President of the Americas division at Westinghouse Electric Company. 

Liquid-filled LED bulbs replace incandescents

Switch Lighting, funded by VantagePoint Capital, builds LED bulbs and just added five people to its executive ranks including new CFO Daniel Macsherry and new EVP of Business Development Bill Lenihan. 

Electric Vehicles for Police Forces

T3 Motion (NYSE AMEX:TTTM), a very small-cap builder of specialty electric vehicles for police and law enforcement fleets appointed Rod Keller, Jr. as CEO.

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SunRun, a solar home financier, appointed a new CFO, Barak Ben-Gal, formerly VP of Finance at Support.com (Nasdaq: SPRT). SunRun claims it installs over $ 1.5 million in solar every day, completing one rooftop installation every 11 minutes of the business day.

SolarBridge, the microinverter and AC module startup, added Craig Lawrence as VP of Marketing. Lawrence was recently VP at SunEdison's Residential and Light Commercial Business group.

Codexis (NASDAQ: CDXS) had some changes in its CEO and CFO roles last month. Undergoing what looks like a bit of a management shakeup, the maker of industrial enzymes for biofuels, green chemicals, and pharmaceutical product production, appointed Peter Strumph as the firm's interim Chief Executive Officer. Alan Shaw resigned as President and CEO  "to pursue other interests."  Robert Lawson, the CFO, also left the company last month. Michael Klein, a New York-based analyst with Sidoti & Co., was quoted in Bloomberg as saying, “It makes people question what’s going on internally and behind the scenes.” Codexis stock is trading near historic lows.

Fisker Automotive, the VC-funded extended-range electric vehicle maker, moved co-Founder Henrik Fisker to Executive Chairman of the firm and appointed Tom LaSorda as CEO and Vice Chairman of the Board last month. LaSorda was formerly CEO, President and Vice Chairman of the Chrysler Group and has also held executive positions at General Motors.

Fisker has raised more than $ 800 million in private equity and has produced a few hundred vehicles amidst recalls, DOE loan issues, and layoffs. Ray Lane, former Chairman of the Board, will take a "lead director role," according to a press release from the firm. Lane also shepherded Next Autoworks (the former V-Vehicle) into its current situation.  More details on the company's recent travails can be found here.

Fisker's most recent public relations gaffe is a failure during testing by Consumer Reports (see this Autoblog article for more details).

SunPower (Nasdaq:SPWRA), the high-efficiency solar panel maker and project developer controlled by French energy firm Total, named Charles Boynton to replace Dennis Arriola as its acting finance head, according to Reuters. Arriola's departure was announced last year. SunPower stock closed at $ 7.24 on Friday on the Nasdaq.

Moventas, a maker of wind turbine gears, appointed Mikael Laine, SVP of Business Development, to the position of CEO.  
 

SolarTech is partnered with Nova Workforce Development in a program that trains people for greentech job positions that companies actually want to fill in solar, energy efficiency and green building.

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The organizations, armed with a $ 4 million grant from California's EDD (Employment Development Department), are looking to scale the program to hundreds of other regions once "best practices" for the training and selection process are established.

"It's a way to better match employees to employers," according to SolarTech's David McFeely. Doug Payne, The Executive Director of SolarTech, said, "The industry doesn't just need more people, but better matches."

Instead of, say, a surplus of solar installers being trained because that was the trend, the SolarTech Workforce Innovations Collaborative (SWIC) reaches out to greentech employers and finds out the skills they'll be looking for in upcoming hires. SWIC then folds those skill sets into its worker training programs at local Bay Area community colleges.

Pre-qualified workers emerge from the program with the precise skills needed by the employers — whether it be solar sales or energy efficiency sales or installation, project management, or software engineering. These skills are still in high demand despite the current national employment situation, according to Payne. The Collaborative has expanded its reach to cover solar as well as energy efficiency, vehicle-to-grid, and the built environment.

Laura Caccia of Nova said, "We can now understand what the industry needs, how we can get people into the workforce and make them employable for a real job, today." Caccia added, "We've trained 246 people within this program — about 70 percent of the 50 percent who have completed the program have found jobs."

The bottom line is that the program takes a 45- to 70-day hiring process which costs $ 10,000 to $ 15,000 and cuts it to a timeframe of under 30 days and a cost of nothing. "We need to get the word out that there is a free-of-charge program for the HR sector," and "Then we can scale to 100 local markets."

SWIC graduates have been hired by solar and energy efficiency employers, including SolarCity, Sol Focus, SunWize, SunEdison, Real Goods Solar and Siemens.

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MiaSolé appointed Richard (Rich) Hossfeld as Vice President of Global Business Development and Sales following the recent appointment of new CEO, John Carrington. Both Hossfeld and Carrington have worked at First Solar. MiaSolé, a CIGS thin-film PV manufacturing startup, placed third in CIGS panel production in 2011 behind Solar Frontier (at 577 megawatts) and Solibro (at 95 megawatts), according to GTM Research. The firm just announced a 17.3-percent-efficient champion device, while the "manufacturing process for 14 percent efficiency is now in production," according to the firm.
 

Oasys Water of Boston, Mass. added Bob Muscat as its new CEO. Oasys develops forward-osmosis-based water treatment technologies, as well as desalination technology. Muscat was previously the general manager of GE Energy’s Environmental Services business. 

Lumenergi, a maker of networked lighting energy management technology, added an entire new leadership staff headed by Barry Weinbaum as CEO. The CEO and many of the other senior-level hires hail from Acuity Brands.

Ascent Solar (NASDAQ:ASTI), a manufacturer of flexible CIGS solar panels, appointed Victor Lee, Director of TFG Radiant and Ascent’s largest shareholder, as President and CEO of the troubled solar company. Ron Eller, the former CEO, was wished "the best in his future endeavors.”

John Rayfield, longtime employee at Nanosolar, is no longer with the firm. Rayfield was VP of Worldwide Marketing and joins CEO Geoff Tate and VP Brian Stone as recent former Nanosolar employees — coinciding with the arrival of Eugenia Corrales as the new CEO of the firm.

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In a White House blog post, Chopra asked, "Why can’t the same common-sense concept be applied to the energy industry with a 'Green Button'?  Consumers should have access to their energy usage information.  It should be easily downloadable and in an easy-to-read format offered by their utility or retail energy service provider." Just recently, as Jeff St. John reported, California's largest utilities have risen to the occasion to work on safe, secure ways to share their customers' energy data.

No successor to Chopra has yet been chosen.

Jeannine Sargent was appointed president of Flextronics Renewable Energy, a division of Singapore's Flextronics (NASDAQ:FLEX).  Sargent is executive chairman at AstroWatt, EIR at Crosslink Capital, and former CEO of Oerlikon Solar.
 
 

SolarCity, the solar financier and installer firm, appointed Toby Corey as chief revenue officer. Corey was co-founder and former president and COO of USWeb. (See "Who Reigns Supreme in Residential Solar".)

As part of the completion of production for the massive 30-megawatt CPV installation in Alamosa, Colorado, Amonix contractor Flextronics laid off about 200 people, or two-thirds of its workforce. However, the move is less a layoff and more a retooling of the factory for its next-generation CPV product, according to the company.

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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.

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