A123Systems

Despite that it accounts for 3 percent of global emissions, shipping has largely been exempt from emission reductions requirements to date.

The lack of interest in reducing emissions from shipping has also been expressed in the venture capital community. Germany-based SkySails – a maker of towing kite propulsion systems for today’s modern maritime shipping industry – received $10.3 million of venture capital funding way back in 2006. California's KiteShip, pursuing a similar idea, won an award at the California Cleantech Open, also in 2006. Since then SkySails, in particular, has been making gradual commercial progress.

Risk aversion to investing in cleantech is starting to change and improve, but we’re not about to see a wave of IPOs in the sector anytime soon.

Or at least that was the consensus today from venture capital and private equity folks at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum-West conference in San Francisco. And while the primarily Silicon Valley-based panel had opinions that differed at times, they all agreed they have one thing in common: Their names are hard to pronounce.

With Watertown, Mass.-based A123Systems’ IPO bearing the weight of the watchful eyes of the cleantech world today, could this be the start of the boom that boosts the comp for executives in the energy storage space, as it did in the solar sector in 2008? (see Solar boom kicks salaries higher).