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Most active corporate investors include General Electric, with 10 deals totaling $137 million, and Intel , with six transactions for $181 million.

That's more than all but the top-five cleantech venture funds, including DFJ and Kleiner Perkins.

“Corporate investments are likely on the whole to be larger than VC investments, as these technologies may be seen as new expansions of already large and mature market with large and mature players,” says Bob Gohn, research director with Pike Research.

“We absolutely see the big companies increasing their activities in energy efficiency,” adds Haji of Cleantech, with the big firms focused on acquiring smaller competitors and looking to expand their energy management offerings.

In the past few years, “smart meters” have been nearly synonymous with energy efficiency, allowing power users to better control consumption or to send on-site generated energy back into the grid.

Investors noticed, too. Some $524 million was invested in 40-plus deals.

Most analysts see continued growth in this area, with the U.S. market maturing

Pike Research’s Gohn says he sees shipments in North America peaking at around $1.6 billion in 2012, and declining by more than 8 percent annually through 2017.

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