Google just announced yet another major investment in renewable energy. The company says that it has made a $200 million equity investment in an existing wind farm in Oldham County Texas. The Spinning Spur Wind Farm currently produces about 161 MW and uses 70 Siemens turbines to generate enough power for about 60,000 U.S. homes. EDF Renewable Energy will manage the project and will remain the… → Read More
The future of easy home energy monitoring may be a little bit closer, thanks to a government initiative designed to allow consumers direct access to their energy consumption data.
The White House’s new Green Button gives utilities a way to simplify and standardize sharing usage statistics with their customers via a one-click download. Two California providers, Pacific Gas & Electric and San… → Read More
In an unusual hybrid, British industrial designer Phil Pauley created Marine Solar Cells that harness energy from both the sun and water.
The web of energy generators capture energy off-shore, using a combination of floating photovoltaics and natural buoyancy displacement. Thanks to the reflective nature of water, the solar component’s efficiency is up to 20% greater than it would be… → Read More
Facebook, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and clean tech startup Opower are today announcing a partnership on a new social networking-based energy application that will help consumers monitor, improve and compare their home’s energy usage with their friends and other Facebook users.
The app, designed to improve energy awareness, has the potential to combine the 800 million+ users… → Read More
2011 Boulder TechStars graduate Simple Energy is teaming up with San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) to help the utility engage its customers in energy conservation efforts.
To accomplish this, Simple Energy is running an energy saver contest that offers a social gaming experience with real-world rewards. → Read More
Today, EnergyHub launched its new, comprehensive, in-home energy management system for U.S. consumers. The system includes the EnergyHub Home Base, for centralized management of the electricity usage in the home, as well as The EnergyHub Thermostat, Sockets and Strips.
The Home Base also connects to the Web via Wi-Fi, allowing users to remotely manage individual components via Web-based or… → Read More
Gleaning electricity from radio signals isn’t super-efficient (or a new concept), but it’s possible technically. Two companies from Japan have recently come up with new devices that can do just that: one is harvesting energy from cell phone signals, the other uses a rectifying antenna (Rectenna) to produce energy. → Read More
Remote electricity meters are interesting things. They essentially change the way you think about the juice flowing into your home by connecting to the potentially aged box in your basement and sensing the total energy usage in your home over time. The resulting stats are often quite enlightening and may help you make wiser energy-use decisions. → Read More
The news has become muted regarding <a href="fuel cells and their future role in energy supply in recent years, but it seems we’re getting there step by step: Panasonic today said that it has developed a new type of home-use fuel cell [press release in English], which is more efficient and cheaper than its existing solutions. → Read More
Fujitsu today announced the development of a single device that’s capable of generating electricity from either heat or light. Previously, two devices had to be combined to generate electricity from these sources (through energy harvesting, energy can be derived from external sources like light, heat, vibrations, wind energy etc.). → Read More
For all the talk about solar, the US market for solar power still has a long way to go before it makes a real dent in the country’s overall power capacity.
On Monday morning, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a major aggregator of green industry data released a few key projections: the US solar market is on track to grow 30x to 44 gigawatts by 2020 and could make up 4.3% of America’s total power… → Read More
Sanyo in Japan today announced [JP] what it says is the world’s first solar-cell-equipped public bus, the Solarve (which stands for Solar Vehicle). The bus was unveiled to commemorate the 100th anniversary of a Japanese transportation and logistics company called Ryobi [JP]. The Solarve is essentially a city bus with solar cells on top that generate power for its interior LED lights. → Read More
Quick, name one of the best things you can do to save energy at home. If you said “turning off the lights,” you’d be wrong. But you are not alone, most Americans say the same thing. A new survey shows most people have misconceptions about what works best to save energy.
Keeping lights off isn’t a bad idea in itself, but it has significantly less impact than swapping out the bulbs for more… → Read More
Alternative energy is a growing market, and though many states offer tax credits, rebates, and other incentives to promote clean energy, it can still prove to be an expensive proposition.
It generally also requires plugging your energy source into the grid so you’re not left in the dark when the wind calms or the sun lingers behind clouds.
Here is a roundup of solutions that can help power a… → Read More
Most green technologies gather energy above ground, but like Jules Verne, we want to take you on A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Alright, not even close to the center, but deep down nonetheless, where naturally occurring hot water can be turned into clean energy above ground.
It is estimated that the amount of heat within 30,000 feet below the earth’s surface holds potentially 50,000 times… → Read More
The U.S. Department of Energy announced today that it will award up to $122 million to create a Fuels form Sunlight Energy Innovation Hub led by the California Institute of Technology. The Hub’s goal is to develop ways to convert solar energy into chemical fuels and scale the technology for commercial use.
The project is in part inspired by the way plants produce energy, and will use artificial… → Read More
Terra-Gen Power announced closing $1.2 billion in construction financing and wind turbine orders. The company will build four wind power projects for the Alta Wind Energy Center in Kern County, California, for which Vestas-American Wind Technology will provide 190 turbines with a capacity of 570 megawatts. This is the largest number of wind turbines ever ordered for a single site in the U.S.
The… → Read More
Is there a green movement in China? Maybe there ought to be, considering the numbers that have just come out. China is now the planet’s number one consumer of energy, overtaking the U.S. in the process. But at the same time, the U.S. has improved its energy efficient more so than China, meaning that the U.S. can get the same amount of work done while consuming less, say, coal or oil. → Read More
A solar-powered airplane, named the Solar Impulse, means to prove, once and for all, that harnessing the energy of the Sun is a good and practical idea. I mean, why would we try to capture some of the energy put out by a completely free nuclear reactor hanging in the sky? The plane took off from Switzerland a little bit ago, and will try to fly for 24 hours without stopping. Here’s hoping it’s a… → Read More
Clean technology remains one of the hottest areas of venture funding. In the second quarter, cleantech venture investments worldwide totaled $2.02 billion across 140 companies, according to market research firm Cleantech Group and Deloitte. The numbers are in line with last quarter’s $2.04 billion, but 43% higher than one year ago.
Exits for the quarter totaled more than $8 billion globally… → Read More
Energy efficiency tracking company OPOWER added Hadi Partovi to its Technology Advisory Board and will open new offices in San Francisco next month. The Arlington, VA based company’s 10,000 square foot office in San Francisco’s South Park neighborhood will have room for between 75 and 100 employees, a large part of which will be engineers. “We signed a two-year sublease because we hope to grow out… → Read More
Everyone loves the idea of solar energy. The three big challenges are that solar cells are expensive to produce, they’re not very efficient, and you need some means to store the energy collected. I’d heard of solar shingles before, which are basically roofing shingles with solar cells in them, but now word is coming out of solar cells printed on paper. As usual, the technology is still years away… → Read More
Fuel cells are on their way into the mainstream, even though the commercially available models are still pretty pricey. But there are companies like Kyoto-based Aquafairy [JP], for example, preparing affordable fuel cells, too. Their four new fuel cells are intended to make gadget fans in particular happy: the micro FC Stick (0.8W), the FC-Stick (2W), the FC-Cube (3W) and the FC-Cube Dual (6W). → Read More
After eight years of operating in quasi-stealth, Bloom Energy came out with a bang today at an event in Silicon Valley attended by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Colin Powell, Larry Page, John Doerr, and executives from eBay, Walmart, Coca-Cola, and FedEx. All of the big-name companies, including Google, are beta customers of Bloom’s distributed energy fuel cell technology (which was the subject of a 60… → Read More
Sometimes I’m assigned stories and I’m like, “Really? If you insist, boss.” This is one of those stories. It’s a collection of sidewalks, or derivatives, that “work while you wait.” Yup. → Read More
This Saturday I’m probably going to wake up a little later (we have kids so that means like 8am) and maybe make some breakfast. Then maybe we’ll go for a walk in town here or the wife will take the kids to the Children’s Museum and I’ll do some writing. Then I’ll eat lunch with the fam, maybe watch a movie (probably some Disney stuff). The kids will eat dinner after… → Read More
I’m a simple man. I understand certain things. How ambient Wi-Fi signals could be converted into enough energy to charge a BlackBerry is something I do NOT understand. However, RCA not only showed off the technology at CES but the device will apparently be available by the summer and it’ll only cost $40. → Read More
I think we can all agree that protecting our own personal privacy is a generally good idea. There are an enormous number of ways that our privacy can be encroached in a given day. Some of them are “for our own good”, or “just the cost of doing business” in the modern age. Some of the ways our privacy may be violated are extremely esoteric and not very likely (hard drive activity LEDs, for example! → Read More
Oh man, I thought those compact florescent lightbulbs (CFLs) were expensive at around five bucks a pop. Say hello to the $40 LED light bulb — and that’s an introductory price. It’ll apparently cost $50 later. → Read More
Microsoft’s new tool – Hohm – is supposed to help you save energy and money. While I signed up for the beta unfortunately I can’t try this odd named thing since I live in Europe. This is why I need your feedback on how Hohm works, so be kind and leave comments with your opinions. Or don’t. → Read More
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