Solar News
1. Fort Hood and Universal Services Fort Hood Inc. have turned on a solar field of nearly 3,000 photovoltaic solar panels. “The four-acre solar field, near Liberty Village community, will generate one million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy annually for 300 single-family homes.” Photo above.
2. The 230-megawatt photovoltaic solar power project called Antelope Valley Solar Ranch has gotten its first loan advance. “First Solar is constructing the 230-megawatt photovoltaic power project — one of the largest such projects in the world — in northern Los Angeles County and will operate and maintain the project for Exelon. As Exelon and First Solar previously announced, the first portion of the project is expected to come online in late 2012, with full operation planned for late 2013.”
3. Hollywood gets solar feed-in tariff. “Los Angeles City Council has granted the city’s utility, the biggest municipal utility in the U.S., the power to enter into contracts with solar power producers at above retail rates.”
Wind News
1. BP and Sempra U.S. Gas & Power have announced that “the Flat Ridge 2 wind farm has moved into full construction” in Kansas. “The facility, located on a 66,000-acre site about 40 miles southwest of Wichita, represents a combined investment of more than $800 million and will have the capacity to produce 419 MW of electricity, enough to light more than 125,000 homes.”
Transportation News
1. Mercedes-Benz S 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY wins 2012 World Green Car Award. Surprised me.
2. Minneapolis and St. Paul (the Twin Cities) have a number of new clean transportation projects in place or in the works — a light rail line, an intermodal transit hub, and a bus rapid transit system — all funded by a $0.0025 sales tax that was approved in 2008. (h/t Planetizen)
Energy Efficiency News
1. ‘The Longest Furniture Store on the Eastern Shore!’ has switched over to a new LED illumination system for its 180,000-square-foot facility that will save it $100,000 yearly electricity savings.
"Philips Lumileds 5630 LED sets new expectations for mid-power performance and color quality." (Photo: Business Wire)
2. Philips Lumileds has launched its first white, mid-power LED. “Intended for office and other distributed LED lighting solutions, Philips Lumileds uniquely specifies CCT, CRI, and R9 for each of its new mid-power emitters.”
3. U.S. industrial companies have to get into energy management more in order to remain globally competitive, a new report has found.
Industrial and manufacturing companies in the United States use close to one-third of all the energy consumed in the country on an annual basis.These companies have had to understand energy use since it is such a critical input to their industrial processes. Industrial companies already have relatively high adoption rates for energy management initiatives, and they continue to spend on energy management products and services for new innovations. According to a recent report from Pike Research, U.S. industries must take additional measures to ensure they remain cost-competitive on a global scale, and the efficient use of energy is one area that U.S. industrial companies can improve upon to accomplish that. Executives are beginning to understand that they will lose substantial competitive positioning if energy management programs are not initiated in the near-term future. Facing high price volatility and stiff global competition for market share, these companies are quickly coming to the realization that energy and sustainability issues are a critical requirement for the competitiveness and even survival of their businesses.
This realization will lead to significant growth in industrial energy management software and services through the remainder of this decade, the cleantech market intelligence firm finds. The U.S. market for industrial energy management software and services will rise from $960 million in 2011 to $5.6 billion by 2020, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.6%.
Other Cleantech News
1. A new iPhone & iPad app was built to help mariners avoid collisions with “critically endangered” right whales.
2. The UK’s Department of Energy & Climate Change has launched a £20 million Marine Energy Array Demonstrator scheme (MEAD). “This scheme will support up to 2 pre-commercial projects to demonstrate the operation of wave and/or tidal devices in array formation over a period of time. Organisations across the UK will be able to bid for a share of the £20million announced last summer helping spur on growth in this exciting new sector. ”
3. The Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. Government’s development finance institution, has “approved $250 million in financing to help India’s premier infrastructure lender expand its lending to renewable energy and infrastructure projects, providing much-needed long-term capital to the country’s effort to keep pace with the sectors’ massive potential.”
4. “An Austrian study compared different ways of using biowaste and found that the production of biomethane of natural gas quality is the most efficient in terms of energy balance and the greenhouse effect,” Renewables International writes.
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