Americans are using more and more energy every year, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Across the board, more energy of every type — everything from renewables, to fossil fuels, to nuclear — is being used. In 2013, Americans used over 2.3 … [continued]
Originally published on NREL. Field demonstrations of newly proven energy efficient technologies are yielding valuable results for the U.S. Navy, helping it meet energy goals. In partnership with the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) recently demonstrated eight technologies at installations in Hawaii … [continued]
One of the key drivers of energy innovation today is the growing demand for electricity in developing countries, so we weren’t surprised to see that put forth as a major theme in this week’s BNEF (Bloomberg New Energy Finance) Summit 2014, in New York. What did surprise us is the … [continued]
Not long ago, I wrote about Clean Power Finance and its President and CEO Nat Kreamer. At the time, Kreamer — a former military man — appeared to be serving as a “double agent,” playing both sides of the monopoly utilities’ crusade against rooftop solar. Several months later, the double … [continued]
Originally published on Renew Economy. Dan Arvizu, the head of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the US, the world’s largest renewable energy research facility, has some simple points to make when he says that the energy system of today is unsustainable. The first point is on cost, as renewables … [continued]
Originally published on Rocky Mountain Institute. By Rebecca Cole In this second installment of our eLab Accelerator blog series (read part 1), we are exploring how companies, organizations, states, and communities are working to evolve utility business models, rate structures, and regulatory structures so that renewable and distributed resources can … [continued]
India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has increased its faith in solar photovoltaic (PV) technology at the expense of concentrated solar power (CSP) technology. As a result, it has increased its target for installed solar PV capacity by 30% in FY2014-15 while slashing its CSP target by 90%. … [continued]
An update of a thought-provoking 2002 report on the effects of sprawl has more data on the negative health effects of this development pattern. The study probes how sprawl affects a person’s well-being (or, alternatively, how connected and compact neighborhoods do). The study finds that urban sprawl does affect health in … [continued]
US manufacturer SunPower has secured $42 million that will be aimed at escalating its solar leasing program. The California-based company now has 20,000 American households signed up for solar leasing, a trend initially led by others that SunPower has jumped into. This $42 financial investment comes from Hannon Armstrong Sustainable … [continued]
By John Perlin, author of Let It Shine: The 6000-Year Story of Solar Energy. Photo’s courtesy of AT&T archive. Sixty years ago on April 25, 1954, Bell Laboratories demonstrated to the world one of the most significant breakthroughs ever recorded in the history of solar energy and of electricity – the first solar … [continued]
