Domestic

London at night as viewed from the International Space Station

The fuel of the future is very different depending on where in the world you live. Keep reading →

A robotic arm moves a solar panel.

Another solar manufacturer has run aground on the shoals of the industry’s structural imbalance, with the Colorado thin-film company Abound Solar-recipient of a $400 million federal loan guarantee-announcing a retooling that will at least temporarily cost 180 people their jobs. Keep reading →


In 2010 and 2011, Smart Grid News participated in five separate “future of the smart grid” workshops organized by three different groups. We also conducted more than four dozen interviews with utility CEOs and CIOs. Those executives and experts made these nine predictions about the forces that will be driving the smart grid’s future:

1. Diverging demographics. We will have an increasingly diverse population with strong geographic, gender, generational, income and aspirational differences, with each segment expecting to “have it my way.” Keep reading →


Inflation picked up slightly last month, as rising gas prices took a bigger bite out of consumers’ wallets.The government’s key measure of inflation, the Consumer Price Index, showed prices rose 0.2% from December to January, slightly weaker than the 0.3% increase economists had predicted. Rising prices at the gas pump were a key factor, increasing 0.9% during the month, the Labor Department said. Improving U.S. economic data, including stronger job growth, and tension with Iran have been driving the price of oil and gasoline higher. Gas prices ended last month at a national average of $3.443 a gallon, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report.


Nationwide, utilities face increasingly stringent renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requirements. California, for example, requires utilities to derive 33 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. As utilities examine options for renewable energy generation, solar continually emerges as an ideal solution for utilities looking to boost renewable generation using proven and cost-effective technologies.

Traditionally, utilities procured two basic forms of solar: small customer-sited projects, which offset the customer’s own electricity use (sometimes referred to as retail distributed generation) and large central-station facilities, to which the ‘bigger is better’ maxim has often been applied. To reduce the cost of these facilities to the absolute lowest possible price-point – on either a dollar-per-watt or cents-per-kilowatt basis – they have grown to enormous sizes, sometimes to hundreds of megawatts (MW). This has also been a function of utility procurement processes, which often use the delivered price of electricity as a sole awarding factor, thus favoring very large projects over small or mid-sized ones. Keep reading →


If you think it’s hard trying to get a loan from a bank or selling real estate in this economy, try “selling” money. Well, not actually selling money but giving generous rebates and incentives for energy efficiency projects. The sales process is not any easier even when the “product” is cash-back, moolah, money! In these tough economic times, businesses from all levels have pulled back and have become extremely guarded with how they spend their dollars. Accordingly, based on various energy efficiency polls, although public sentiments are aligned with the idea of energy conservation to reduce carbon emissions and to help the environment, many businesses do not plan to implement energy efficiency upgrades because they can’t afford it.

When the purse strings are tightened, how can the message get across that investing in energy efficiency today only benefits participants in the long haul? “People naturally think there is a catch but the catch is…there is no catch. Owners and managers of large office buildings, medium size retail outlets or any other commercial and industrial facilities interested in improving operations, reducing maintenance costs, lowering energy bills and procuring a more sustainable future, can greatly benefit from an energy efficiency rebate program” said David Pospisil, program manager for the Con Edison Commercial & Industrial Energy Efficiency Program. Keep reading →

People are asking: Can I choose my electricity supplier? http://go.usa.gov/RvR #energy #efficiency EIAgov


The internet’s power will allow management of the home in ways that save energy and money automatically in its next stage of development, a pioneer in the online world attending the Consumer Electronics Show told Breaking Energy this week.

AlertMe CEO Mary Turner helped launch some of the first large internet services in Europe, and now she is helping the technology developers of the next stage of the internet build a cloud-computing platform hub that lies at the heart of a new partnership with home goods retailing giant Lowe’s. Keep reading →


The economy is making gains on its path to a slow recovery, which means consumers can expect higher gas prices this year. “When the economy improves, we will be using more petroleum,” explains Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com. “It’s all but a certain that prices will likely go up this year.” The Department of Energy released its 2012 oil forecast Tuesday, upping the price of crude oil to $100 per barrel, which could be bad news for consumers because the price of oil directly correlates with gas prices. For 2011, the average price per barrel of U.S. crude oil was $95 per barrel, according to the Energy Department, and according to GasBuddy.com, the yearly average for 2011 was $3.51 per gallon. The current national average of unleaded regular gas two weeks into 2012 is $3.34 per gallon. With the current national average so high at the beginning of the year, DeHaan says things aren’t looking good for motorists. This article is a linkout: http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/01/11/expect-higher-gas-prices-this-year/#ixzz1jBnHe6TI


New Jersey lawmakers moved to boost the state’s booming solar market by supporting the market price for certificates issued for solar-generated power.

The state legislature’s Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee on Thursday approved two bills that seek to reverse a recent sharp fall in the value of the tradable Solar Renewable Energy Certificates. Keep reading →

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