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Building Analytics and Energy: Managing What You Measure at Wegowise

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A Boston startup has turned into a leading building performance analytics provider in recent years as it has helped property owners save significant sums by monitoring their utility data. The company, called WegoWise, now says it has the “largest database of utility in multifamily buildings,” and is extending its platform to cover commercial property as well.

One of their first commercial property customers is Liberty Property Trust, a $7 billion REIT currently using WegoWise to track utility usage over 2.9 million square feet of its portfolio, and is rolling out usage across its 81 million square feet of property. Keep reading →

 /  Published April 8, 2013 at 10:30 AM

New DOE Initiative to Boost Manufacture of Clean Energy Products

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DOE’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative would accelerate manufacturing of clean energy products and strengthen competitiveness of the U.S. clean energy sector in the global energy market.

On March 26, 2013, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced a new program – the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative – to support manufacturing of clean energy products in the U.S. The DOE announced the initiative at the opening of its Oak Ridge Carbon Fiber Technology Facility in Tennessee. The facility manufactures cost-efficient and lightweight carbon fiber used in electric vehicles, energy storage components, and wind turbines. According to the DOE, carbon fiber can reduce the weight of a passenger car by 50% and enhance fuel efficiency by approximately 35%. DOE estimates that the material could cut the weight of vehicles by up to 750 pounds by 2020. Keep reading →

 /  Published April 5, 2013 at 8:30 AM

Big Data Dives Clarify California Power Markets

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Power markets have always been a complex proposition, perhaps especially so in the places where they could do the most good. How to price the creation and delivery of a commodity that can’t be stored, is technologically complex to ship and often dirty to create where it isn’t unreliable?

Transmission is the central component of the traditional power market. The lines and towers are the only thing that can make power flow from lower priced areas to higher priced areas, and as part of managing access the administrators of these markets have begun to charge for Congestion Revenue Rights. In California, those CRRs have become a major market, with banks, trading houses and power marketing firms all getting in on the action since trading began in 2009. Keep reading →

 /  Published April 3, 2013 at 1:15 PM

Korean Smart Grid Companies on the March

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The Korea Smart Grid Association is launching a national program to encourage and support the creation of smart grid patents that meet international standards. Energy Korea reported that the organization is supporting companies, universities and research institutions that want international patents. The association is taking the lead in developing technologies and standards that can be baked into future patents.

The association also has a special emphasis on strengthening the global competitiveness of innovative small and mid-sized businesses, which would not normally have the sophistication necessary to deal with international patent issues. It is also emphasizing technologies that can become de facto standards or “platforms” that “can enjoy both market power and monopolistic strength.” Keep reading →

 /  Published March 29, 2013 at 1:00 PM

ABB Goes Long On the United States

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Even in an era of struggling economic growth, it makes sense to invest money in efficiency and cost savings efforts. For companies that provide those services in the energy sector, the traditionally often wasteful approaches of companies accustomed to cheap or subsidized supply is a huge opportunity as many finally bite the bullet and invest in industrial efficiency.

That’s the message behind the results of global power and automation technology giant ABB’s results from its US operations in 2012, the company said at a customer conference in Orlando this week. The firm has invested $10 billion US manufacturing and software since 2010, including the acquisition of electric products Baldor, components firm Thomas & Betts and software firm Ventyx. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 29, 2013 at 8:30 AM

Energy News Roundup: PwC, Blank Rome LLP, ITG, Singapore

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The energy sector has heated up in recent years as natural gas drilling technology has resulted in increased supply and the power sector has revolutionized in the face of monitoring and mobile technology that boosts the promises of smart grids. Firms are hiring, investments are going ahead at both the national and international level, and the industry is attracting attention as consumer technology advances filter into the “industrial internet.”

Recognizing its role in promoting the future of the industrial internet, the Department of Energy launched a manufacturing initiative it claims will help boost the prospects of the clean economy. The Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative is small by comparison to the controversial payouts under the stimulus in the first Obama administration, but it signals a sustained commitment by the White House to the concept of a revitalized manufacturing sector driven by cleantech. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 28, 2013 at 9:40 AM

Austin Energy: Customization Out, Integration In for Grid Systems

By Greentech Media


When Austin Energy put out a request for proposal for a new advanced distribution management system (ADMS) in early 2012, the Texas utility compiled more than 4,200 requirements that the vendor would have meet to win the contract.

The project will involve a combined outage management and distribution management system and also a SCADA system specifically for the distribution system, something that Austin did not already have. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 20, 2013 at 12:40 PM

No Longer Emerging: California’s Green Economy Grows Up

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Sometimes getting bigger isn’t the same as growing up. California’s cleantech economy has slowed its intense growth cycle in recent months, but the emergence of new credit-worthy investors and intensifying technology innovation in the state has helped consolidate the gains of the last few years.

That’s the message of the latest California Green Innovation Index, released today by the organization Next 10 and compiled by Collaborative Economics. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 19, 2013 at 12:01 PM

IBM and CenterPoint Energy: Customers, Utilities Get Closer on New Platform

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The promise of smart grid has long been a closer and two-directional link between energy customers and providers. It has been the promise of an end to the decades of opaque or confusing bills arriving in the mail, an end to the lights and heat coming on or not in a kind of perceived magic only dimly related to real world assets like power plants, energy market regulations or natural gas wells.

The first generation of smart meters, now nearing a decade in age, seemed predicated on the idea that the next step in the evolution of the power consumer was a fascination about energy supply and consumption. Customers would become as obsessed with saving money and tracking usage as their suppliers were, or as they’d been proved to be in other market situations like grocery shopping. That didn’t transpire to be the case, and the high-touch, human-led information processing of the first generation of smart grid failed to have the desired impacts on usage or market transparency. Keep reading →

 /  Published March 12, 2013 at 8:30 AM

Energy Data Jam Goes on Tour

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The Department of Energy has led sector technology changes in part by helping create a series of “data jams,” and today announced several new related events on its blog, including one set for the upcoming New York Energy Week.

From Energy.gov: Keep reading →

 /  Published March 11, 2013 at 11:00 AM
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