Wifi-enabled thermostats can deliver substantial efficiency benefits when they’re used, but the trick is expanding deployment to as many households as possible. Broadening the range of wifi thermostats that can link up to any utility’s demand response program could help to achieve that. Home thermostat technology has made evolutionary leaps and bounds, such as the… Keep reading →
The Interior Department held a live online chat with Secretary Sally Jewell yesterday in advance of National Public Lands Day on September 28. Naturally, questions arose about how the Department manages competing calls to use public lands to generate more domestic energy, and to keep energy development off of public lands. Secretary Jewell suggested that… Keep reading →
What if the future of lighting looked surprisingly like the past? Cree, a lighting company with its roots in selling LEDs to the 80% of the lighting market that is commercial, has hit the consumer market with a new bulb it says could eventually save more than $40 billion in energy costs if adoption of the new technology hits 100%
The logic in appealing to the consumer market is similar to the IT strategies proliferating across the industrial sector, and more specifically energy: technology decisions are made by consumers based on their comfort with it, even when the applications aren’t for their personal lives. “This is a very important step to accelerate the adoption [of LED lighting]; getting the consumer on board will change the inflection point,” Cree Vice President, Corporate Marketing Mike Watson told Breaking Energy in a recent interview. Keep reading →
Marshall Steam Station, just 30 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina, was the most efficient coal-fired power plant in the United States when it opened in 1966, and maintained its position as best in class until 1974.
The 2,000MW plant is a small part of Duke Energy’s 58,200MW fleet of electric power capacity,
which serves seven million customers in the Carolinas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Keep reading →
It was an unusual setting for a light bulb show.
On Tuesday, Home Depot showcased its energy efficient light bulbs–including high-efficiency incandescent bulbs, compact florescent light bulbs (CFL’s) and light-emitting diodes (LED’s)–in the penthouse suite of the luxury hotel Setai Fifth Avenue. Bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen were illuminated by the various kinds of bulbs, with employees from various major lighting groups, including CREE, Philips, Lighting Science Group, Lutron Electronics, and TCP, explaining just how much energy could be saved from their lighting devices. Keep reading →
