Out of hundreds of submitted applications the World Economic Forum selects each year about 30 companies in what is a rigorous process. “Since 2000, around 600 innovative companies [see here] from five continents have been selected as Technology Pioneers,” the Forum notes. What makes those selected few so unique? According to the World Economic Forum,… Keep reading →
Breaking Energy featured the Top 10 New York Energy Entrepreneurs back in June as part of an extremely popular top 10 series that ran during New York Energy Week. The entrepreneurs were chosen by their energy industry peers via an open nomination process that returned a robust list of candidates. Whittling the impressive list of… Keep reading →
Thousands are gathering in Las Vegas this week for LightFair International, the lighting industry’s biggest event of the year. Energy-efficient LEDs and smart lighting controls have taken center stage in recent years, with fast-paced innovations rapidly pushing the industry forward. This year, the show’s central theme is “Integrated Design,” illustrating just how important technology and… Keep reading →
Making energy efficiency sexy can be a challenge from a messaging standpoint, but it’s also an extremely effective greenhouse gas reduction tool that throws off considerable dividends in the form of reduced operating costs. And if efficiency is an easy carbon emission reduction method, then lighting is energy efficiency’s low-hanging fruit “because it’s the cheapest… Keep reading →
Energy consumers live in a time of rapid technology change, but if Digital Lumens has its way lighting consumers at least may rarely notice the adjustments except where they benefit. It would have been hard until recently to come up with a sector of industry less exciting for its world-changing possibilities than lighting. Major manufacturers… Keep reading →
Former First Lady Hillary Clinton gave an impassioned keynote address at last week’s Greenbuild 2013, billed as the world’s largest conference and expo dedicated to green construction. While it can be difficult to make energy efficiency sexy – maybe it should be called Dark Energy or something catchy – this speech provides examples of energy… Keep reading →
NYSERDA has reached a major milestone, completing 50,000 home energy efficiency projects under the ENERGY STAR Program. On August 26, 2013, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced the completion of the 50,000th project under the ENERGY STAR Home Performance Program. The achievement marks a major milestone for the program, which was… Keep reading →
Smart glass – glass that allows users to control for glare, light, and even heat – has the potential to help buildings use energy far more efficiently. According to a recent report by Navigant Research, the smart glass market is set to grow more than 10-fold in the next decade, to $899 million in 2022… 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 →
It’s hard to envision myself ever being on the same side of an issue with Tea Party supporters. However, I too am glad to see that the impending ban on incandescent light bulbs, at least here in the United States, has been put on hold. A mid-December concession in the battle to pass a new budget saw the ban on 100-watt incandescent bulbs (that was supposed to begin in January) delayed until October of 2012.
Of course the political arguments against such a ban center on economic issues, jobs and the involvement of the major light bulb manufacturers (and their political interests). Those of us who are actually concerned about the environment, myself included, rarely factor into such “politics-as-usual” debates. Keep reading →
