The commercial building sector is the largest energy consumer in the US, which means it has been a rich initial target for efforts to cut back usage in ways that can ease strain on transmission grids and prevent the need for mostly-unused additional power plants currently sitting idle.
FirstFuel Software’s CEO Swapnil Shah spoke at a White House sponsored meeting on the intersection of data and energy efficiency, and his company shared this video with Breaking Energy. Keep reading →
What do Lockheed Martin, the city of Austin in Texas and Intel have in common? They all invest in renewable energy, alongside major consumers like the Department of Defense and major consumer brand companies like Whole Foods.
The business case for these projects and for ownership of renewable generating capacity is clear, Navigant Consulting Director Andrew Kinross told Breaking Energy in this video, but clear policy has also lent appeal to the sector and prompted creative financing for projects that in turn boosts employment. Financing around projects and structures like third-party ownership of solar energy assets by private equity firms or pension fund investors has been particularly interesting, Kinross says. Keep reading →
In the noisy back-and-forth of the presidential elections, it can be difficult to remember that many other offices are highly contested – positions that in many ways could have a more direct influence on the energy business than high-profile but more general US federal policy or international treaty efforts.
Elected officials need to take down the barriers that make it hard for cities to innovate, C40 Climate Leadership Group Director Michael Marinello said in this video panel discussion with Breaking Energy. Cities have in many cases proven that they can move ahead with technology implementation and market changes at the local level; federal officials who can’t help need to get out of the way, he says here. Keep reading →
US Cities are incredibly diverse in their energy use and their energy politics, but many are trying to use the latest tools to solve similar problems with boosting efficiency and adding new capacity.
TED gave a recent prize to the City 2.0, recognizing that the “smart city” is a vital and important trend not only in the US but across the world. In the energy sector, information technology allows tracking of impacts on the grid, of timing for energy usage or traffic and tracking changes in ways that can allow for more-varied forms of policy and business responses to increasingly pressing problems. Keep reading →
Often implementing programs that create meaningful change don’t involve pure innovation, groundbreaking technology or original approaches. In many cases – in both the private sector and across regulatory spheres – the best implementations rely on learning from leaders and applying established solutions to new environments.
With cities driving the global economy and the world tipping further into being a more thoroughly urbanized place, urban energy leaders in both the private and public sector world are trying less often to “reinvent the wheel” as they are learning from what C40 Climate Leadership Group director Michael Marinello says in this video is a “network effect.” Keep reading →
Some of the most influential voices in the clean energy sector gathered recently in New York for the US launch of the Corporate Renewable Energy Index and the Global Consumer Wind Study.
Companies manage what is measured, and increasingly understand their customers and their competitors by leveraging the data sets provided by measurements that in previous business cycles would have been difficult to gather, much less compare. Keep reading →
The world of renewable energy has changed rapidly over the past decade, moving from a marginal issue for environmentalists to a core component of both energy policy and the consumer mindset.
The energy business, which relies on lengthy lead times and regulatory certainty, has often been slow to adapt to the changes in the world around it and embrace renewable energy production or sustainability issues. That is no longer the case, as major corporations embrace direct investment in the sector to avoid an energy sector they increasingly see as adding major risk to operational reliability and customers become attuned to their energy choices. Keep reading →
The centrality of the shale revolution to a resurgence in the US economy has been widely examined but rarely given such thorough analytical backing as it is in this video from Rice University’s Professor Peter Hartley.
While Hartley’s comments on North America’s conventional and unconventional natural resource endowment and upside production potential preceded the high-profile release of Boston Consulting Group’s report on the potential for an immense resurgence in the US manufacturing and export sector this week, he notes the degree to which the region enjoys economic and geopolitical competitive advantages in an increasingly globalized international landscape. Keep reading →
California-based distributed generation technology leader gen110 celebrated the opening of its new office in the town of Petaluma in an unusual way. They went to the streets to find out how little people knew about the business of paying for electricity.
Americans have long enjoyed low-cost, reliable electricity supply, but there are signs that era may be coming to an end as long-delayed upgrades and new strains on the system combine to undermine reliability and boost consumer prices. Jason Brown, gen110’s CEO, is convinced that California is at a tipping point for distributed generation. Keep reading →
As we prepare for Breaking Energy’s 38 Degrees event in Washington, DC in October, we wanted to find new ways for the voices of our energy community leaders to be heard even when they couldn’t attend the event in person.
Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman has built on her leadership in the CASEnergy Coalition and her vast experience as an EPA Administrator to bring attention to some of the most pressing issues in the energy sector. Especially after the Fukushima accident in 2011 and the resulting storm of controversy around the nuclear industry, Whitman took a brave stance and relied on the facts to make clear arguments about often difficult and complex topics. Keep reading →
