Two new proposals introduced in California aim to increase solar power generation in the city.
Last week the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) announced plans to re-launch its Solar Incentive Program (SIP) with doubled funding for the next three years. In addition, LADWP proposed a new Feed-In Tariff (FIT) program that will allow third parties to sell renewable energy to LAWDP’s citywide electrical grid. Keep reading →
The roles of the renewable energy and green manufacturing sector in driving a US economic recovery are set to be major issues in the upcoming 2012 national elections, and positioning on the subject has already begun.
The “clean” economy is already a fast-growing piece of the economy in the 100 largest US metropolitan areas, and with a sustained focus on regional innovation and research cluster development cities could be leaders in prompting renewed economic growth, a Washington, DC-based think tank said. Keep reading →
Wind Analytics is everything an energy firm isn’t supposed to be.
The startup firm is new, small in scale, focused on leveraging distributed generation, funded by venture capital and headquartered in an icily cool part of New York City’s Brooklyn Borough. In an industry dominated by behemoth established players built on the hub-and-spoke model of centralized fossil fuel energy production distributed over vast physical footprints, Wind Analytics differences make it the anomaly that could just be the industry’s data-driven future. Keep reading →
Recent research has shown that cities produce lower amounts of greenhouse gas emissions than suburbs do, on a per capita basis. The thinking here, broadly speaking, is that dense residential buildings and public transit systems are more energy efficient than large personal dwellings and private transportation modes. According to a new study conducted by a pair of Finnish researchers, this approach is flawed because it fails to account for all emissions related to “consumer behavior.”
Jukka Heinonen and Seppo Junnila of Aalto University in Finland performed a life-cycle comparison of emissions in two metropolitan areas: Helsinki and Tampere. Each area has a dense urban core as well as two surrounding suburban regions. The researchers included typical variables like building and transportation energy use in their analysis, but also added consumption factors such as leisure goods and services. Keep reading →
North American cities are building on their leading position as efficient energy users amid accelerating urbanization in the US and around the globe.
A new Green City Index sponsored by Siemens measured 27 major American and Canadian cities cities in nine different categories to assess their energy economy. It shows that while American cities are often lagging behind European cities in implementing energy policy, they are not waiting for Washington to lead on environmental and energy policy. Keep reading →
Arizona State University students plan to find a ‘brighter’ solution for excess dog waste in Cosmo Dog Park.
The Gilbert City Council has set up a program that will encourage ASU Polytechnic Campus students to engineer a dog waste digester for the town’s Cosmo Dog Park. The students will design and build a technology that will use the waste to generate methane and power lights within the park. Keep reading →
Though San Francisco came in at the top of the recent New Urban: Cities and The Emerging Energy Economy, sponsored by Siemens and written by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), it is clear that each of the top five cities has taken a unique approach to energy efficiency.
“Cities have various strengths and weaknesses,” Siemens’ Chief Sustainability Officer Alison Taylor told Breaking Energy. There are no winners and losers in the report, she said. Keep reading →
The Daunting Energy Diversity Of Cities
By Peter GardettMost of us live and work in cities, even when those cities don’t always correspond to the popular image of tall buildings and rushing crowds.
As the world urbanizes at an historic pace, countries that began the industrialization cycle more than a century ago are struggling to match creaking and multi-layered infrastructures with growing and shifting requirements for plentiful and affordable electricity. Keep reading →