The race for renewable energy has passed a turning point. The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined. And there’s no going back. The shift occurred in 2013, when the world added 143 gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity, compared with 141 gigawatts in new plants that burn fossil fuels, according to …

Company celebrates major milestone with event honoring transit agency partners as EV pioneers   North America’s leading manufacturer of zero-emissions battery-electric buses, Proterra Inc., recently congratulated its customers on achieving a major milestone for the EV industry: logging one million miles in revenue service.  The company celebrated this achievement with an event at its plant in Greenville, S.C. honoring its …

  Microgrids are among 15 opportunities that can fix some big, world problems. That’s the word from DNV GL in a new report that looks at five global threats and the doors they open for innovators. One of the threats is our reliance on fossil fuels, says Global Opportunity Report 2015. Microgrids or “energy autonomy” offers an alternative path. “This …

A funny thing happened to Urban Green Energy (UGE) on the way to becoming a small wind turbine manufacturer. The New York company discovered that demand was limited for its product on a stand-alone basis. But combine small wind turbines with solar, storage and some intelligence – into a remote microgrid – and the market is vast. This is especially true …

RENEWABLE ENERGY PROVIDES 100% OF ALL NEW U.S. ELECTRICAL GENERATING CAPACITY IN JULY   According to the latest “Energy Infrastructure Update” report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Energy Projects, all new U.S. electrical generating capacity put into service in July came from renewable energy sources: 379 megawatts (MW) of wind, 21 MW of solar, and 5 MW of hydropower. For …

   Green Hygienics to Address Critical Global Power Demands and Conservation The advantages of low-cost, clean forms of energy are increasingly moving from the margins to the mainstream of public awareness in countries around the world, especially developing nations with fast-growing economies, rising numbers of middle class consumers and traditional power supplies that are unreliable or heavy polluters or both.The decision by Warren Buffett’s utility company …

More than a decade ago, Ruihong Zhang, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of California, Davis, started working on a problem: How to turn as much organic waste as possible into as much renewable energy as possible. Today, on Earth Day, the university and Sacramento-based technology partner CleanWorld are officially unveiling the UC Davis Renewable Energy …

Environmental Advocate Shares Affordable Gadgets that Shrink Your Footprint – and Your Bills   Just as intended, the 44th annual celebration of Earth Day is surrounded by talk of our environment, our impact on it and what we can do to better live in harmony with it. “We’re seeing more and more people who realize that, if each of us …

Nearly 70 years after Ball State University installed its four coal-fired boilers, school employees have stopped shoveling and the old system has gone cold as the university embraces renewable energy with world’s largest district closed geothermal energy system. Jim Lowe, director of engineering, construction and operations, watched the historic event. He’s overseen the $80 million geothermal project — consisting of …

Being a China watcher always involves parsing official statements to figure out who has the upper hand in Beijing and, if someone has some clout, what that person’s stand on an issue is. So I have been watching statements by Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang and Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei to figure out where each stands and who …

Marc Lopata says his job is to uncover the dark side of microgrids. And that’s just what the president and principal engineer for Microgrid Solar is doing in a project that combines energy storage and solar energy at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). The project is located at the “Solar Village,” which consists of multiple houses built by …

This chart shows the production tax credit at its most recent level (dashed lines). The credit is currently worth 2.3 cents per kWh for ten years, or about 1.6 cents per kWh when levelized over the 20-year life of a typical wind contract.    The costs of using wind energy and natural gas for electricity are virtually equal when accounting for …

Environmental Advocate Shares Affordable Gadgets that Shrink Your Footprint – and Your Bills   Just as intended, the 44th annual celebration of Earth Day on April 22 will be surrounded by talk of our environment, our impact on it and what we can do to better live in harmony with it. “We’re seeing more and more people who realize that, …

Californians consume the least electricity per-person of any state in the country, according to new 2014 state energy rankings from EnergyTrends.org. Behind California, Hawaii, Rhode Island and New York used the least electricity per person. Meanwhile, Californians consumed the fifth-lowest total energy per person of any state. This ranking has remained unchanged in recent years – and shows California’s residential …

Battery storage is gaining more and more traction in the distributed energy resources community. Last fall, California passed the first statewide energy storage directive in the United States. Issued by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the mandate requires all investor-owned utilities in the state including Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric, to …

Even in Disaster, Lumos LSX Solar Modules Shine at Western Disposal HQ Colorado’s Largest Solar Awning Supports Clean-Up following Floods Completed before the epic Colorado floods, Western Disposal’s 198kW PV solar awning is a solar milestone as Colorado’s largest solar awning. The awning stands over 30 ft tall and has been built to shade Western’s large natural gas fueling station. The durability …

The global cumulative hydropower installed capacity is expected to increase from 1,065 Gigawatts (GW) in 2012 to 1,407 GW in 2020, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 3.5%, with investments reaching $75 billion in the same period, forecasts research and consulting firm GlobalData. According to the company’s latest report*, the total for 2020 is expected to be comprised …

Caltech’s Resnick Sustainability Institute Director Congratulates Taiwan and Calls for More International Cooperation Programs to be Created In order to achieve important breakthroughs that will have substantial impact on the earth’s sustainability, international organizations must work together, said Dr. Harry A. Atwater, Director of Caltech’s Resnick Sustainability Institute and Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics. He was speaking at a …

Conversion of a ’71 Volkswagen Bug into an all-electric vehicle – the first known freeway worthy, 100+ mile range plug-in retrofitted by high school students Last week, a group of Santa Monica High School students of the environmental science and advocacy group, Team Marine, finished their gas-to-electric car conversion project. Working for four years on a 1971 red convertible Volkswagen …

The next big opportunity for growth in the global solar business lies in small, emerging markets where photovoltaic (PV) installations are forecast to rise at about triple the global average during the period from 2012 through 2017. Annual installations in these emerging countries are expected to increase to 10.9 gigawatts (GW) in 2017, expanding at a compound annual growth rate …