Study finds potential for reduced carbon emissions and lower power costs RICHLAND, Wash. – Large facilities like big box stores or hospitals could keep the lights on by using a fuel cell that runs off the natural gas that already flows in pipelines below most city streets. Instead of drawing electricity from the power grid, facilities could use natural gas-powered …

Total module revenue of the top 20 global solar PV suppliers in the fourth quarter reached its highest level since 2011, despite the effect of negative exchange rates on average selling prices BEIJING, China (February 10, 2015) — IHS (NYSE: IHS), the leading global source of critical information and insight, today announced that quarterly solar photovoltaic (PV) module revenue (excluding …

 A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers has developed a new tool to help plot the future of solar fuels. In a paper recently published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science, a team led by chemical and biological engineering Professors Christos Maravelias and George Huber outlined a tool to help engineers better gauge the overall yield, efficiency and costs …

  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 …

The “new normal”: Energy price volatility and climate framework uncertainty top concerns of global energy leaders World Energy Council report highlights the critical global and regional energy issues Energy leaders see energy price volatility and the future of a climate framework as their top critical uncertainties, according to the latest research by the World Energy Council. The 7th annual edition …

As the installation of photovoltaic solar cells continues to accelerate, scientists are looking for inexpensive materials beyond the traditional silicon that can efficiently convert sunlight into electricity. Theoretically, iron pyrite — a cheap compound that makes a common mineral known as fool’s gold — could do the job, but when it works at all, the conversion efficiency remains frustratingly low. …

When policymakers tally clean energy’s real worth, they consider jobs and environment. But other work achieved by clean energy goes forgotten. Two new papers shed light on some of this work – from saving the lives of US troops to influencing broad economic health. First, the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) argues that the U.S. military needs to assign …

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 …

What if we could take all that carbon dioxide that we have too much of and turn it into a clean energy source? Sound far-fetched? Well, it isn’t really. After all, plants do it every day. That is much of the rationale behind biofuels. Let the plants store the solar energy as sugars, starches, etc., which we then convert into …

The Alcatraz Microgrid: Life on ‘The Rock’ Not Easy, Even for a Microgrid The Alcatraz microgrid stands as a model for installing modern energy technology under difficult terms. Historical structures had to be kept intact, equipment protected from the elements, and no new buildings erected. Here’s how developer Princeton Power  Systems accomplished the task. The 22-acre island in San Francisco Bay is …

Sustainable energy expert reports on market study at SOLAR 2014 Conference  With the growth rate of the solar energy market expected to increase by double-digits over the next decade, so too will the demand for copper which is needed to  power and ground cabling for these installations, said Zolaikha Strong, director of sustainable energy for the Copper Development Association (CDA), …

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 …

CLEAN ENERGY VICTORY BOND PUSH IN CONGRESS WOULD GENERATE $150 BILLION IN FINANCING, 1 MILLION JOBS Updating WWII “War Bond” Model to Spark Job Creation, Energy Security, Clean Energy, and Increased Energy Efficiency WASHINGTON, D.C.///April 8, 2014///Clean energy boosters on Capitol Hill are borrowing a page from World War II “war bonds” by introducing today a new bill – the …

Though the first official assessment that climate change was caused by human activity came in 1988, with NASA scientist James Hansen’s famous testimony to the U.S. Congress, the “carbon neutral” concept, which refers to achieving net zero carbon emissions, is a relatively new one. The non-profit Climate Neutral Network, which developed the Climate Neutral Certification, was incorporated in 1999; the …

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 …

Image Caption: By placing colonies of E. coli engineered to produce pinene into test tubes containing glucose, researchers were able to determine which enzyme combinations produced the hydrocarbon most efficiently. Credit: Georgia Tech/Rob Felt John Toon, Georgia Institute of Technology Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Joint BioEnergy Institute have engineered a bacterium to synthesize pinene, a hydrocarbon produced …

New Energy Unveils Company?s Largest and Highest-Performance See-Through SolarWindow? Capable of Generating Electricity on Glass New Energy Technologies Inc. (OTCQB: NENE), developer of see-through SolarWindow? coatings, capable of generating electricity on glass and flexible plastics, today made public never-before-seen images of the Company?s largest area, high-performance SolarWindow? arrays.  These SolarWindow? arrays measure over 232 cm2 ? a significant achievement 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, …

Microgrids, Money and the Utility ‘Death Plunge’   This is the second part of our coverage on microgrids from last week’s Northeast Sustainable Energy Association BuildingEnergy 14 conference in Boston. Read Part I here. If distributed generation is accelerating the utility death spiral – as some say – will microgrids cause a total utility plunge? That’s the question Galen Nelson, director …

Next-Generation Photovoltaic Technologies to Take Center Stage as Solar Expenditures Rebound Advanced photovoltaic (PV) technologies such as diamond wire and n-type substrates will increasingly find their way into mainstream solar manufacturing, especially with capital expenditures set to bounce back this year, according to IHS Technology (NYSE: IHS). In a move that will coincide with the launch of a new spending …