Energy usage and tariff information generally isn’t easy to understand, but here’s some pointers: Use clear information — in simple language — to make communication materials from energy retailers more effective. This involves improvements to the language, design and layout. Read More »
Bio:Katie Fehrenbacher, Editor, Earth2Tech
Katie Fehrenbacher has been covering cutting-edge technology, startups and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley for over 7 years. She is the founding Editor of Earth2Tech, which she launched in July 2007. Prior to starting Earth2Tech she was a Staff Writer for GigaOM where she covered wireless and broadband technology. She has been a Reporter at Red Herring, an Editor at Engadget and began her career as a Reporter in the Silicon Valley bureau of the largest Japanese daily newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun.
Latest Tweets
- so awesome RT @peterrojas: After almost eleven years I finally get coffee with Douglas Rushkoff: http://t.co/hR9sY7Pr
- Ecotality sues to stop NRG electric charging network in California http://t.co/ruFEq9Ks
- @MLiebreich true, see article last graph
My Focus
Greentech
Smartgrid
Energy Management
Green IT
Recent Posts
Developer SolarReserve announced on Thursday that it’s finished building the 510-foot solar power tower that will make up the centerpiece of its 110 MW project in Nevada. Read More »
This week two Valley-backed and government-supported electric car companies — Tesla and Fisker — have been taking two very different paths: one up and one down. Here’s 3 reasons why one seems to be doing well, and the other not so much. Read More »
Nest has finally publicly commented on being slapped with a patent infringement lawsuit. Nest says it will “vigorously defend itself,” against Honeywell’s lawsuit, and says it has “the resources, support and conviction to do so.” Read More »
There’s been a string of bad news for vehicle startups in recent months including Fisker, Think and Next Autoworks. Other than the difficult market for electric cars and the recession, what’s something that ties these companies together: funding from Valley firm Kleiner Perkins. Read More »
How do the heavy weights of the Internet and telecom stack up in terms of how green their technology, energy footprint and political advocacy are? On Tuesday night Greenpeace released its latest Cool IT leaderboard report, which ranks the world’s largest IT giants. Read More »
The father of the LED is now looking to revolutionize the industry he created. On Tuesday startup Soraa unveiled its first LED bulb that can replace a halogen lamp, and showed off the company’s secret sauce. Read More »
More Must Reads
It’s now clear that the delays for Fisker’s electric car the Karma have veered the company off track. But just how far is Fisker from its original goals? Read More »
When tech patent lawsuits land in the middle of an industry they tend to make a loud, dull, thud sound. Nobody particularly likes them, both parties can often times end up looking bad, (or at least petty) and patent lawsuits are a guaranteed time and money-suck. … Read More »
Electric vehicle maker Fisker Automotive announced on Monday that it has halted work on its second electric car called Project Nina at its factory in Delaware, has laid off 26 workers, and is attempting to renegotiate the terms of its loan with the U.S. government. Read More »
The Green IT section of our GigaOM Pro service has been cranking out a lot of rock solid research and long form reports in 2012. Come check out our new 30-page state of solar report, our smart thermostat research and new analysis on batteries. Read More »
Thermostat giant Honeywell has slapped startup Nest, and retailer Best Buy, with a lawsuit over patent infringement for smart thermostat technology. I read the lawsuit so you don’t have to and here’s the details you need to know: Read More »
Thermostat giant Honeywell has filed a lawsuit alleging patent infringement by the buzzy Silicon Valley startup Nest, which makes a smart learning thermostat. Read More »
A quiet startup called Greensmith has been building a business out of connecting, controlling and monitoring large batteries installed on the power grid and used for energy storage. Read More »
Solar companies worldwide will remember 2011 as a dark time in their history; the failing of Solyndra symbolizes that market volatility, and 2012 no doubt started with trepidation, writes Ucilia Wang in a comprehensive report on the solar industry in 2012 for GigaOM Pro. Read More »
Watch the Super Bowl ad for GM’s electric Volt, complete with confused aliens. Read More »
Professor Tom Murphy crunches the numbers for nuclear fusion power, and dissects its potential and problems. Read More »
Two decades Honeywell tested out learning thermostats — the notion behind Nest’s new device — and found that consumers didn’t take to them and would rather control their thermostat themselves. Read More »
Will an idea to build a data center park powered by onsite clean energy and paired with a microgrid in Colorado, represent the future of data centers? Read More »
One of the key misplaced assumptions that Valley VCs made in cleantech boom times is that the rapid progress of Moore’s Law could be created for cleantech with a little bit of VC funding and Valley smarts. Read More »
India will be a massive market for clean power. Here’s our recurring post where we bring in some of the articles I’ve read this week, as well as what Vineeth Vijayaraghavan of Panchabuta, has been watching, reading, and writing about lately: Read More »
Nearly 7,000 votes later and Smart Grid News has the results of its third annual Smart Grid Companies to Watch search. SGN readers nominated smart grid companies they think should be on our radar in the year ahead, and then the readers voted. The results: Read More »
By Adam Lesser
Jan. 31, 2012, 12:18pm PT
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As the smart grid grows up and reaches its full potential, Adam Lesser, GigaOM Pro green IT analyst, sees five important ways in which how we interact with our utility can be revolutionized and why they matter. Read More »
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that he thinks the electric Model X, which will be unveiled on February 9th, will be “cooler” than any SUV or minivan on the market. Tesla teased the frame of the car in its invitations. What do you think? Read More »
The era of the 100 MW data center is coming, as Internet companies build more and more server-packed data centers to support the growing number of web users and the increasing amount of time spent online. Read More »
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that he thinks the electric Model X, which will be unveiled on February 9th, will be “cooler” than any SUV or minivan on the market. Tesla teased the frame of the car in its invitations. What do you think? Read More »
While some day in the future we could all have our own personal home battery systems combined with solar panels, Japanese home owners could get these goodies sooner, rather than later. Read More »
Not all the opportunities in the smart grid are about big data and analytics. Power gear giants Siemens and ABB unveiled separately that they plan to make large grid gear acquisitions. Siemens will buy RuggedCom, and ABB will buy Thomas & Betts Corp. Read More »
Analytics and big data tools will remake energy in 2012, from helping curb energy consumption, to reducing energy loss, to adding in more clean power to the grid. Here’s 10 ways this will happen: Read More »
By Tom Murphy
Jan. 27, 2012, 9:24am PT
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Professor Tom Murphy dives into ocean power and looks at how abundant it is, yet potentially useless in the short term. Read More »
Next-gen biofuel company KiOR has long planned to raise more money to get its first commercial-scale biofuel facilities off the ground. On Friday morning the company revealed that it has raised a new $75 million loan from existing investors Alberta Investment Management and Khosla Ventures. Read More »
One of the year’s largest smart grid conferences — DistribuTECH — closes today in San Antonio, Texas. It’s like the CES for utilities, power companies and the vendors that are trying to sell them stuff. Here are the top 10 trends I took away. Read More »
Some good news and bad news for the beleaguered battery maker Ener1. On Thursday, the company announced it’s filing for Chapter 11 in New York, but has done so under a pre-arranged restructuring plan that includes commitments for up to $81 million from investors. Read More »
By Marcus Tallhamn, CEO of Otelic.com
Jan. 26, 2012, 12:00am PT
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Having learned from past mistakes, the CEO of Otelic, Marcus Tallhamn, created a set of “Value Alignment Questions” before starting his current company and decided to share them in the hopes that it’ll eliminate a lot of “WTF?!” moments. Read More »
As I’ve been walking the floor at DistribuTECH in San Antonio, Texas — one of the largest smart grid focused conferences of the year — I’ve been snapping pics of the grid connected devices that will deliver a more efficient system and create the Energy Internet. Read More »
By Adam Lesser
Jan. 25, 2012, 10:02am PT
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Did the Warren Buffett investment machine see some seriously undervalued assets in solar, even as most investors have recently viewed the solar industry as a train wreck? Read More »
One day it could be common to have a home battery to store energy from a solar panel, and some battery makers and startups showed off their home batteries at DistribuTECH this week. Read More »
GM’s communications service OnStar could some day enable owners of GM’s electric car the Volt to charge their cars primarily with any available clean power. Read More »
On one hand, Obama said he won’t walk away from clean power, despite acknowledging that some companies will fail, in the State of the Union address on Tuesday night. On the other hand, Obama pledged to open up 75% of the U.S.’s offshore oil drilling resources. Read More »
There’s a perception in Silicon Valley that smart thermostat startup Nest created the world’s first connected thermostat. While the Nest thermostat is gorgeous and potentially a game-changing, there’s dozens of companies that are making smart thermostats and software, and here’s a dozen of them in photos: Read More »
Energy software company Opower says it will send its 25 millionth energy data report to a utility customer by the end of January and will likely hit the 75 million mark sometime in 2012. Read More »
Energy software company EnergyHub and weather and sensor network company Earth Networks have teamed up to offer a smart thermostat and demand response program for utilities and consumers. Read More »
After a variety of strategies and around $100 million in funding, startup Tendril is now largely a software company, and on Tuesday at the DistribuTECH conference in San Antonio, Tendril announced a big partner in its play to provide the software layer for electric vehicles: BMW. … Read More »
The often-ignored and hardly ever programmed, humble thermostat is morphing into a unique and undercover gateway into the smart home. Check out my report for our premium research subscription service GigaOM Pro. Read More »
Four years after Better Place CEO Shai Agassi announced the startup would build out its first electric vehicle charging network in Israel, this past weekend, Better Place delivered its first 10 cars in Israel to employees at businesses. Read More »
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