Carter Bales, the co-founder and Chairman of private equity firm NewWorld Capital Group, is driven by dire pessimism and over-whelming optimism that converge through his livelihood: environmental investing. Read More »
It looks like the end times are near for U.S. support for cleantech, at least according to a report out from the Breakthrough Institute, the Brookings Institution and the World Resources Institute. Read More »
In the wake of Solar Trust’s recent bankruptcy, conservatives were eager to brand the company’s collapse as another Solyndra. Cleantech has become highly politicized, so much so that Obama’s first reelection ad was a defense of his clean energy policy. Read More »
Harvest Power is raising $110 million from investors including Al Gore’s fund, venture firm Kleiner Perkins and a fund led by former First Solar CEO Michael Ahearn to build out its facilities that turn organic waste into fertilizer and energy. Read More »
Education about energy is crucial for smarter decision making, which is why I’m excited that the Energy Literacy document, created by the DOE and many others, is finally out. Read More »
After an extensive interview with the founder and President of Energy Cache, Aaron Fyke, we bring you the details of how the gravel and ski lift technology works, how the company came into being, where it’s headed and how Bill Gates and Bill Gross became involved. Read More »
What the utility of the future looks like
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 »
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 »
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 »
This weekend in New York City, dozens of developers gathered for the second Cleanweb Hackathon, where programmers spent the weekend building mobile and web apps around new ways to manage energy. The event is the latest sign the ecosystem around clean technology is changing. Read More »
In the telecom and Internet worlds, it’s standard to re-route data over different lines when one path is overloaded. But not so much, when it comes to the power grid. However, a newly-emerged startup called Varentec, backed by Khosla Ventures, is looking to change all that. Read More »
Nanosolar, which has struggled for years to fulfill its promise as the next major thin-film solar manufacturer, announced Thursday it has a new CEO. Eugenia Corrales, who has been the startup’s head of engineering and operations, is taking over the chief executive post effective immediately. Read More »
More Must Reads
Phone company Verizon quietly launched its smart home products nationwide about three months ago, which enable customers to lock and unlock doors and windows, watch home video cameras remotely, and manage thermostats and lighting. Read More »
Although we live in an AC-dominated world, DC seems poised for a comeback, particularly in data centers. Facebook adopted a DC architecture in its Prineville, Ore., data center. SAP spent $128,000 retrofitting a datacenter at its offices in Palo Alto, Calif., to rely on DC power. Read More »
The 2012 CES show hasn’t even officially kicked off and already the smart energy home has emerged as a key target for a variety of sectors, including telcos, big box retailers, startups, chip companies and now cable operators like Time Warner Cable. Read More »
Every year, we try to dig into some of the innovations around energy, batteries, energy-efficient homes and the smart grid at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, and deliver this green guide for your reading pleasure. Read More »
By Adam Lesser
Jan. 4, 2012, 3:10pm PT
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While we take a stable electrical grid for granted in the developed world, that’s often not a certainty in the developing world, which can make running a business quite difficult. Airtel Nigeria has complained that 70 percent of its wireless downtime results from power supply issues. Read More »
The turning of the new year didn’t make the solar industry any easier for solar manufacturers. Power electronics maker, Satcon Technology, announced Wednesday that it’s laying off 35 percent of its workers and shutting down its factory in Canada. Read More »
Oil giant BP has invested in biofuel startup CoolPlanet BioFuels, according to an announcement on Thursday. CoolPlanet BioFuels is the biofuel startup you have never heard of but that has unusually famous investors like GE, Google, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips. Read More »
Out of all of Google’s close to $1 billion in clean power projects, turning biomass into energy seems like the least relevant technology to Google’s core business. But Google has made a few small investments into biomass projects, including a hog waste to energy project. Read More »
Which stories dominated the green GigaOM clicks in 2011? This year was filled with smart thermostats, a dream of Apple getting into solar, the bankruptcy of Solyndra, the efficiency of cloud computing, Google’s green data centers and Tesla’s Model S. Read More »
Professor Tom Murphy digs into the numbers for dam power and finds it’s damn lacking. Read More »
How efficient is personal-powered transport — namely, walking and biking? After stuffing myself over Thanksgiving, I am curious to know how potent human fuel can be. How many miles per gallon do we get as our own engines of transportation? Read More »
MIT Tech Review’s annual list looking at 35 innovators under 35 always has gems for the energy sectors. This year’s list is no different and the publication highlights three under-the-radar entrepreneurs at startups including ultracapacitor company FastCAP, geothermal drilling startup Foro Energy and battery company Wuhe. Read More »
Does the energy industry need more disruption-focused web entrepreneurs like Sean Parker, of Napster and Facebook fame? While the world will be better with more Parkers in general, I don’t think the energy industry will be disrupted as easily by these types of folks. Read More »
Follow physics professor Tom Murphy on an exercise in galactic energy that points out the absurdity that results from the assumption that we can continue growing our consumption of energy forever. Read More »
Remember that whole debate over whether moving to cloud computing is a greener option? Well, data center monitoring startup Sentilla is introducing an analytics tool that can predict whether embracing cloud computing (both private and public) is a smart play from an energy bill perspective. Read More »
Throughout 2009 and 2010, Internet companies like Microsoft, Google and even router giant Cisco launched experimental software and hardware to help building managers and home owners monitor and control their energy consumption. But now these firms are abandoning those plans. Why? Read More »
Federal regulators canceled three ocean power project permits in California because the permit holder, located in Sonoma County, couldn’t come up with the money to carry out the projects. Read More »
Earlier this week figures from the latest MoneyTree report found that VC funding for web startups has reached a 10-year high. Contrast that with the funding figures from Dow Jones, which found that venture investment in the energy sector dropped by more than half. Read More »
Connected devices can lead to greater sustainability. That’s one recurring theme in the New York Museum of Modern Art’s upcoming exhibit Talk to Me: Design and the Communication Between People and Objects. Read More »
A growing list of data-center operators are looking to buy tech to help them reduce their energy consumption. Which is why startup SynapSense, which provides such monitoring tech, is looking to expand and has raised a $16 million round from VCs. Read More »
Opower, a startup using software and big data tools to help utility customers reduce their energy consumption, is expanding outside the U.S. for the first time, and will be working with U.K. energy company First Utility. Read More »
Electronics that can break out of their rigid boxes, and be embedded into stretchy, even wearable, materials — that’s the goal of startup mc10, which packages up semiconductors, like silicon, so they can bend, twist and wrap around other structures. Read More »
A common misperception is that the bulk of the energy consumption associated with the Internet and connected-computing comes from massive data centers. In reality, the billions of end devices — computers, set-top-boxes — are currently the bigger and more wasteful culprits. Read More »
Google officially shuttered its web energy tool PowerMeter on Friday after the application failed to bring in enough users. Here are five reasons why I think PowerMeter didn’t take off. Read More »
By Michael Nark
Jun. 21, 2011, 1:58pm PT
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There are hundreds of thousands of commercial buildings in the U.S. that are responsible for almost 20 percent of the nation’s annual energy consumption. Changes to our electric infrastructure could have a big impact on the cost to operate these facilities. Read More »
Who needs smart meters when you’ve got broadband? Two announcements last week — EcoFactor’s energy-saving data and Comcast’s Xfinity Home Security launch — raise that question. If the broadband channel to home energy takes off, it could leave smart meter–dependent home energy startups in the dust. … Read More »
We can’t get enough of companies using smart algorithms and data management to make the power grid run more smoothly and to promote energy efficiency. Viridity Energy is a great example and watch my video interview with Viridity Energy SVP Laura Manz. Read More »
Global investments in renewable energy have risen dramatically over the last decade, but governments need to step up support for clean energy innovation. That’s one of the findings in a report out this morning from the International Energy Agency. Read More »
Moving from the current wireless standard ZigBee to the next-generation ZigBee standard dubbed “Smart Energy Profile 2.0″ is going to be a very big deal for utilities, and smart grid firms. Now we’ve got three months to map out the transition. Read More »
Turns out programmable thermostats in our homes are almost as much of a nightmare to figure out as confounding DVRs. According to a recently-published study from Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, a significant portion of users of programmable thermostats are incorrectly using them. Read More »
Here’s the key message from Energy Secretary Steve Chu when he spoke at the National Press Club Monday: We’re screwed if we don’t boost our R&D investments in science and technology. The message isn’t new, but there’s a new sense of urgency. Read More »
Many of the initiatives detailed at this week’s Clean Energy Minsterial seem more like pledges to figure out how to reach green energy goals and gain access to necessary data than a definite road map with all the answers in place. Read More »
Venture capital and private equity: That’s the sweet spot for the U.S. and one of the only areas where the country leads the world in terms of financing a renewable energy buildout, according to a new report from the Pew Environment Group. Read More »
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