What a difference a year makes: Germany’s transition to renewable energy showed positive forward momentum, with increasing energy production from renewables, increased exports, decreased carbon emissions, and decreasing consumer prices. The ruling German CDU-SPD coalition is now pushing energy producers to improve on a new front: efficiency. 2014
Energy storage is making headlines in the media and waves in the U.S. power industry. For example, Tesla’s planned electric-vehicle (EV) gigafactory in Nevada and California investor-owned utilities’ drive to acquire 1.325-gigawatt (GW) of energy stora…
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If I were a newsboy, here’s the headline I’d shout out on the street corner this afternoon: “Single-family solar power beats Standard & Poor’s 500, in 46 out of 50 American cities!”
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electric Delivery and Energy Reliability’s (OE) recently released “Strategic Plan for Energy Storage Safety” is helping industry stakeholders and regulators address a significant gap in safety codes, standards and regulations (CSRs) for grid-scale energy storage technologies, according to Vincent Sprenkle, chief engineer, electrochemical energy storage and conversion, Pacific Northwestern National Laboratory.
Spending on renewable energy, which surged 16 percent in 2014, will remain strong this year, largely unaffected by the slumping oil prices that have artificially depressed their shares.
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Two recent U.S. consumer polls have some good and bad news about how solar energy is perceived today. I’m an optimist, so we’ll start with the good news: According to a recent Harvard poll, 90 percent of Americans want more solar and wind over coal, oil, and nukes, a stat that crosses party lines. Why? The respondents’ reasons are not climate relat
Mixed signals are coming from China’s green energy sector, where a newly turbocharged LeTV is getting a lift on details about its new electric car initiative that includes ties to a technology supplier of U.S. superstar Tesla. But solar panel makers are moving in the opposite direction, with shares of several reaching or approaching all-time lows o
Germany’s two largest generators appear to have radically different views about where power prices are going after a record slump.
Hybrid car sales have taken off in recent years, with a fuel-sipping combination of electric- and gas-powered technologies that simultaneously deliver energy efficiency, low emissions, and strong performance. The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) — which played a pivotal role in putting hybrids on the road — has applied a similar strategy to its talent base and partnerships, bringing together the best minds from the worlds of research and industry.
U.S. solar companies boosted their employee rolls by 22 percent last year, and now employ 86 percent more workers than they did in 2010, driven by rising demand in the world’s third-largest market.
