As a Boulder resident, I am loosely participating in the SmartGridCity project run by our local electric utility, Xcel Energy. I say “loosely” because the extent of my participation has been the few times I logged into my online account to see a more granular view of my energy consumption. On this website, I could see into my daily energy usage in as small as 15 minute (more…)

What if we, as individuals, could contribute to renewable energy simply by working out? Imagine hitting the gym, getting into your zone, achieving optimal heart rate and… putting electricity back onto the grid.

Not only is it a pretty cool concept, it’s becoming a reality.

All those Stairmasters, elliptical trainers, (more…)

On a recent Get Some Sun webinar, our own Kelly Foley was joined by Thomas Hoff of Clean Power Research and Dr Richard Perez of SUNY–Albany discussing their cutting-edge research on PV output variability and its impact on the grid. Full video of the presentation is available here.

It’s an issue that’s becoming increasingly (more…)

I’m glad to see so much coverage of electric transportation in the mainstream press. You know you’re making headway when msn.com is running “The Five Things You Should Know About Electric Vehicles” among its up-to-the-minute coverage of Brittany Spears, Charlie Sheen and hot guacamole recipes for Super Sunday.

However, with that much exposure – (more…)

The new year brings some good pieces of news on the energy storage front. If the first week of 2011 is any indication of trends to come over the next 12 months, there’s much to look forward to in the area of utility-scale energy storage.

Perhaps the biggest news (not in terms of scale but in terms of significance) is that the first utility-scale battery storage system in (more…)

Over the Christmas break, the New York Times published an insightful article about how small scale renewable energy can improve the lives of people who dwell in places such as Africa where it’s common not to be reached by the grid.

“Although dwarfed by the big renewable energy projects that many industrialized countries are embracing to rein in greenhouse gas (more…)

After four months of diligence sessions, 3,800 ideas, and 70,000 voices from 150 different countries, GE and its venture capital partners –RockPort Capital, Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Emerald Technology Ventures announced on Tuesday in New York the five winners of the innovation Challenge award: (more…)

In the face of Congressional inaction on climate change and a right wing political movement intent on doing all in its power to prevent sweeping climate action, an encouraging trend for the climate is the growing list of coal-fired power units scheduled to be taken off the grid. Coal is (more…)

FERC may have recently put the kibosh on states implementing European-style Feed-in Tariffs, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. is left high and dry without ways to drive wholesale solar markets. We’re seeing daily action from utility PV programs that play by FERC’s rules.

Just today, Southern California Edison announced 60 MW worth of contracts under (more…)

The consumer face of the Smart Grid looks like you and me.  It is tall and short, conservative and liberal, lazy and driven.  In short, it is everyone, which means that it can be both random and ordered depending on changing conditions, geographic realities, and discordant behavioral patterns.

Capitalizing on Smart Grid opportunities in the residential consumer market means finding order and predictability across a wide range of variables: different ecosystems, temperature variation, number of people living under one roof, behavioral patterns, etc.  Currently, data is measured home-to-home, which means that fine-grained details under the roof are usually unaccounted for.

(more…)