Renewable sources of energy provided a greater share of U.S. domestic energy production than nuclear during the first nine months of 2011, according to a new report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

In its latest monthly energy review, the EIA reports that renewable energy — including solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass/biofuels — provided 11.95 percent of energy production during the first three-quarters of 2011, compared with 10.62 percent from nuclear.

During the same period in 2010, about 10.85 percent of domestic energy production came from renewables; in 2009, it was 10.33 percent.

Among renewable sources, hydropower produced the largest contribution of total domestic energy, with 4.35 percent, followed by biomass (3.15 percent) and biofuels (2.57 percent). In the electricity sector, renewable sources provided 12.73 percent of net electrical generation in the U.S., according to the report.

photo: Bigod

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Streetlights do more than tell us when to be home — “Be back before they come on,” our parents would tell us – they also light the way and keep us safe. Nowhere is this more evident than in the sprawling camps of people displaced by the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In recent months, the lights have come on at two camps through the efforts of aid groups, the Haitian government and the particular expertise of the Solar Electric Light Fund, or SELF, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that uses renewable energy to provide light and power in developing countries.

Before the advent of the lights, social life in the camps would fade every day with the setting sun and leave people isolated in their makeshift accommodations, according to Jean-Baptiste Certain, who managed the lighting project for SELF. “They were living on top of each other in those tents,” Certain said by telephone from Port-Au-Prince. Children couldn’t study and women wouldn’t use the public latrines at night because they feared assault. It was a justified fear: an Amnesty International report

issued last January found that women in camps were at significant risk of sexual assault, at least in the months immediately after the earthquake.

Nightlife has taken off since the installation of the lights at the Pétionville and Caradeux camps as residents’ sense of security has improved.

“Small businesses by the market area stay open until later in the evening, providing a source of income to families in camp and the area is busy with people socializing and playing board games,” said Chiara Lucchini Gilera, the Camp and Relocations Program Manager for J/P HRO, the relief organization founded by actor Sean Penn that runs the Pétionville Camp.

Most importantly, reports of violence at Pétionville declined to almost zero after the streetlights were installed. “We believe that the lights are responsible for that,” Certain said.

Dim camps, harsh conditions

The nexus between public lighting and safety is hotly debated in Western countries.

Some studies show a decline in crime after an area is illuminated while other research has found that crime actually increases after lights are installed, though it may be because crime is more visible. These studies are of little value, however, in places with collapsed infrastructure like Haiti, which plunged into darkness after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake flattened entire neighborhoods and killed untold thousands.

Survivors flocked in the tens of thousands to camps like the one in Caradeux, where they built shacks with plywood walls and tin roofs, and Pétionville, a tent city built on a private golf course that was crammed with 50,000 people at its peak. The only illumination at night in Pétionville came from 30 solar lamps installed by another group, which SELF officials described as ineffective, and three light towers powered by generators.

Security conditions in the camps suffered despite patrols of U.N. Peacekeepers and internal security forces. At Pétionville, there

were numerous entrance and exit points and people lived cheek to jowl in harsh conditions, creating the potential for conflict, according to the camp’s managers. Women were at particular risk. The Amnesty International report indicated that there were 250 reported cases of rape in several camps (the exact camps were not identified) in the 150 days following the earthquake. Women interviewed for the report indicated that lack of lighting at night played a role in the violence. “In our camp we cannot live peacefully; at night we cannot go out,” one woman told Amnesty International.

“In a post-earthquake environment, where you’ve got millions of people crammed into these pretty densely packed camps, things can get out of control quickly,” said Robert Freling, SELF’s executive director. “Anybody who had been to the camps and could see what was happening realized that lights could have an impact and improve security for the women.”

SELF, which had been electrifying rural medical clinics in Haiti before the quake, got involved in January after being tapped by the Inter-American Development Bank, which finances development in the Caribbean and paid the approximately $300,000 for the lighting project. (Another larger grant from the bank will be used for a rural electrification project administered by SELF).

“Could you please give me a light?”

Installing 100 streetlights at two camps, while simple in concept, proved challenging.

The camps needed far more streetlights than SELF had available – in part, because the Haitian government wants to move people out of the camps and doesn’t want to invest in their infrastructure – so the first task was choosing locations. SELF’s Certain, a Parisian who speaks what he describes as “broken street Creole,” consulted the management and residents at the Pétionville camp about the best places for the lights.

One priority was lighting the path to the communal toilets. “Women in particular didn’t feel comfortable walking in camp after dark to reach the facilities,” said J/P HRO’s Gilera. The sanitary conditions of the camp suffered as a result. Management also wanted to illuminate the market area.

The other challenge was finding streetlights that could meet some stringent requirements. They had to be hurricane resistant, tamper-proof and function continuously without maintenance. Certain painstakingly sourced two sizes of lamps with 20-foot tall triangle-shaped posts. The larger size has a 185-watt photovoltaic module on top, two sealed gel batteries inside a secure box connected to 36 high-powered LED lamps. The lamps produce 3,680 lumens of light (by comparison, a 100-watt incandescent bulb produces about 1,600 lumens).

The installation coincided with heavy rains, forcing the crews to work in two feet of mud, Certain said. But the process also brought serendipitous meetings with camp residents, including three young girls who cornered Certain to lobby him. “They said, ‘You’re the guy with the lights. We want to work after school, could you please give me a light?’” he recalled. The girls got their light, one of 32 installed in the camp.

The security improvements were immediate. The lights function at full power from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. and at 50 percent between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m. Reported acts of violence, including sexual assault, declined from about six per week when the installations began in June to one or zero per week when streetlights came online in August, according to J/P HRO data provided by SELF. While it’s possible to attribute this drop to other factors – the population of the camp had declined to 23,000 by September and community-based “protection teams” have increased patrols – residents reported feeling an increased sense of security. Increased usage of the latrines also improved Sanitary conditions “significantly,” according to J/P HRO.

SELF completed the installation of 68 lights at the Caradeux camp in September and the positive effects have been similar, Certain said. Despite the efforts of the Haitian government, the lights will likely continue to be necessary, even though they can be relocated when they’re no longer necessary in the camps.

“The fact is that, sadly, some of these camps are going to be here for a good while,” said SELF’s Freling.

Article by Matthew Van Dusen, appearing courtesy Txchnologist.

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(Reuters) – The Toronto Zoo has a solution to global warming: elephant dung.

Canada’s biggest zoo is inviting bids for a gasification plant that will turn its elephant, rhino and other large animal manure into clean electricity and heat.

“No other zoo in the world is doing this,” zoo conservation program head Dave Ireland said on Wednesday.

The zoo produces about 1,000 tonnes of manure and other organic waste each year. This will be fed into the biogas plant, to be built on land adjoining the zoo, where bacteria will munch through the waste and excrete methane gas.

Leftover heat will be piped to the zoo to warm buildings and animal pavilions. Ireland expects this to substantially reduce the zoo’s natural gas bill of C$1.4 million ($1.3 million) a year.

Zoo waste will make up only a portion of the fuel needed by the 3 to 5-megawatt biogas facility, which will generate enough heat and electricity to power 5,000 homes. The rest will come from organic waste from restaurants, grocery stores and other industrial sites in the area.

Reporting by Nicole Mordant and Allan Dowd in Vancouver; editing by Chris Wilson.

Article appearing courtesy Reuters

photo: yasuhisa

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The Oil Spill’s Unlikely Victim: As oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill continued to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, it tarred the feathers of an endangered creature: the climate bill. Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman introduced a retooled American Power Act on Wednesday to little fanfare. Perhaps that’s because the media’s klieg lights were already divided between the grilling of oil executives on Capitol Hill or the so-far hapless efforts to plug the leak. Or maybe it’s because the two senators took to the dais without their erstwhile Republican ally, Lindsey Graham. Nevertheless, it was ironic to see a solution to our fossil-fuel addiction pushed to the side because of a fossil-fuel disaster. Must we cap the gusher before we get a cap on CO2?

More Electric Cars Roll to the Starting Line: You’ve heard that the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt are on the way, but how about the Think and the Wheego? Wheego, a maker of electric putt-putt vehicles based in Atlanta, hopes that 200 highway-ready copies of its Whip Life will roll off the assembly line by August, months ahead of the well-publicized launch of the Leaf. Meanwhile, the Norwegian carmaker Think raised $40 million this week and plans to start assembly of the tiny Think City in Elkhart, Indiana in early 2011.

How Is an Electric Car Like an iPad? The CEO of Coda Automotive announced a novel approach to manufacturing and selling his company’s electric car — less a come-on-down dealership blitzkrieg and more like a visit to Apple’s Genius Bar. “We are looking at this not as a new-car-model introduction, but as a new-technology introduction,” CEO Kevin Czinger told a transportation conference in Ohio. But that’s just one way Coda is creating an auto company on the cheap. Models will be partially assembled at a factory in China, imported to the U.S. as “parts” to avoid import duties, and finished near company headquarters in California. Coda will have just one dealership in Los Angeles but seven satellite stores where the curious can come for a test drive — kind of like the way Steve Jobs warmed people up to the iPhone and the iPad. Models are due in 2011 for $30,000 to $40,000.

Toyota Bets on Hydrogen: Toyota surprised everyone by announcing it would debut a somewhat affordable, hydrogen-powered sedan by 2015. By whittling down the use of expensive materials like platinum, the company’s engineers dropped the cost of production by a factor of ten, and said they could offer the car for $50,000 and get within striking distance of a profit after launch.

How Does Power from Nantucket Sound? Less than two weeks after winning its hard fight for approval, the Cape Wind wind farm off Nantucket Sound closed a deal to sell half of its electricity. National Grid, the utility for a chunk of the Eastern Seaboard from New York to New Hampshire, will buy power at 20.7 cents per kilowatt-hour — a rate that will increase the average homeowner’s bill by about $1.59 a month. The $1 billion project is expected to start feeding power in 2013.

China: Winds of Change. U.S.: Pocket Change. The Department of Energy announced some nice grants for renewable energy projects this week. Investments include $13 million in seed money for projects that will help make industry emit less CO2, $62 million to develop concentrated solar power, and another $33 million on the way for innovations in biomass-to-fuel. That’s $108 million. Not bad!

Then China Longyuan Power Group, one of the largest wind-energy concerns in China, announced its own investment to become the world’s leader in installing wind turbines in five years. The amount? $13 billion.

Innovation Watch: Australia works on the world’s first biofuel helicopter; MIT grads invent a shock absorber that generates electricity; and Dell wonders if it could prosper without ever building another data center.

Article by David Ferris appearing courtesy Matter Network.

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Wind energy could provide 20 percent of the electricity for the eastern half of the United States by 2024, but only if the nation makes a significant financial investment, according to new government report.

About $90 billion would be required to install a network of land- and sea-based wind turbines and about 22,000 miles of new power lines, according to the study published by U.S. Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The report said that the government would have to provide a significant portion of that investment through programs such as loan guarantees.

“We can bring more wind power online, but if we don’t have the proper infrastructure to move that power around, it’s like buying a hybrid car and leaving it in the garage,” said David Corbus, project manager for the study.

To reach the 20 percent goal, wind power in the eastern U.S. would have to expand 10-fold from current production. Most new wind projects should be located in federal waters from Massachusetts to North Carolina, and across the Midwestern states, the report said.

The Obama administration has earmarked billions of dollars for renewable energy projects, and recently stepped in to accelerate the permitting process of a long-disputed offshore wind proposal in Massachusetts that would provide electricity for 400,000 homes.

Read the study overview

Article appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360

photo: kevbo1983

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A “plucky little” country is how the late Princess Diana once described Israel to Shimon Peres. About the size of New Jersey, Israel has a disproportionate number of clean tech companies and investment in clean technology compared to its size.

And now U.S. businessman and investor David Anthony from 21Ventures (at left) is about to reveal his trade secrets and insider information about clean tech investing in Israel.

If you are itching to become a clean tech entrepreneur in Israel, this is must-read information. If you’d like to know more about what makes the industry tick, read on.

Unlike Silicon Valley and the high-tech industry, the clean tech market today has no center of excellence, Anthony tells Green Prophet. In the last 50 years of venture capital investing there has been a saying, “Never fly over your company,” meaning one shouldn’t invest in a company that isn’t within a 60 mile radius of the office.

But without a center for clean technology, explains Anthony, a venture capital fund now has to dig into new territory to find the golden investment egg. Investors need to cross borders and turn over new stones.

To help readers better understand what American investors are looking for, we’ve asked Anthony for some tips. Compared to any other country in the Middle East, Israel is a clear and defined leader in this market, so we’ve focused on Israel. Most of Anthony’s tips could work in other non-US locales as well.

First a short background on Israel:

According to Anthony, clean technology researchers are not the same scientists that the traditional Israeli technology environment was founded on. Focused primarily on IT and telecom, Israel’s high-tech success came about as a result of Israelis joining the army and getting an electrical engineering degree. But this is not the case anymore in clean tech.

“What did Israel need to succeed?” Anthony asks. “Telecom was critical. They needed to tap Arafat for 30 years. IT security obviously is critical for Israel so necessity has driven the Israeli technology economy to focus on IT and telecom.”

But today, Israel and the world has bigger problems than Arafat, says Anthony: “Global warming and over-population and the combination of global warming and over-population is greatest problem of the 21st century. There are different types of scientists solving these problems like physical chemists and fluid dynamicists.

“These are individuals who have not traditionally participated in the technology economy of Israel for the last 20 years. There is a disconnect between the entrepreneurs and the technology refugees because there are little opportunities now in IT and telecom,” he says. And usually management types with electrical engineering backgrounds, this kind of training and background might not be applicable when “scouring scientists of major universities in Israel.”

How to bridge the divide and disconnect? Anthony offers his trade secrets:

1. Scour universities. Troll these places before technology refugees get to them. Entrepreneurs are not digging deep enough at Israeli universities — at the Weizmann Institute, The Technion, Bar Ilan University or Tel Aviv University. Entrepreneurs, he says, need to go out in the field and do their research. They need to meet with tech transfer officers to find out what’s interesting.

“One of the great mysteries is why doesn’t Israel have a leading solar energy company,” Anthony asks. “Luz I was a failure…Israel is not on the map of the Top 10. Why is Germany a big leader? Germany doesn’t have sun.”

It’s because the entrepreneurs in Israel have not mined the scientists or scoured or searched deep enough, he reasons. Time to get busy:

Read Science Daily, a compendium of scientific released from universities around the world.

Go and visit the tech transfer offices, like Ramot at Tel Aviv University.

Contact scientists directly. Tell them, “I would love to sit and talk with you about the potential for commercializing your research.”

“What I do isn’t brilliant or insightful,” says Anthony. “It’s like being a basketball scout, but at universities you are dealing with scientists instead of 16-year-old seven footers.”

2. Be less practical and forget about getting to the top. According to Anthony Americans are less practical than Israelis might think. Unlike those living in 7,000 square foot homes, Israelis who live in 4-room apartments don’t see how impractical Americans really are, he says. Even though milestones and pilot projects are developed in Israel through connections and limited funds, “adopting technology quickly doesn’t always win.”

Instead of wasting years and money developing a pilot in Israel, one needs referencable customers in the US to attract US investment. The Israeli military mentality doesn’t translate well in America, North America or Asia. Nor does aspiring to get to the top quickly, says Anthony.

“Let’s forget about going to the top. Israelis are good at tinkering and improvising and getting a prototype…If I tell someone my security software is defending the Israel Defense Forces, Americans want to know who is your U.S. customer.”

The bottom line: Don’t bank on pilot projects in Israel.

3. Bet your life on your research. Israeli scientists, unlike those in the United States, are not as quick to leave the comfort of academia. Being a scientist and having a position at a university commands more respect in Israeli culture than in the United States, meaning the Israelis are less likely to leave their tenure.

“But if I am investor and you’re at Bar Ilan University or the Technion, am I supposed to put my money in you if you aren’t betting your life?” asks Anthony. “This is something that IT scientists understand, but I don’t think it has reached the clean tech researchers yet. I want a CTO full-time.

“There is something about betting your life on a business. If you don’t, then it’s hard for me as an investor, with an investment ranging from $10 to $15 million over a set of milestones.”

4. Build a business plan and milestones with teeth. The last tip, Anthony offers is for entrepreneurs to build a solid business plans with milestones mapped out. This demonstrates to him the increasing value of the company.

“In today’s market, my most difficult job negotiating is not the price, but the teeth of the milestones. That to me is always the weakness in business plans and I see it in presentations: someone will say I need $4 to 10 million. This needs to be broken down into 4 or 5 milestones over 3 or 4 years. Thinking out those milestones, commercial milestones, collaborative milestones ahead of time is the best way to get my attention,” he says. “If you have an opportunity and solve a huge problem, then I am interested. If you thought out the milestones well, then I have a compatibility with you.”

David Anthony is the founder and manager of 21Ventures, a virtual clean technology incubator focusing on the ideas and innovations that will dominate the 21st century. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DavidAnthony21

Article appearing courtesy of Green Prophet.

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This article by Susan Kraemer, appearing courtesy of Celsias, was originally posted on CleanTechnica.

An amazingly high percentage of people who live down the Mid-Atlantic Seaboard from New York to Virginia want wind turbines off their coast.

Even if they can be seen from the shoreline, 67 percent support off-shore wind power, according to a new  poll of coastal residents of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia .

If the turbines are out of sight, the level of support goes up to an astounding 82 percent.

A full 25 percent of the population of the US lives in the nine Atlantic states from Massachusetts to North Carolina. The potential is staggering.  So it is very fortunate that so many people in the middle of part of the region with such great potential for wind power feel this way.

Off-shore wind power off the Atlantic could take one third of the US population off the fossil grid.

The off-shore energy potential down all nine Atlantic states is a colossal 330 gigawatts. That is almost twice the total amount the nine states use: 185 gigawatts. The job would take over 160,000 5 MW turbines spaced about a mile apart down the coast. This would be an energy superhighway.

NIMBYism has been the impediment for development of off-shore wind power off the East Coast. This poll certainly had surprising findings, for the middle five of this nine-state wind powerhouse.

Most of the residents polled in the five middle states lived within a block or so of the ocean, three quarters of them are homeowners; about 15 percent with waterfront property. A third of the people are 60 or older.

Fully 90 percent of these coastal dwellers really get out and enjoy beach activities, swimming, walking, crabbing and clamming and they put a higher priority on protecting the coastal environment (76%) than improving the economy (69%), lowering taxes (65%), improving education (64%), or controlling growth (56%)

In March 2009, the governors of the five states in the middle of this wind energy goldmine had initiated an effort to develop an interstate agreement on ocean and coastal management for the Mid-Atlantic region. While NOAA funded a grant for the Urban Coast Institute and Polling Institute at Monmouth University to do the poll, coincidentally, the governors of the five states would need to know if there was any agreement on coastal development.

The Department of the Interior is developing a Comprehensive Energy Plan on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. There is a surprising level of agreement among coastal residents in the five states about what the government should do on a range of issues of interest to coastal dwellers.

While the poll questions covered many coastal issues, what jumped out at me was that these residents really agree on wind power off the Atlantic Seaboard.

[photo credit: Flickr]

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Coal is dirty. Nuclear is dangerous. Wind and solar are intermittent. Trash is a constant, which brings us to landfill gas.

People throw things away. They recycle, sure, but consider all the waste in the world the next time you unpack your groceries. Product packaging alone can fill your trash can after one trip to the supermarket.

Garbage goes into landfills, where it decomposes,  and creates methane, a gas much more potent than the whipping boy, carbon dioxide. For years, landfills have gotten rid of this gas, which builds up inside, by flaring it off. Burning it, wasting it.

Landfill gas, in which that methane is harnessed and turned into electricity, has lots of potential. For sure, it’s not perfect, but it has a constant source.

Environmentalists have come around to garbage power. Power Scorecard, a project of the Pace Energy and Climate Center of New York, says landfill gas is pretty green.

And Biofuels Digest notes that even the pope likes waste-to-energy systems.

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I recently had the chance to speak with Catherine Potter, Manager of Consumer Content at Positive Energy.

Matthew Benson:  What is Positive Energy?

Catherine Potter:  Every energy utility faces a fundamental challenge of balancing supply with demand.  They can add more capacity or they can reduce demand to make the math work.  We help utilities reduce demand in the residential sector, by providing tools and ideas that encourage and enable consumers to reduce energy use.  In this way, utilities can look at us as an efficiency power plant.

Our core product is the Home Energy Report.  Our software generates a customized report for each home. Each report compares the consumer’s energy use to similar nearby homes.  For the first time, residential customers are able to see their home’s energy use in the context of other homes’ energy use.  The foundation of this product is the research on behavior change from one of our board members, Robert Cialdini.  His research shows that when users see their own behavior in the context of what their neighbors are doing, they are more motivated to make a change.

As a complement to our Home Energy Report, we also offer a website that has more detailed advice on how to reduce home energy use.  The website also offers people a chance to interact with other members of their community, sharing ideas and tips with each other on energy efficiency.

MB: Who are your customers and how do they benefit?

CP:  Our utility clients benefit by reducing demand.  They may be able to delay or avoid adding a new plant, which is a substantial investment.  In many states there are financial incentives built into utility rate structures that provide plenty of reasons for utilities to be excited about this.  This phenomenon is called decoupling – that is, the decoupling of sales volume from profits.  There is a lot of momentum behind energy efficiency these days.  For example, there are funds in the economic stimulus package focused on energy efficiency.

I should also mention that in a completely deregulated state, like Texas, our value proposition for utilities is that we will help their customers save money and the utilities can use that as part of an acquisition strategy.

For end users, the benefit is that they are saving money on utility bills.  While energy utilities have been promoting efficiency for decades, our product is the first to offer contextual information in a way that truly motivates users to act.  We have set up control groups to compare those who receive our products to those who are not and on average we have seen a 2% energy reduction across the whole pilot group so far, and certain homes save more.  On a cost per energy unit basis, we do extremely well.

MB:  If a home-owner is already using less energy than their neighbors, what type of behavior does their home energy report encourage?

CP:  For those using the least amount of energy, we give them positive reinforcement and applaud them.  In fact, we tell them that they fall into the most efficient 20% of homes.  That group is the 20% of homes who are using the least energy compared to their peers.  We want to encourage them to stay in that group.  At the same time, for those consumers who have average energy usage compared to their peers, we show what it will take to get into the more efficient group.

MB:  How did you get involved and what is your role with Positive Energy?

CP:  I have a background in energy policy and business, so this was a good fit for me.  I looked at a lot of energy companies.  A big reason why I came to Positive Energy is the talented team.  I think it is a great, growing industry, but what impressed me about Positive Energy in particular is the management team.  The leaders have a solid experience base that has propelled us forward and leads to great results for us.

I am part of the product management team.  I focus on the consumer content and communications. As part of this, I ensure we have a solid fact base behind our energy efficiency recommendations. I then work to package information in a way that is accessible and helpful to consumers.  Another important piece of what I do is targeting recommendations and messages to the right customers.  For instance, if you are a pool owner or a renter, certain things are going to be more relevant to you than others. We segment customers so that our materials will be targeted and therefore effective.

MB:  One thing that isn’t clear to me is whether Positive Energy requires smart meters or more contemporary metering technology in order to provide value.

CP:  One of the strengths of the Positive Energy business model is that we can work with any infrastructure.  We use whatever energy data our utility clients have.  Meters that are read monthly, daily meters, 15 min. meters – all of these can be accommodated.  The granularity of the data can make it more interesting, but valuable context can be provided even at a monthly level.  That’s why our products are already doing well in the marketplace today; only about 5% of homes currently have some type of advanced meters, so that market is still very new.

MB:  How has the economy influenced things for you?

CP:  No matter what the economy is, people want to save money.  With the current climate, people are especially focused on it.  Generally, energy prices are trending upward, so we don’t see opportunities to help consumers and utilities going away.

In terms of financing, just as the market was about to take a beating we were successful in raising a round of venture funding.  So we are fortunate to be in a position where we do not need to raise any more capital.

MB:  I noticed that Positive Energy has a number of jobs posted on the CleanTechies job board.  What else might be interesting to someone considering Positive Energy as a career option?

CP:  I think Positive Energy would appeal to people interested in a smaller, entrepreneurial setting.  We are a little over 30 people now.  We are growing very quickly – our staff, our clients and our product feature set.  It’s a very exciting time to work here.

I already mentioned how great our team is.  One thing I like about working here is that not only is the team incredibly talented, we are also down to earth and we have fun working together.  We do weekly lunches and occasional social outings to keep our culture going strong.

Also, the location is great. Our headquarters is in Arlington, VA across the river from Washington, D.C. We have a beautiful view and it’s an easy commute no matter where you live in the area. We are a block from the Metro (public transportation) and several people here bike into the office most of the year, given the nice climate we have.  I relocated from San Francisco, CA to take this job and I’m very happy about my decision.

MB:  Any advice for an applicant?

CP:  Spend some time learning about the industry, because there are nuances in the utility space.  Also, as a software company, we value experience in that space.  We look for a solid expertise in the role and function, and at the same time we look for versatility.

MB:  What is next for Positive Energy?  Is Positive Energy looking to expand beyond energy related activities, like water for instance?

Right now we work with energy utility companies of all types, including municipal and investor-owned.  Some of our clients offer electricity service, some offer natural gas service and some offer both.  Water could be an interesting area.  One thing to keep in mind is that the energy utility sector is so large that we have a significant runway for growth.

We talk with behavior change experts in other industries like personal health and wellness.  It turns out there are many potential applications of behavioral science.  But like I said, there is such an opportunity to address the energy space, that right now we are very focused on that market.

Catherine Potter’s bio

Catherine Potter joined Positive Energy as Manager of Consumer Content in July 2008.  Catherine has a background in energy policy and business strategy.  She served as an adviser to a U.S. Senator on energy and environmental policy, including standards for automobile fuel economy and appliance efficiency.   Also she worked as a Consultant at Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, on a range of projects, including growth strategy for technology and telecommunications clients.  She holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she graduated in the top 10% of her class, and a BA from the University of Chicago.

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Positive Energy

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Hold on to your hat. It’s getting breezy out there.

Seems everywhere you go on the Internet, they’re remembering a great year for wind in 2008 and predicting a decent one in 2009. What? In this economy? Yes.

Wind energy grew by more than 8,300 megawatts in the U.S. in 2008, the most ever, the American Wind Energy Association said recently. That’s enough to power more than 2 million homes. The wind industry also is gaining on the coal industry when it comes to the number of jobs (80,000+), according to a fact-checker at the Christian Science Monitor.

AWEA says 2009 won’t be as rosy, but the group predicts this year holds promise, with a new president who’s pushing an economic stimulus package, national renewable energy standards and caps on carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants.

State policies have helped increase wind capacity in the U.S. and proven the sector has real job power. Currently, more than 25 states have RPSes, or renewable portfolio standards requiring utilities to get a certain percentage of their power from renewables like wind and solar. Coal is the current workhorse on the U.S. electrical grid.

Obama has pledged to double the amount of renewable energy production from 7 to 14 percent. Seems pretty ambitious, but industry experts say it can be done.

So when you’re planning your calendar this year, save some dates for the numerous green job conferences being held around the country. And bring your resume, if you’re so inclined.

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