Tag: Energy

Energy reads

john

* bcurtisBLOG » People are talking about water… — nice chart on where all our water goes. Only 13% for household use. A huge amount to thermoelectric power generation.
* Tom Evslin on energy policy. Great points — we need a country-wide BHAG with respect to energy — an Apollo-type program. And the government can lead through its own purchasing policies.
* Small scalable wind turbines — pretty cool looking.
* One man’s experience with solar thermal here in Seattle — the numbers look good.
* Ten fastest green cars on the planet — Karl’s car looks awesome
* REI trialing solar — I wonder if Fat Spaniel is part of the setup
* Solar shingles — love this idea, embedding green technology right into structural materials

Home energy stuff

john

Very interested in products that make us smarter about our energy use at home. Sean reports on his use of TED — the TED device lets you get finegrained reports on your electricity use, and with a little playing around you can get smart about use circuit-by-circuit as Sean reports. I have to try one of these out.

Silver Spring Networks seems to be building out a really complete energy monitoring and reporting solution, worth learning about.

Phil highlights some recent comments from Doerr on the energy opportunity — excellent elevator speech

Interesting energy reads — Cogeneration At Home: Ceramic Fuel Cells And Bloom Energy; Solar as a Service; Vacuum-insulated windows; Solar roof tiles

john

* The Oil Drum | Cogeneration At Home: Ceramic Fuel Cells And Bloom Energy
* “Solar as a Service” — i like the phrasing
* Vacuum-insulated glass windows — makes sense, I wonder what the effective life of these are
* Solar Roof Tiles — nice notion. It will be interesting to see the degree to which we can embed solar and green technology into everyday materials.

Greentech PPA Report

john

Good summary of this report — Clean Energy Future by Arno Harris: GreenTech’s PPA Report — Key Insight on Leased Buildings:

* In 2009, PPAs will be established as the standard way that American businesses pay for on-site green power, bringing solar to commercial rooftops of mainstream America with yearly additional growth of 30-50%.
* In 2008 the clear majority of new commercial installations will be third-party
managed, with 65-75% of the market.
* In 2007, of the national commercial and institutional solar market, an estimated
50% was developed under PPAs, up from 10% in 2006.
* The PPA segment has not only outstripped conventional commercial PV sales, it has also expanded the market — acquiring new customers that would not have purchased solar hardware.
* PPA companies will continue to drive down costs with innovations across the entire
value chain.