June 29, 2010

These days in New York, it seems whatever The Solar Energy Consortium (TSEC) touches turns to green.

The nonprofit has been building up a supply chain across the state for the last three years by helping companies bring on new, solar-related manufacturing processes and jobs.

It helped turn a decommissioned IBM plant in Fishkill, N.Y., into a solar cell plant. An old Panasonic facility in Highland now makes solar panel films with the same equipment that used to make plasma TVs. [More]

June 29, 2010

Pie in the Sky, a seemingly simple store that offers customers fresh-baked desserts, is providing a second treat: weatherization.

Local resident Malea Guiriba opened the pie shop in the small town of Hastings, Fla., last summer and started using part of the store's profits to help weatherize homes of low-income residents in the area. She did all the work herself and had no salary. [More]

June 28, 2010

The city of Brea, Calif. had a problem: The lighting in its Brea Junior High Park was becoming obsolete. The park, one of the busiest maintained by this northern Orange County city, needed the lighting for nighttime use of its sports fields and courts. The existing system was not only extremely inefficient, but scheduled to be phased out of production. That meant the city would soon be unable to buy replacement bulbs.

But due to the budget problems plaguing municipalities across California and the country, Brea had trouble finding the money to pay for a complete retrofit - especially because the savings to the city from more efficient lights would not be large enough to repay the investment quickly. [More]

June 28, 2010

Anyone who has taken an introductory biology course might remember that in a symbiotic relationship, one organism lives on or near another organism so that both species benefit.

While McCormick & Company, Inc. and Constellation Energy are certainly not reminiscent of any creatures covered in Biology 101, their recent power purchasing agreement (PPA) is a reminder that in some cases, mutualism can work. [More]

June 28, 2010

On the street level in Reno, it may be easy to forget that every time the breeze blows off the Truckee River and past the 17-story City Hall, the town is quietly saving money.

But the $11,000 the city is expected to save each year from wind power will be a friendly reminder. Installed in early June, the two 1.5-kilowatt wind turbines on City Hall also make Reno one of the first cities in the nation to capture and generate energy from wind from the rooftop of a city hall building. [More]

June 28, 2010

As the director of the Montana Weatherization Training Center, Mike Vogel knows that the field of weatherization is changing. That's why after 20 years of training workers, the center now offers a program that is not limited to its location in Bozeman, or even to the state of Montana itself.

After receiving a $354,000 partnership grant from the National Community Action Foundation and ExxonMobil in early June, the training center is producing WxTV (Weatherization Television Network), a weekly weatherization show available on the Internet. The training center is affiliated with Montana State University Extension. [More]

June 28, 2010

The Timken Company - which will be 111-years-old later this year - has a long tradition of investing in new technologies. After assessing their business in recent years, the Ohio-based, global manufacturer saw a market opportunity and decided to invest in a new manufacturing capability: producing the massive bearings for large wind turbines.

"Timken has the tenacity to continue to invest into the trough of the recession," says Lorrie Crum, manager of global media and strategic communications. "That’s what it takes to survive in this economic climate."

Using a 48C Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit, the company will retool production processes in its Union, S.C. plant-known as Tyger River-to manufacture heavy-duty bearings responsible for producing power from wind turbines. [More]

June 28, 2010

City official for the Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. was interested in sustainability long before federal funding available to help communities improve energy efficiency. So when the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants became available, the city and residents were bursting with ideas.

"When the EE block grant came along, it fit in very nicely with the city's existing priorities," says Joshua Torres, Energy Efficiency Coordinator for the city. "We had our own internal process where we solicited ideas from all the different departments across the city, for what we'd like to do with this grant money. We ultimately submitted [the result] as part of our application." [More]

June 28, 2010

The fire station is a building that is in use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so naturally it consumes a significant amount of energy," says Molly Whitehead, grants specialist for the Indiana Office of Energy Development.

Given constant use and the importance of fire stations to surrounding communities, the Indiana Office of Energy Development awarded funds from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant to improve energy efficiency at some local fire stations. [More]

June 25, 2010

INEOS Bio-one of the 17 global companies of the chemicals company INEOS-is on schedule to begin construction this fall on the new Indian River BioEnergy Center near Vero Beach, Fla. The INEOS facility-which was formerly a grapefruit processing plant for Ocean Spray-will produce nearly eight million gallons of bioethanol per year from renewable biomass including yard, wood and vegetable waste.

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Department of Energy provide 50:50 cost-matching grants to 19 integrated biorefinery projects throughout the country. INEOS Bio was selected to for a matching grant of up to $50 million, which will fund the construction for the new center. [More]

June 25, 2010

When Tony Petelos became the mayor of Hoover in 2004, the police fleet was run down. Within the next year, Petelos, with support from the community, called for a big change: switch out the old police fleet with new, flexible-fueled vehicles.

Flexible-fueled vehicles are specially designed to run on gasoline or any blend of up to 85 percent ethanol. The fleet is now made up of nearly 200 cars and more than 150 equipment vehicles, with 88 percent of the fleet running on either biodiesel or corn ethanol. [More]

June 25, 2010

Rancho Cucamonga, east of Los Angeles, received a $1.6 million Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block grant from the U.S. Department of Energy last year, using money authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Among the city's many uses of the Recovery Act funds are two different programs intended to encourage more energy efficient homes. One, the Home Improvement Loan Program, targets low-income residents who'd like to make major repairs or improvements in their homes. The other is the Energy Efficiency Reimbursement Program, open to any city resident who purchases and installs an energy efficient appliance.

"I think we wanted to have the biggest impact we could and assist the largest number of people, but focusing most on those in need and trying to help people who maybe wouldn't do improvements otherwise," says Tom Grahn, an associate planner for the city. [More]

June 25, 2010

The steady increase of wind power on the grid presents new challenges for power system operators charged with making sure the grid stays up and running.

"We need to ensure that we are going down a path that will lead to better reliability [with wind power]," said Bob Zavadil, an executive vice president at EnerNex Corporation in Knoxville, Tenn., a firm specializing in renewable energy grid interconnection and integration. "If this piece isn't done, there will be problems."

EnerNex has spent the last decade perfecting wind turbine and plant models that test a wind plant's influence on the grid and its ability to provide grid support. In its latest effort, the company is using American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds worth $750,000 to develop documentation and validations of computer wind turbine models. [More]

June 24, 2010

It takes a lot of work – and energy – to keep a herd of alpacas, known for their lustrous, long wool coats, happy and healthy. But, by harnessing the sun to power their 12-acre farm, a Georgia couple has shown they are up to the task.

Larry and Cathi Dietsch, owners of Destiny Alpacas in Young Harris, are reaping the benefits of the 2.4 kilowatt solar power system they installed on top of their barn last year, earning cash from the extra energy produced. [More]

June 24, 2010

Ajani Stewart loves his job.

As Environmental Coordinator for the Office of Sustainable Initiatives in Miami, Stewart manages projects funded by a $4.7 million Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG), as well as the city's green initiatives and recycling programs.

But when a drastic decline of real estate tax revenue prompted by the economic recession started a city-wide budget crisis last year, Stewart was on the verge of being laid off as the city contemplated difficult choices in an attempt to balance the budget. Had nothing been done, Stewart's layoff would have likely come last September. [More]

June 24, 2010

Caliente, Nev., has a unique city hall: a historic railroad depot. Built in 1923 as a maintenance center halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, the depot is known far outside southeastern Nevada for its role in railway history and its Mission Revival architecture. There was just one problem: it was built before central heating or air-conditioning. [More]

June 24, 2010

Since the 1980s, Metglas, Inc. has manufactured an amorphous metal alloy with unique mechanical and magnetic properties. The alloy is primarily used to construct the cores of highly efficient electrical transformers called Amorphous Metal Transformers (AMTs), which are used on power grids to manage the distribution of electricity from power plants to residential, commercial and industrial buildings.

"Electricity is transmitted across power lines at very high voltage, and transformers are needed to reduce that voltage to a usable level," says Dave Millure, Metglas' Senior VP of Sales and Marketing. "Amorphous Metal Transformers can be more energy efficient than traditional silicon steel transformers, which means that power plants don't have to generate as much electricity to begin with." [More]

June 24, 2010

A solar thermal water-heating system at the justice center in Maryville, Tenn., is helping to reduce energy consumption and cut costs for Blount County.

Funded by $300,000 of the $501,600 Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) awarded to Blount County through the Recovery Act, the solar thermal water-heating system will retrofit the detention facility's existing gas-powered water-heating system. Specifically, the solar thermal water-heating system will serve kitchen and laundry machines at the center. Power for the renewable energy source will come from a solar panel array that will be installed on the center's roof starting in September. [More]

June 24, 2010

In what looks and feels more like an e-book on the iPad than a website, a new digital book by Cannon Power Group, a San Diego-based developer of utility-scale wind, tells the story of the construction of a 400 MW wind farm along a 26-mile stretch in Goldendale, Wash., located on a ridgeline plateau about 125 miles east of Portland, Ore.

"The New American Farm" chronicles the stages of the Windy Flats/Windy Point project in seven interactive chapters: from "Prospecting" (finding the right site) to "Planting" (installing 175, 300-foot turbines) to "Harvest" (distributing the wind energy). [More]

June 22, 2010

Trident Technical College in Charleston, SC., has added another sustainability component to its curriculum: weatherization.

A program already filled with renewable energy courses, TTC Green, now offers training and certification for technicians. This training, available for anyone from novices to the experienced, teaches how to weatherize the diverse array of homes in the muggy Charleston area to be more energy efficient.

Two of the school's continuing education courses, both under three weeks in length, offer certification to individuals with weatherization backgrounds, giving them additional credentials and skills in the industry. TTC Green also provides a seven-week course for individuals wishing to enter the industry. [More]