Blog

  Last September, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) made a market-shaping decision to increase the state’s reliance on private capital for energy efficiency financing. The CPUC allocated $65.9 million for a suite of financing pilot programs for the state’s investor-owned utilities.   The new suite of programs be offered by all of the state’s […]

A new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy ranks America’s 34 largest cities on what they are doing to save energy and costs in five key areas.   The 2013 City Energy Efficiency Scorecard found that the top cities are Boston, Portland, and New York and San Francisco tied at third. The report […]

For the first time ever, solar growth is expected to outpace new wind capacity. An analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that 36.7 GW in new solar PV capacity will be added this year, compared with 35.5 GW in new wind installations.   BNEF said there will is a slowdown in wind production, especially […]

  In 2012, renewable energy – largely wind and solar – accounted for nearly 50 percent of all new electric generation put on the U.S. grid, found a new Ernst & Young report. About 13.1 gigawatts of wind were added to the grid last year, as well as 3.3 gigawatts of photovoltaics (PV).   Michael […]

  A new high-performance LED driver has been developed by researchers from the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering. The driver will provide brighter, more energy-efficient LED light bulbs.   How does it do it? The driver provides power to the light bulbs via a “multi-level PWM” or pulse-width modulation. This innovative approach has showed […]

  A new market analysis by SEIA and GTM Research shows that America’s solar industry is currently on pace to achieve a record-shattering year.   The analysis showed that the U.S. market installed 832 megawatts of new PV systems in the second quarter of 2013 – a 15 percent increase over the first three months […]

  If you study the energy industry, you’d find that we are in the middle of a revolution right now. Everyone from manufacturers improving appliances to consumers renovating their homes, energy efficiency is taking the country by storm.   In a recent article in Energy Manager Today, Danielle Stewart examines how America is making brighter, […]

  The California state legislature bill AB 327 passed and is now awaiting Governor Jerry Brown’s signature. The bill seeks to essentially remove the “cap” from California’s renewable energy portfolio standard (RPS), which is already one of the most aggressive in the nation.   Currently, California state law requires power companies to generate 33 percent […]

  The Consulting-Specifying Engineer website recently brought together a panel of professionals in engineering to discuss building commissioning.   The panel answered questions including the most commonly overlooked issue in commissioning, how energy and sustainability requirements have affected commissioning, and describing a recent lighting and control system.   Read what the panelists had to say […]