Posted: 2010-09-02
Commonwealth Edison, an electric utility with operations in the Chicago area, plans to leverage its 130,000-unit network of smart meters to determine how the smart grid of the future will look.
ComEd announced this week that it is planning a five-pronged strategy in its smart grid initiative, dubbed the Smart Grid Innovation Corridor. One component of its study will involve solar photovoltaic equipment; the solar PV test will determine how solar energy affects the ComEd grid and look at the customer benefits of solar power...
Posted: 2010-08-26
The town of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin is greening its school bus fleet.
The bus company that serves Oconomowoc's school district now owns 11 plug-in hybrid school buses, Milwaukee's Journal-Sentinel reports. Not only will the buses use electric power to save fuel - they will be juiced up with the help of solar energy. Oconomowoc Transport Co. operates the state's first solar-electric charging station...
Posted: 2010-08-25
Solar power will be even more affordable in 2015 than it is now, a new report from Vice President Joe Biden's office predicts.
The cost of energy from rooftop solar panels is about 21 cents per kilowatt-hour today. Within five years, Biden's office said, it will be just 10 cents per kWh. Utility-scale solar will get less expensive, too, moving from an average of 13 cents per kWh to 6 cents...
Posted: 2010-08-24
Personal power systems could be the wave of the future - just ask Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Daniel Nocera, Ph.D.
Nocera and others at MIT presented their personalized energy system this week at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society. The systems, Nocera explained, would use solar panels to provide electricity and heat for households during the day; they would also power a device called an "electrolyzer," which breaks down water into hydrogen and oxygen...
Posted: 2010-08-23
Solar-project developer American Capital Energy, Inc. expects its 2010 revenue to be three times what it was last year, Mass High Tech reports.
The CEO of the North Chelmsford, Massachusetts-based company, Tom Hunton, anticipates that ACE will earn $200 million this year - and he said the company plans to ramp up hiring in the coming months. ACE only has 20 people on the payroll in Massachusetts at the moment, Mass High Tech says...
Posted: 2010-08-19
Georgia homeowners and businesses are growing more interested in solar power, the head of the state public service commission says.
Lauren "Bubba" McDonald announced Thursday at the Southern Solar Summit that solar-energy demand has surged 50 percent in the past year. The increase, the Savannah Morning News says, came in Georgia Power Company's Green Energy Program, where consumers and companies can buy blocks of green electricity...