Boulder Wind Power, NREL receive Energy Department grants

Boulder Wind Power, a Boulder-based company developing wind turbine generator technology, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden were two of six entities to receive a portion of nearly $7.5 million in grants from the Department of Energy to further “next-generation” turbine drivetrains, agency officials announced Monday. Boulder Wind Power's project involves the testing of a magnet-based direct-drive generator for large turbines; NREL will test a hybrid design that involves both a single-stage gearbox and a magnet generator, Energy Department officials said.  Other organizations and companies to receive awards include Advanced Magnet Lab, of Palm Bay, Fla., to develop a superconducting direct-drive generator; Clipper...

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Study: U.S. Cable Boxes/DVR's Fail at Energy Efficiency

The Natural Resources Defense Council has conducted a study that places the spotlight on how inefficient cable boxes and DVR's are in American homes. These boxes, which guide cable signals and digital recording capacity into televisions, run at a constant rate and can utilize more power than a new refrigerator or air conditioning unit. According to the study, there are 160 million set-top boxes in the U.S., and this number is increasing. These boxes run 24 hours per day, even when they're not being used. The study found that add-on DVR's use an additional 40 percent more power than the set-top box.  The Natural Resources Defense Council found that these boxes consume $3 billion in electricity per year in the U.S.,...

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Middle East's Push Toward Renewable Energy Spurred by Rising Oil Prices

There's a revolution sweeping the Middle East that has nothing to do with street uprisings or Twitter protests. It's a clean energy upheaval with international implications that could transform the Arab world from North Africa to the Persian Gulf. Solar plants are cropping up in Jordan and Morocco. Wind farms are being built in Egypt and Tunisia. Eight Arab nations and the Palestinian territories have a renewable energy target, and at least five more are taking serious steps to promote the domestic use of clean energy. Some of the most surprising movement is happening in oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.Perhaps taking a page from Masdar, the famous carbon-zero city in the United Arab Emirates, these countries are spending their...

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Oklahoma tribe unveils solar energy project

An Anadarko-based American Indian tribe unveiled a solar energy project on Wednesday that tribal officials said would save it thousands of dollars and could lead to new jobs coming to southwestern Oklahoma.The construction of the 37.5-kilowatt solar array on the roof of the Delaware Nation's complex north of Anadarko will supply 30 percent of the complex's electricity, tribal President Kerry Holton said. The solar array should be finished by next month and a sign already hangs outside the headquarters building that reads "These buildings are powered by the sun."To pay for the project, the Delaware Nation received a $250,000 federal grant from stimulus funds and Holton said the tribe matched that amount. He said the tribe will recoup its costs...

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Smart Ways To Cut Energy Costs At Home

Those costly winter heating bills might be out of sight momentarily, but they are never really out of mind.If the thought of opening an electric bill this summer has you sweating even more than the heat itself, consider some ways to cut costs while simultaneously shrinking your carbon footprint.Choosing energy-efficient products, making a few small repairs and adjusting some behavior can help consumers keep dollars from pouring out their often-drafty windows. Applying Efficiency Those familiar ENERGY STAR labels might be blue, but the products they represent have been helping consumers go green, and save green, since 1992.A joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, and the U.S. Department of Energy, ENERGY...

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EcoFactor: Using big data to reduce home energy by 17%

EcoFactor, a startup that uses big data tools to act as a new brain for connected thermostats, has some stellar results from ten different trials where it automated the process of turning up and down consumer’s thermostats. The company,which launched at the end of 2009, says that on average its services can reduce a person’s home energy use by 17 percent compared to a programmable but non-optimized thermostat.That’s a 17 percent reduction in a consumer’s energy bill, too, and EcoFactor found it could reduce consumer’s bills by up to $56 per month when its service was used. EcoFactor did many of its trials during demand response events for utilities, which are times (like a really hot day) when a utility wants to turn down the energy consumption...

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