Posted by jumperhead on April 25th, 2008
The likes of the National Venture Capital association and PriceWaterhouseCoopers have released a nattily titled report. It bears the title The Money Tree. Greenbang fears this might be the only time she has access to a money tree, unless the genetic engineering experiments to create a cheeseplant that grows tenners instead of leaves come off.
So back to the Money Tree, and not the one in Greenbang’s lab. The report says venture capitalists spanked $7.1 billion in the first three months of the year, across 922 deals - a slight dip compared to the last quarter of 2007. Not to worry though,it’s still a crackerjack quarter, according to those in the know - fifth highest investment quarter since 2001.
So what does this mean for the clean tech lot? They notched up $625 million across 44 deals during the first quarter of this year. That’s down on the previous quarter by six percent and up 51 percent compared to the corresponding quarter in 2007.
And if clean tech needed some more bragging rights, it has them: apparently, the largest deal in the quarter was for a clean tech company with four out of the top ten big winners was a clean tech firm.
Posted by Petah Marian on April 25th, 2008
Unlike most Aussies in London, Daniel Labbad, the CEO of Lend Lease Retail and Communities UK has managed to stay out of his local Walkabout. Instead, he’s spent the last few years working on Lend Lease’s sustainable buildings projects - including the temple of commerce that is the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.
Labbad was at this week’s Living in a Low Carbon World conference, having a chat about the greening of Kentish mall.
One way the the company has come up with to get staff interested in green practices: bribe them. Sustainable practices are now a part of their performance bonuses - funnily enough, a very effective way of getting otherwise disinterested employees see the attraction of greener practices.
They’ve managed to sell sustainability to their clients not by adding it on as an additional cost but instead figuring into the fixed costs across the board.
With staff and contractors all on board, Lend Lease measured the carbon footprint of all of its UK operations in 2007 - and Bluewater showed up as contributing 65 percent of the whole emissions shebang.
After passing the bad news onto the teams in charge of Bluewater, carbon became a matter of pride for the Kentish folk who were ‘letting the side down’. Since then, Bluewater’s cut 10 percent off its carbon footprint this year alone.
Good work on the carbon cutting. No word if they’re working on cutting the number of lairy teenagers hanging around the cinema though.
Posted by jumperhead on April 24th, 2008
If you take late nineties proto-rave band The Shamen’s advice, e’s are good. If you take the philanthropic arm of Google’s advice (that’s Google.org), eSolar’s good.
Good enough to invest a shedload of cash in, that is.
eSolar has received a nice round $130 million from its investors, which include Google.org, Idealab, Oak Investment Partners and assorted yet unnamed others, which it will put towards the construction and deployment of pre-fabricated power plants.
eSolar’s stock in trade is modular solar power stations, which can supply between 33MW and 500MW of capacity.
Google’s is search, but it has spanked a fair few bob on all sorts of renewable energy. Here’s a recap:
• Brookings Institution: $200,000 to support a conference in spring 2008 on federal policy to promote plug-in hybrids
• CalCars: $200,000 multi-year grant to the California Cars Initiative to support their work educating the public about plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs)
• Electric Power Research Institute: $200,000 to support EPRI’s plug-in vehicle research and development program including participating in advanced infrastructure development, vehicle-to-grid technology demonstrations, and studies of the environmental and economic benefits of plug-ins
• Plug-In America: $100,000 to raise public awareness of and to advocate for plug-in transportation options
• Rocky Mountain Institute: $200,000 to partially fund an ‘Innovation Workshop’ to promote new strategies for greater production and market adoption of plug-in next-generation hybrid vehicles
• Dr. Willett Kempton at University of Delaware: $150,000 for megawatt plug-in to grid research and implementation planning
Posted by jumperhead on April 24th, 2008
If you say Green Card to Greenbang, you’d expect her to do a little bit of sick in her mouth at memories of Andi “because you’re worth it” McDowell and Gerard Depardieu’s sick making movie antics. But no, for Greenbang has a much better Green Card to talk about it.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then Greenbang will begin. Green Card is a natty conference taking place in Birmingham’s NEC on the 21st of May, with case studies from the private and public sector on how to “ensure a greener future” and there’ll be speakers from the likes of Centrica, Barclays Capital, Birmingham City Council and the Environment Agency.
For the full skinny go here.
There’s also the Greenlight Environmental awards up for grabs, courtesy of Kyocera, for programmes that “recognise individuals and organisations that have been instrumental in identifying and meeting an environmental challenge associated with their business, and/or promoting public awareness, understanding and active concern for the enhancement and protection of the environment.”
Sounds like you? Get entering then. There are four categories up for grabs:
- Public Sector
- Private Sector under 50 employees
- Private Sector over 50 employees
- IT or Office Products channel
The dealine’s been extended to 25 April so send them the goods sharpish - just tell them in 500 words the details of the project, its aims and its achievements. More info over at thegreencard.org.uk.
Posted by jumperhead on April 24th, 2008
How smart are smart grids? Could they do the super hard Sudoku in the Sunday papers? Do they have doctorates in astrophysics? Can they get into a packet of digestives without using their teeth?
Greenbang doesn’t know. She’s never had one around for tea. But what she does know is that the US Department of Energy is pretty damn keen on them. So keen, in fact, that it’s going to spend $50 million over five years on nine projects that it hopes will make the whole grid more efficient and “aim to reduce peak load electricity demand by at least 15 percent at distribution feeders—the power lines delivering electricity to consumers”.
All this sort of stuff will become more and more useful to folks for managing electricity demand when electric cars start sucking out power from the grid, and people with home solar systems start chucking it back in.
Here are the lucky smart grid winners, courtesy of the DoE:
Allegheny Power will develop the “West Virginia Super Circuit” in conjunction with West Virginia University (WVU) Research Park, WVU Advanced Power and Electricity Research Center, North Carolina State University, Research and Development Solutions, Augusta Systems, Inc., and Tollgrade Communications. They will improve distribution system performance, reliability, and security of electric supply through the integration of distributed resources and advanced technologies. (Duration: 5 years; Cost: $5.4 million
federal/4 million non-federal)
ATK Launch Systems, along with partners Rocky Mountain Power and P&E AUTOMATION, will demonstrate load reduction through an integrated network of diverse renewable generation technologies and intelligent automation. The project will integrate renewable generation and energy storage resources, including a novel compressed-air generation technology, wind-turbines, heat recovery systems, solar trough booster technology, a steam turbine, and hydro-turbine resources. (Duration: 5 years; Cost: $1.6 million federal/$2 million non-federal)
Chevron Energy Solutions will collaborate with Alameda County, PG&E, VRB Power Systems, SatCon Technology Corporation, the University of Wisconsin, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Energy and Environmental Economics to significantly reduce peak load and measurably improve power reliability at the Santa Rita Jail. The project will integrate solar energy, fuel cell, energy storage and control systems. (Duration: 3 years; Cost: $7 million federal/$7 million non-federal)
The City of Fort Collins, in cooperation with Larimer County, Colorado State University, InteGrid Lab, Community Foundation of Northern Colorado, the Governor’s Energy Office, Advanced Energy, Woodward, Spirae, and Eaton, will research, develop, and demonstrate a 3.5 megawatt coordinated and integrated system of Mixed Distributed Resources in Fort Collins to Achieve a 20-30 percent peak load reduction on multiple distribution feeders. (Duration: 3 years; Cost: $6.3 million federal/$4.9 million non-federal)
Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, Inc., along with Verizon, Innovative Power, Infotility, and Enernex, will develop and demonstrate methodologies to achieve true interoperability between a delivery company and end-use retail electric customers, enhancing the reliability of the distribution grid and the efficiency of its operations. (Duration: 3 years; Cost: $6.8 million federal/6.2 million non-federal)
The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) will collaborate with Exelon/ComEd, Galvin Electricity Initiative, S&C Electric, and others to develop and demonstrate a system that will achieve “perfect power” at the main campus of IIT through the implementation of distributed resources, advanced sensing, switching, feeder reconfiguration, and controls. This effort will be replicable at any municipality-sized system. (Duration: 5 years; Cost: $7 million federal/$5.2 million non-federal)
San Diego Gas and Electric will develop a dispatchable distribution feeder for peak load reduction and wind-farming in conjunction with: Horizon Energy Group, Advanced Control Systems, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the University of San Diego, Motorola, and Lockheed Martin. The project aims to prove the effectiveness of integrating multiple distributed energy resources with advanced controls and communication systems to improve stability and reduce peak loads on feeders/substations. (Duration: 3 years; Cost $6.9 million federal/$4 million non-federal)
The University of Hawaii, in cooperation with General Electric, Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc., Maui Electric Company, Columbus Electric Cooperative, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Sentech, and UPC Wind, will explore the management of distribution system resources for improved service quality and reliability, transmission congestion relief, and grid support functions. (Duration: 3 years; Cost: $7 million federal/$8 million non-federal)
The University of Nevada will collaborate with homebuilder Pulte Homes, Nevada Power Company, and GE Ecomagination to address the construction of energy efficient homes that overcome electricity grid integration, control, and communications issues by building integrated photovoltaic systems, battery energy storage, and consumer products linked to advanced meters that enable and facilitate an efficient response to consumer energy demands. (Duration: 5 years: Cost: $6.9 million federal/$13.9 million non-federal)
Posted by jumperhead on April 24th, 2008
Greenbang regularly brings you stories of research partnerships- bodies that come together with the purpose of enhancing the sum of human knowledge into all things green. However, it’s all too rare for her to be able to tell you how the partnerships went on - did they flourish, or flounder and split, like a scientific version of Fairport Convention?
Luckily today, Greenbang can bring you the results of a three-year research union between PSA Peugeot Citroën and Intelligent Energy in the form a spiffy new van sporting a prototype Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell.
The pair have been working on a system called the H2Origin. Here’s what it does:
This new-generation 10 kWe system delivers several important benefits:
• A range of 300 km, three times that of a conventional battery-powered EV
• Compact design for both the fuel cell stack and ancillary equipment, enabling integration into the front engine bay in place of the internal combustion engine.
• Vehicle start at temperatures as low as -20°C, representing a major advance for a fuel-cell powered vehicle.
A groundbreaking 700-bar hydrogen storage system also enhances mobility and makes the vehicle easier to operate:
• 70% more hydrogen can be carried on board, without any increase in the size or weight of the storage tanks.
• Range is extended, without having to plug the vehicle into a power source to recharge the batteries, enabling it to be used in a wider variety of applications.
• The hydrogen tanks are mounted on a sliding rack under the rear cargo area, making it fast and easy to swap in new ones. This offers a practical alternative to refueling at a service station and eliminates a major obstacle to the development of hydrogen vehicles.
Naturally, no word on when or if the public can get a look in.
This category is brought to you in association with Tandburg
Posted by Greenbang on April 24th, 2008
It seems to Greenbang that holding an energy-saving conference in Las Vegas is quite a funny thing to do. But if you are going to hold a global conference, why not do it in front of some show girls. You just get much more out of your meetings than you would with video conferencing.
Energy Camp is a meet-up dedicated to the reduction of information technology’s global carbon footprint. And what’s more, it’s run by our mate James Governor at GreenMonk - the man of a million brilliant quotes. Always good when you’re stuck on deadline.
The event will be held on April 28, 2008 in the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Convention Center (Level 3).
They say:
“Whether you’re an end user of technology, an IT professional, a vendor of hardware, software or infrastructure solutions, or an industry observer with an interest in technology’s energy consumption, Energy Camp is for you. Energy Camp is a collaborative forum where industry stakeholders will gather together to discuss the growing impact of today’s energy costs on IT’s bottom line, and the overarching importance of energy conservation and utilizing greener IT solutions and methods.”
So there.
Posted by jumperhead on April 24th, 2008
LA: it’s not all vacuous starlets and gangs and smog. No, it’s more than that. It’s vacuous starlets and gangs and smog and a brand spanking new green building ordinance, signed into law this week by the city’s mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
The Private Sector Green Building Plan will mean that builders putting up new homes for the serially rich and other assorted LA residents will be subject to some carrots and sticks to get them to meet the LEED green building standards.
Apparently, all this ordinance - only for those projects of 50,000 square feet or 50 units - will mean a cut of 80,000 tons of carbon by 2012.
According to the city, these will be those lovely juicy carrots and unbending sticks:
• Expedite processing through all departments, if LEED Silver designation is met.
• Initiate an ongoing review of city codes to ease use of environmentally sound and superior materials and processes.
• Create a cross-departmental Sustainability Team to review and revise green building policies and specific projects. They will meet weekly so that the development community can enjoy ongoing interaction with City staff.
• Direct City General Managers and department and agency heads (namely Planning, Building and Safety, Public Works, Water and Power, Transportation, and CRA) to train and certify their staff in green building methods and policies and/or as LEED Accredited Professionals. This training should be ongoing and appear in each departmental annual budget.
• Work with the Board of DWP Commissioners to continue to add DWP financial incentives for projects that meet green building standards.
• Create and confer the Mayor’s Annual Award of Excellence in Sustainable Design & Construction to recognize exemplary efforts by individuals and companies in the private sector.
Posted by jumperhead on April 23rd, 2008
Vodafone is going on a carbon cutting mission, taking a great big carbon coloured knife to its emissions. Big Red has its sights set on trimming half the carbon off its baseline (it’s a veritable game of carbon tennis!) of 1.23 million tonnes by 2020.
Thankfully, it’s not turning to the usual ‘we’re going to plant a few more trees and turn off our kettles’ but is instead going for more investment in renewables as well as doing more work on its energy efficiency. So there might be a bit of kettle-switching off, then.
The mobile operator also reckons it’ll be encouraging its users to take up products that cut down on their own emissions - like “solar-powered phone chargers and universal phone chargers for Vodafone-branded handsets”. Would a universal charger for all mobiles be too much to ask? Would it? Harrumph.
Anyway, here’s more from the folk at Newbury:
We have reviewed the options, including carbon off-setting, and have concluded that the most effective strategy is to cut our CO2 emissions directly. There are no simple solutions to what is a complex challenge, but through operational changes and technological innovation we will focus on improving energy efficiency in our networks, which account for 80% of our emissions. We will use renewable energy when and where we can.
Posted by jumperhead on April 23rd, 2008
Electrabel, E.ON Kraftwerke and Hitachi have decided three is not in fact a crowd, it’s the magic number for getting your head down and solving a case of bad flue.
The threesome have teamed up on a carbon capture project that will “design, build and operate a test facility to investigate the behaviour of different solvents in the process for CO2 capture from flue gases” and see how they work on a genuine flue, processing 5,000 Nm³/h.
In a move that inexplicably reminds Greenbang of the Wheelies in Chorlton and the Wheelies, the threesome said the test site “can move to locations in Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium or other European countries whatever is technically most interesting”.
Electrabel and E.ON will provide the power plant sites, Hitachi will design, set up and build the test facility and supply staff.
And there’s more:
The relatively large scale of the test installation will deliver reliable data as to allow scale-up.
In order to reconcile competitiveness, security of energy supply and the fight against climate change, the utilities Electrabel and E.ON Kraftwerke are basing their strategy on a diversification of energy sources and sustainable and flexible solutions.
Electrabel and E.ON Kraftwerke want to maintain also in future a high fuel flexibility that currently characterizes its electric power plants.
In this framework, they are interested in building knowledge and hands-on experience in Post Combustion Capture, to improve this process and prepare for possible subsequent scale-up for Post Combustion Capture on new to build or existing plants.
