Berkeley Labs has been working on an open source version of a system for demand response services for the power grid (called openADR) for more than five years. But only one company in that time has commercialized a version of the open source platform — a sign that utilities are very far from embracing open [...]

  Think of it as a phone plan, but instead of minutes to gab each month, you get insurance coverage for a certain number of miles driven in a set period of time. That’s the basic idea behind pay-as-you-drive auto insurance policies. The concept has been tossed around for years as a way to discourage extra [...]

  Meet the Tesla Roadster Sport: Model updates to the Tesla Roadster for 2010, including push button controls and a touch screen for checking battery statistics, make “the previous generation car seem like something hacked together in a garage.” — CNET’s Car TechChina Solar Snaps Up ThinSilicon: China Solar Power, which makes thin film [...]

  Can an open source data management system do for the smart grid what Google’s open mobile operating system Android is doing for cell phones — spawn innovation and low cost development? Execs at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the largest public power provider in the U.S., seem to think so. TVA analyst Josh Patterson says [...]

  Picture this: You hop on Interstate 280 in San Francisco, close in on a line of cars, and then kick back and relax — taking your hands off the wheel and foot off the accelerator — until you get to Sand Hill Road half an hour later and opt to peel off from the group. [...]

  Updated with additional info from ActaCell: Lithium-ion battery startup ActaCell has just added the state of Texas to its corral of high-profile backers. The state is providing a “pre-seed award” of $250,000 to ActaCell, according to a release from the Austin-based company this morning, and putting another $750,000 on “reserve” for the startup, which nabbed [...]

  Energy management could end up being the killer app for the slow-moving home automation market. Well, at least companies selling products like broadband-based home security are rapidly moving to add energy to their lineups. Here’s the latest: iControl, a 5-year-old startup backed by some of the biggest names in venture capital and networking announced this [...]

  You know a topic has suddenly gone mainstream when 60 Minutes directs its in-depth lens on it. Last night the CBS News show aired a piece called Sabotaging the System, which takes a look at the very real threat that cyber hackers pose on the power grid. What struck me most from the show was [...]

  What do 10 young companies building technologies as varied as fuel cells, solar manufacturing, battery subscription services, and coal gasification technology all have in common? They’re all finalists for the Ignite Clean Energy business plan competition in Massachusetts, and on Tuesday they will be competing for cash prizes in front of judges and an audience. [...]

  Green Consumer Habits in the Recession: American consumers, with their tendency to make green purchasing choices based on personal self-interest, have more in common with their counterparts in developing economies than one might ever have imagined. — Joel Makower’s Two Steps ForwardBuilding the EV Ecosystem: “Parts suppliers for electric-powered vehicles, many of them small specialty [...]

  Smart grid firm GridPoint has pretty much the most aggressive acquisition strategy around. This morning the company, which raised raised $120 million towards the end of 2008 to help fund a shopping spree, announced that it has purchased Roanoke, Va.-based energy management company ADMMicro. The acquisition represents the third startup (following smart charging company V2Green, [...]

  Taxi2, a new cab-sharing service unveiled today by Virgin Atlantic, represents a new spin on an old idea for the age of Car 2.0, in which vehicles, communication networks and information technology increasingly intersect. The free, web-based service, just launched in beta testing for Virgin’s New York and London routes, matches passengers based on their [...]

  A bevy of companies now offer flashy software packages for tracking an organization’s carbon footprint. But engineering software developer Autodesk believes existing solutions don’t do enough to tie international climate targets (i.e., the IPCC’s 80 percent greenhouse gas reduction by 2050) to a company’s own emissions reduction goals. In fact, there hasn’t been a way [...]

  People Power, the latest Silicon Valley venture focused on the home energy management space, will officially launch today, hoping its consumer-friendly product design and open-source home area network platform will make it stand out in an increasingly crowded industry. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup has raised an undisclosed amount in its first venture round from [...]