Electric car infrastructure startup Better Place and Danish rail operator DSB have a vision to link electric vehicles, car sharing networks, trains and mobile devices into one high-tech, eco-utopian transportation system in Denmark. The duo has just announced an agreement to install charging stations for electric vehicles at “a number of major Danish train stations,” and [...]
Just days after the White House outlined its strategy for bolstering the home energy retrofit market, a new report from research and publishing firm McGraw-Hill Construction predicts the market for nonresidential green building retrofits is set to soar and represents a better opportunity for designers and builders than new construction. The market for such retrofit projects, which [...]
The first U.S. solar IPO in a year could be coming soon, but the merger and acquisition market is what will be bringing in exits and cash for solar startups. Yesterday MEMC Electronic Materials, a company that makes silicon wafers for the solar industry, announced that it plans to buy up SunEdison, one of the [...]
Colorado residents who have signed up to buy a luxury electric sports car from Tesla Motors in 2009 will get to speed through a giant loop hole in the state’s tax code, and get a $42,083 tax credit over five years on the vehicle. But if you want to get in on the deal now, [...]
There’s quite a few reasons to cheer Microsoft’s next-generation operating system, Windows 7, which launched today — it could drive down the price of computers, help you ditch Vista once and for all, and couldchange the dynamics of the memory business. But here’s another: Windows 7 has some nifty new power management functions that will [...]
Just two months ago, Ford Motor launched a trial of a software system meant to enable communication between its plug-in vehicles and the power grid, by way of smart meters and a Zigbee wireless connection. At the time, Ford’s Nancy Gioia, recently named director of Ford Global Electrification, told us Ford would consider developing a [...]
What can software do for hybrid fuel economy? Ford Motor and researchers at the University of Michigan plan to find out in a new project meant to speed development of more fuel-efficient hybrid systems. According to an announcement from Ford yesterday, the pair will run up to 175,000 computer design simulations of hybrid control systems, [...]
Skyline Solar wouldn’t seem to have the best timing. The startup, which makes concentrating photovoltaic systems, launched out of stealth mode in the midst of a solar shakeout. But the Mountain View, Calif.-based startup is finding the silver lining of the economic downturn: reduced demand in the automotive industry, which has opened up manufacturing [...]
Apple’s iPhone has apps for Car 2.0, for home energy management and for fuel efficiency. Now here’s one for clean power that I wasn’t expecting to see: a wind speed tester courtesy of small wind turbine maker Mariah Power. Todd Woody profiles the app in the New York Times’ Green Inc. blog this morning, and [...]
The wireless standard WiMAX might not be the sexiest of topics, but maybe the smart grid can lend it some buzz. This morning Grid Net, a startup that has developed smart grid software based on WiMAX, is officially launching itself, unveiling its software product and announcing Australian utility customer SP AusNet, as well as a [...]
From hybrid heavyweights Toyota and Honda, to Nissan, with its visions of electric world domination, to smaller brands like Suzuki, Subaru and Mitsubishi, Japan’s automakers are gearing up for a global hybrid and electric blitz. Some of the front runners in that move are on display at the Tokyo Motor Show, which kicked off Wednesday [...]
Carbon capture and sequestration — taking carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities, and shoving them underground — represents one of the higher stakes bets in the fight against climate change. It’s unproven at large scale, yet deemed essential by the International Energy Agency and Energy Secretary Steven Chu as a tool [...]
When Darryl Siry, former Chief Marketing Officer for electric car maker Tesla, calculated the “implied value” for secretive ultracapacitor maker EEStor at over $1.5 billion, based on the entirety of Zenn Motor’s market cap, he was being somewhat cheeky. But the reasoning behind the calculation is the reality: The Canadian electric vehicle maker has given [...]
A new report published this week by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab offers valuable insight culled from a decade’s worth of data into perhaps the most important metric in the PV industry: installed system costs before financial incentives. Because these incentives, like government tax rebates, can’t be counted on forever, installed costs — or the [...]
