The Department of Energy earlier this week announced $18 million in funding grants from the recovery act to support innovation coming from small clean energy businesses. Here’s a look at three of the recipients focused on the green building industry: Chelix, KaZaK and Trinity Thermal Systems. The technologies developed could find ready customers in the growing [...]

  Despite all the attention on battery technology for energy storage for the power grid in the latest round of smart grid stimulus funds, current battery technology is just too expensive to be mass deployed right now, according to analysts at Black and Veatch. “Unless battery technology makes dramatic advances soon, B&V doesn’t see them being [...]

  After you take time to appreciate your family and Thanksgiving feast, start easing your mind back into the world of renewable energy, climate change and green technologies with these ten things in greentech to be thankful for this year. In addition to these ten trends and events, of course, we’re thankful for our insightful readers. [...]

  Sometimes a week in the fickle world of international climate change politics can deliver a whole new ball game. Last week politicians and pundits were decrying that the Copenhagen climate talks, which are now 12 days away, would not include a formal pact given the U.S. Senate had failed to pass its climate bill. Without [...]

  Obama Heading to Copenhagen: The White House announced today that President Obama will attend the UN climate talks next month in Copenhagen “and commit the U.S. to a short-term emission reduction target ‘in the range of 17 percent’ below 2005 levels, providing new momentum for negotiations that had been faltering.” — Washington PostCali Unveils Cap [...]

  Solyndra, the well-funded maker of tube-shaped solar panels based in Fremont, Calif., has just scored a deal with Milan, Italy-based solar integrator Sun System. Under an agreement that Solyndra says could be worth up to $105 million over several years, Sun System will use the 4-year-old startup’s cylindrical thin film systems for commercial rooftop installations [...]

  The second largest defense contractor Boeing was one of the few tech providers and the only defense firm that won grants in the $620 million round of smart grid stimulus funds announced yesterday (most of the winners, like in the $3.4 billion round of funding announced back in October, were utilities). So what is Boeing’s [...]

  My article 5 Reasons Wi-Fi Will Take a Back Seat for the Smart Grid stirred up a lot of debate in wireless circles — while some agreed with it and some pointed out reasons they felt I’d overlooked, others flat-out disagreed with what I wrote. Among them was the Wi-Fi Alliance, the trade group whose [...]

  “Utter market failure.” That’s how Mark Cooper, research director for the consumer advocacy group Consumer Federation of America describes the U.S. vehicle supply. For the 2010 model year, just 44 models (4 percent of all EPA-rated vehicles for the year) get 30 MPG or more, despite widespread consumer interest in more fuel efficient vehicles, according [...]

  Best Parts of the New Smart Grid Stimulus Awards: Smart grid analyst Jesse Berst sees three high points in the latest round of stimulus funding awards for smart grid projects: roughly 30 percent of the money went to long-overlooked utility-scale energy storage, much of the money went to projects that show how smart grid tech [...]

  In an interesting twist involving how the $4 billion in smart grid stimulus funds are being allocated, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu this morning announced that energy storage technology received 16 grants for a total of $185 million from the U.S. federal government. While the list of awards included funding for some well known energy [...]

  Tesla Motors’ long-planned Model S electric sedan may finally get a home — that is, if property negotiations scheduled to take place tonight in Downey, Calif., go as planned. According to the town’s mayor, Mario Guerra, a deal that would see the electric car startup set up an assembly line for the Model S on [...]

  Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has just announced another $620 million in stimulus funds for 32 smart grid demonstration projects. As we explained this morning, this latest funding combined with the $3.4 billion in smart grid stimulus grants allocated last month, is delivering $4 billion to utilities for smart grid technology. Chu said the $620 [...]

  Updated: Chu just announced $620 million for 32 smart grid stimulus demonstration projects, including 16 awards worth $435 million for general smart grid projects and 16 awards for a total of $185 million for energy storage technology. Here’s a list of the winners.According to the trade group the GridWise Alliance, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu [...]