As America celebrated its freedom on the Fourth of July, a number of efforts were underway to increase U.S. independence from fossil fuels.
Now that more Americans are making the move to distributed solar energy—not only for environmental reasons, but also to save money and to provide extra power reliability during these times of severe weather—Beltsville, Maryland-based SunEdison is preparing to profit from the trend. SunEdison received a new $100 million in funding from Wells Fargo (News - Alert) to develop solar photovoltaic distributed generation projects nationwide. SunEdison and Wells Fargo have been partnering since 2007, and during those five years, the solar company has received more than $950 million in tax equity and construction financing from the bank. To date, the funds have helped to develop 200 utility and distributed generation solar projects in 13 U.S. states and in Puerto Rico. The company follows the power purchase agreement (PPA) model to build, manage and operate the solar systems. Under this model, the customers buy the energy produced for a fixed rate for a term of approximately 20 years. This system helps customers to avoid upfront costs typically associated with solar projects.
The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a cumulative $13 million to projects in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin that promise to accelerate the development and adoption of a new generation of biofuels by bringing down costs, improving performance and identifying effective, non-food feedstocks and conversion technologies. The agency’s ambitious overall goal is to produce cost-competitive drop-in biofuels at $3 per gallon by 2017. The transportation sector currently accounts for two-thirds of total U.S. oil consumption and one-third of nationwide greenhouse gas emissions. To address that problem, researchers are developing hydrocarbon-based biofuels made from non-food feedstocks, waste materials, and algae that can directly replace gasoline, diesel and jet fuels.
The top two automotive leaders in fuel cell technology–General Motors (News - Alert) and Honda—announced a definitive master agreement to co-develop next-generation propulsion and energy storage systems, aiming for the 2020 time frame. The collaboration expects to succeed by sharing expertise, economies of scale and common sourcing strategies. According to the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index, GM and Honda (News - Alert) cumulatively filed more than 1,200 fuel cell patents in the decade between 2002 and 2012. Fuel cell technology offers a multitude of advantages—addressing many of the major challenges in the auto industry today, including fossil fuel dependency, emissions, efficiency, range and refueling times. For starters, fuel cell vehicles can operate on renewable hydrogen made from sources like wind and biomass, and they emit nothing but water vapor. In addition, fuel cell vehicles offer a driving range of up to 400 miles, can be refueled in as little as three minutes; and the propulsion technology can be used on small, medium and large vehicles. The two companies also plan to work together with stakeholders to further advance refueling infrastructure, which is critical for the long-term growth and consumer acceptance of fuel cell vehicles.
And finally, two expert organizations that are located half the world away from each other are coming together to reduce energy usage in buildings. Pacific Controls (PCS), a Dubai-based provider of ICT-enabled managed services and converged engineering solutions for buildings, has partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, on a project called the Building Research Incubator (BRI). Using Pacific Controls’ Galaxy—an enterprise service delivery platform hosted on the Pacific Controls Cloud—the researchers will evaluate solutions for managing disparate business processes and assets on a single platform. According to PCS, building owners and infrastructure owners, such as utilities and telcos, can leverage the resources of its Galaxy Command Control Center to optimize their operations, reduce their service costs, increase their return on assets and have the capability to remotely manage them in real time. PCS will provide funding and technical assistance for integration of its products and will provide a global perspective to the research on solutions in energy efficiency, demand response, sensors, controls and communications for buildings. Berkeley Lab’s brings several areas of deep expertise to the table, including energy simulation, automated demand response, advanced electric metering and communication technologies.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey