Industry news

1) What’s driving the demand for energy storage?  Everything about energy is becoming more complex. The way we generate, distribute and consume electricity requires sophisticated solutions that enable a flexible, reliable and efficient electrical grid. Energy storage is an effective strategy to manage this complexity; it allows both power generators and consumers to have better control of how and when

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Toyota recently issued the world’s first “green bond” of asset-backed securities in the auto industry. The $1.75 billion bond’s net proceeds will be used to acquire retail installment sale contracts and lease contracts to finance new Toyota and Lexus gas-electric hybrid or alternative fuel powertrain vehicles. The bond has multiple tranches, each at a different (Moody) ratings levels: A2 tranche,

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Electric vehicles seem to have finally gained a solid foothold. With continued adoption, there will be an increasing need for access to charging locations. We recognize that many drivers today do most of their charging at home, but many others still require access to a robust nationwide charging station network before even considering the purchase of an electric vehicle. But

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The Tesla Supercharger may have some Swedish competition. A 75-foot ferry converted to electric power can recharge its 180 kWh battery in just ten minutes. It may not set any speed records with forward motion limited to an average of just 9 knots, but the quiet nature of electric motors makes up for the lack of speed in a city

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Weren’t we just saying that perovskite solar cells are the next big thing? Well, make that tin perovskite solar cells. Tin perovskite solar cells are suddenly a thing this week, with not one but two major new research announcements coming out of the US and the UK. The significance is not so much in the tin perovskite cells’ conversion efficiency,

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Continued low levels of trust in the UK’s energy industry could be remedied by an increase in Government intervention in the market, according to new analysis from Edelman’s 2014 Trust Barometer. New data revealed from the study shows that more than half of UK citizens polled (56%) would trust the industry more if it were returned to state control, with

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Series production of BMW’s battery-electric BMW C evolution maxi-scooter has now begun at the company’s Berlin plant. The electric scooter — which is BMW’s first to be mass produced — began development back in 2011, as the BMW E-Scooter concept. The storage modules used in the BMW C Evolution are, interestingly, the same as those used in the i3 —

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On Thursday, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, approved major amendments to the country’s Environmental Protection Law (EPL), the first since the law was enacted 25 years ago. These amendments are a game changer. The original EPL entered into force shortly before I moved to Beijing in 1990. I recently found a journal entry

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In a series of discussions on Earth Day, I found myself returning to two 1970s reports by the Club of Rome: The Limits to Growth and Mankind at the Turning Point. While those analyses were weak on policy design, they did a thorough job of describing the interconnected set of problems that remain at the heart of the world’s environmental

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While many people associate cooperatives with a place for hippies to buy organic food, the cooperative movement has actually grown far and wide, creating sustainable enterprises that generate jobs and strengthen local economies. Today, there are nearly 30,000 cooperatives in the United States, with more than 100 million members. From day care centers to hardware stores, cooperatives seem to be

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