Tag: industry news

The Volvo V60 Diesel Plug-In Hybrid is everything we want in a car, and the newly-announced R-Design package adds extra street cred to this Swedish wagon. While purely an aesthetics package, this could be the first step towards the performance Volvo hybrid wagon we have all been dreaming of. For the unfamiliar, the in-demand Volvo V60 Diesel Plug-In is pretty

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The newsreel is just 90 seconds long. It is incredibly — and, to me, endearingly — crude, ragged, and inept. Against a background of loud, out-of-tune orchestral music, a narrator speaks of harnessing the power of the sun, as the camera shows us (a-ha!) the setting sun, a shot lasting a full thirty seconds. This leads to a shot of

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1. What are the benefits of integrating renewable energy with microgrids? The obvious first benefit is related to cost of generation reduction. With the increasing costs of traditional fossil fuel based generation, such as diesel, and the reduction in dollar-per-watt cost for renewables such as wind, the tipping point for renewables in remote microgrids has been passed. For remote and

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Spanish wind energy technology provider Gamesa has landed yet another order from an Indian power project developer as it continues to boost its revenue from India. Independent power producer Greenko has placed an order of 100 MW with Gamesa. This order is in addition to the 250 MW order Greenko had placed earlier with the technology provider. Gamesa will provide

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Kansas City-based Smith Electric Vehicles has become the latest electric-vehicle building startup to cease operations–though the company says it isn’t shutting its doors for good. The firm builds electrically-powered commercial vehicles both in the U.S. and abroad, but hasn’t yet turned a profit. According to Kansas City Business Journal, the stoppage is a strategic move. CEO Bryan Hansel said the

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Today, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) launched its new online data visualization resource that highlights real-time green building data for each state in the U.S. and Washington, D.C. The enhanced state market briefs — highlighting LEED projects, LEED-credentialed professionals and USGBC membership in each state — provide green building advocates and the general public a look into LEED’s impact

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Most of us are probably familiar with differences between American electrical standards and those used in most of the rest of the world through personal electronics. Today’s laptop computers and phone chargers can accept either 110v or 220v so all you need to travel between regions is an adaptor for the plug. But it was not always so, and many

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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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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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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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