FEATURES AND NEWS
Total US energy production reached 81.7 quadrillion British thermal units, or quads, in 2013, enough to satisfy 84 percent of total US energy demand, according to the US Energy Information Administration data. Natural gas was the largest domestically produced energy resource for the third year in a row and, together ... Read more »
SL Green Realty expanded an LED lighting retrofit program, installing more than 8,000 LED lamps across nine Manhattan commercial office properties. The project is projected to save $370,000 annually in operating expenses. The buildings receiving lighting upgrades are: 1350 Avenue of the Americas, 100 Park Avenue, 810 7th Avenue, 461 ... Read more »
Intermatic launched three new Electronic Photo Controls that have been designed to meet the longer life expectancies of LEDs. The new products feature 10-, 15- and 20-year life expectancies. The product is compatible with LEDs and other lighting applications that use electronic ballasts and drivers. The Electronic Photo Controls are ... Read more »
Digital Lumens and Xicato are connecting Xicato’s XIM Intelligent Modules that integrate driver, dimming and diagnostic electronics within the light source, with Digital Lumens’ Digital Light Agent (DLA) wireless sensing and control modules. Digital Lumens’ LightRules-based software system will wirelessly manage lighting and gather key data about the operating environment, while ... Read more »
Building Systems Design (BSD) released updated LinkMan-E software that coordinates specifications with a Building Information Model created in Autodesk’s Revit software. The new LinkMan-E release has two reconfigured dashboards that clearly show correlations and discrepancies between information in Revit and the corresponding specification text in BSD SpecLink-E, BSD’s automated specification ... Read more »
Partner Content
A general understanding of efficiency finance is quickly becoming a competitive advantage for professionals working in energy efficiency. Building owners installing efficiency upgrades are increasingly looking to energy professionals to help guide them in getting financing for their projects. And, while efficiency finance is a hot topic in the industry, ... Read more »
Buildings account for 40% of America’s energy use. With increased awareness of climate change, one would think that green buildings would be getting renewed support. Instead, the main proponent of green buildings, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) is coming under attack for their LEED certification. The latest attack came ... Read more »
The EPA has proposed a rule to cut carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30 percent by 2030 below 2005 levels. Today’s proposal, which is the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate plan, would also cut particle pollution, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide by more than 25 percent by 2030. ... Read more »
Shell says it may increase its internal carbon emissions price if governments tighten climate rules, Bloomberg reports. Angus Gillespie, Shell vice president of CO2, says the oil company budgets for new projects on the assumption it will pay $40 a metric ton for carbon emissions. Climate policies can cost potential ... Read more »
Monsanto has selected Locus Technologies’ cloud-based software to manage its company-wide sustainability efforts. Monsanto has adopted the Global Reporting Initiative framework to measure and report on its sustainability efforts. As a member of the GRI G4 Pioneers program Monsanto is using Locus’ data collection process to enable the transition to ... Read more »
Partner Content
The 2013 Tesla S P85 tops the Automobile Association of America’s 2014 Green Guide, followed by the electric 2012 Toyota RAV4 and the clean diesel 2014 Audi A7 TDI Quattro in third place. In fact half of the top 10 highest scoring green cars are clean diesel vehicles. The annual ... Read more »
Remanufacturing drives sustainability, according to APICS Foundation research that finds 68 percent of respondents say sustainability is the primary advantage associated with remanufacturing and 41 percent already consider it a formal component of their organization’s sustainability policies. Remanufacturing — restoring used or worn products to like-new condition — is an ... Read more »
Thousands of automotive, electronics and manufacturing companies were required by law to file a conflict minerals report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission by May 31 — but the bulk of those companies likely missed the deadline. A March survey by the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) of more ... Read more »
Veolia Environnement is working with the District of Columbia Water & Sewer Authority to find $8 million to $12 million in annual savings and says it sees “a lot of prospects” to help large US cities optimize their water management, Bloomberg reports. Europe’s biggest water company also has a deal ... Read more »
Less than a year after patenting a process that could improve stripping greenhouse gasses from industrial emissions, a University of Alabama engineering professor has been granted another patent that uses a different solvent to accomplish the same goal. Assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering Dr. Jason E. Bara’s latest ... Read more »
Researchers from the University of Georgia and China’s Donghua University and Dymatic Chemicals have developed a method that can reduce the amount of energy needed for — and the amount of wastewater produced in — the cotton bleaching process, while improving the quality of the end product. The technique is described in A Novel ... Read more »
Avista Capital signed a definitive agreement to sell its subsidiary Ecova to Cofely USA, an indirect subsidiary of GDF SUEZ, a French multinational utility company, for $335 million in cash, less the payment of debt and other customary closing adjustments. The transaction is expected to close by July 1, 2014.
BM TRADA has extended its scope to include energy management systems certification, following a successful pilot scheme with United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). The global certification body was part of a pilot accreditation program run in conjunction with UKAS for the new ISO 50001:2011 energy management systems standard. UKAS is ... Read more »
Revolution Lighting Technologies completed an LED lighting project at Baldor Specialty Foods in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx, NY, consisting of 3,000 Seesmart LED tube lamps and exterior wall packs, which will yield a reduction of more than 750,000 kWh per year, equating to a 70 percent reduction ... Read more »
Schneider Electric announced a new approach to data center builds and expansions, formalized in its Reference Design 21, one of over 70 designs in Schneider’s Reference Design Library. The heart of this design’s flexibility and scalability lies in the new prefabricated 1200kW (600kW + 600kW) Facility Power Skids and EcoBreeze ... Read more »
A coal-fired, World War II-era power plant that has provided energy to much of the Missouri University of Science and Technology campus for nearly seven decades is powering down as the university makes the transition to a geothermal energy system, according to the school’s website. The power plant, which was ... Read more »
Lutron Electronics is integrating ecoInsight’s lighting upgrade software with its Lutron Energi Advisor app. The integration is designed for lighting professionals who operate in the lighting retrofit market. The Energi Advisor app provides users with anticipated energy savings and anticipated return on investment, simplifying energy audits. The app is compatible ... Read more »
In Mexico, most of the electric capacity is owned and operated by the government’s Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE). Two decades ago, that percentage was close to 100 percent, but a set of constitutional amendments in 1992 worked to liberalize the Mexican electricity market over time. This legislation opened the ... Read more »
Santa Monica’s Shore Hotel installed Green Charge Networks’ GreenStation energy storage system, which will save the hotel an estimated 50 percent in demand charges annually. GreenStation combines historical energy use patterns with real-time weather data to predict demand and store and discharge energy accordingly to avoid usage spikes. Along with ... Read more »
Omega Protein has reduced sulfur emissions by 80 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent at its Virginia facility since transitioning from petroleum oil to RDX Technologies’ lower-cost renewable fuel derived from everyday food and oils found in wastewater. RDX Technologies’ new fuel source is an EPA-approved, carbon-neutral Renewable ... Read more »