Monthly Archives: November 2013

UN and World Bank promote sustainable energy financing

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The United Nations and the World Bank announced what they call “a concerted effort” by governments, international agencies, civil society and the private sector to scale up financing for sustainable energy.

 

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>Kim stressed that financing is key, with $600 billion to $800 billion a year needed from now until 2030 to reach the goals for access to energy, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.

“We are now starting in countries in which demand for action is most urgent,” he said. “In some of these countries, only one in 10 people has access to electricity. It is time for that to change.”

Ban praised achievements already attained such as Brazil’s ‘Light for All’ programme that has reached 15 million people, Norway’s commitment of 2 billion kroner ($330 million) in 2014 for global renewable energy and efficiency, and Bank of America’s Green Bond that has raised $500 million for three years as part of its 10-year $50 billion environmental business commitment.<

See on www.renewableenergymagazine.com

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Renewable Geothermal Power – a Vast & Untapped Energy Resource

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There are no plans for new coal plants to be built in the United States. This opens doors for the geothermal industry possibly more than ever before in U.S. history.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

> Geothermal energy is a renewable source of electricity that has the same important baseload qualities […]  (of coal for) electric power generation in the U.S. at a fraction of the cost.

“Baseload is always better,” […] “[I]t assures a steady revenue stream which is much better for financing.”For a nation that’s thinking to the long term, geo plants are:

Firm. They can run 24 hours a day regardless of extraneous conditions.Flexible. Geothermal’s flow can be load following or allow for imbalance, can provide a spinning reserve or a non-spinning reserve, and works well as replacement or supplemental reserve.

Falcone says of geothermal’s flow options: “By being able to load follow, geothermal can be reduced during low need time and increased without much effort. There is no need to store power that cannot be used. The price of power can be kept lower than other renewables since more of it is sold than the intermittent power sources like wind and solar.”

Falcone adds, “There are now efforts to marry solar with geothermal so that extra power can be produced during sunny peak hours.

“There is no need to invest in fossil fuel to create heat in order to generate power, so the environment is better off.”But today’s solicitations for renewable energy in Western states tend to ignore these unique benefits of geothermal power. Additional long-term analysis shows geothermal plants are:

Small. Geothermal-impacted land in 2030 is expected to be around 7.5 km2/TW-hr/yr, as opposed to 9.7 .5 km2/TW-hr/yr for a coal plant.Hardy. Long-lasting geothermal plants include those at The Geysers in California (since the 1960s) and at the Lardarello field in Italy (since 1904).<

See on www.renewableenergyworld.com

Spectrolab Breaks Own Solar Cell Efficiency Record

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Spectrolab has achieved a new world record efficiency for a multi-junction solar cell.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The Sylmar, California-based company’s previous record of 37.8 percent was set in April. Analysts Lux Research predicts that by 2022 Spectrolab cells could reach 50 percent efficiency. And Boeing says the new semiconductor bonding technology could be used to power spacecraft and unmanned aerial vehicles.<

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“Personal Wipes” create toxic waste in Canadian sewers

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They’re billed as a fresh, clean alternative to toilet paper – but waste-water utilities across Canada say personal wipes are creating putrid sewage clogs that are costing Canadian ratepayers at least $250 million a year.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>MESUG members have set up traps across Ontario municipalities, Orr said, and they’re catching hundreds of flushable wipes. The situation is the same across the country, with officials in Penticton, B.C., recently complaining publicly about the wipes.

Canadian utilities aren’t alone in their battle against personal wipes.

In the U.S. capital region, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission has spent more than $1 million installing powerful grinders to shred wipes before they reach pumps on their way to treatment plants.

The utility has also devoted hundreds of man-hours to unclog pipes and repair broken sewer lines. It blames wipes for blockages that have caused sewage to overflow into streams or back up into residential basements.<

See on globalnews.ca

California Building Code Title 24 Will Revolutionize Efficiency Financing for Buildings

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If successful, Title 24 will open the door to increased amounts of energy efficiency financing, expanded sources of capital and lower financing costs.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>California’s Title 24

Title 24 is California’s body of state building codes. These codes have been revised to move the building industry toward comprehensive building solutions with a goal of achieving Zero Net Energy (ZNE) residential and commercial buildings. In a ZNE building, the annual building’s energy consumption is equal to the building’s onsite renewable energy generation. California has set a goal for all new residential construction to be ZNE by 2020 and for all new commercial construction to be ZNE by 2030. Additionally, the repurposing and remodeling of existing buildings that are of a size-threshold defined by Title 24 will also have to comply with Title 24 revised codes.

Financing a “smart” Zero Net Energy building

The challenge of financing any energy efficiency or renewable energy project is in providing assurances to the source of capital that the project will actually generate sufficient cost savings to cover financing costs plus repayment of invested capital. The number one challenge for winning energy efficiency investments is the uncertainty in documenting bill savings results. Too often, the cost savings generated by an investment in energy efficiency is lost in higher electric bills as new loads are added and utilities raise rates.

Information technologies that monitor, control and financially operate a building through links to real time prices of grid-supplied electricity are the foundation for enabling Title 24 project financing. Smart ZNE buildings will operate to optimize the economics between reducing building demand, reducing energy consumption, on-site generation, use of on-site energy storage and purchases of grid electricity.

What will further enable the financing of ZNE buildings is the ability of enabling information technologies to “look forward” in time to proactively shape a building’s operation and grid purchases to financially support the building’s project financing. The technologies that can achieve these results have already been invented. What California is pursuing through its Title 24 code revisions is a massive economies of scale push for these technologies to drive their costs down and increase their ability to be financed.

The sales pie just got bigger…a lot bigger

Beginning in 2014, Title 24 will blow the sales doors open for smart building technologies, energy efficiency technologies, onsite energy storage and renewable energy technologies. Title 24 will create a new competitive landscape for architects, general contractors, sub-contractors and vendors based upon their ability to offer price competitive services and products that comply with Title 24 codes. The construction industry’s sales path for energy efficiency projects will no longer be anchored by utility incentives that support targeted energy efficiency upgrades like re-lamping a building with more efficient lights. The new sales path will be based upon cost-effectively delivering code compliance to achieve financeable building performance. New competitive advantages will be won by contractors and architects that offer building performance assurances to building owners and financing sources.<

See on www.triplepundit.com

Data Scientists: Explore Game Theory to Boost Customer Engagement | The Big Data Hub

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Data scientists may consider themselves fish out of water when it comes to applying game-theoretic approaches to customer engagement. Nevertheless, it provides a valuable set of approaches for behavioral analytics.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>Customer engagement is a bit of a game, because, deep down, it’s a form of haggling and bargaining. Let’s be blunt: everybody has an ulterior purpose and is manipulating the other party in that direction. The customer is trying to get the best deal from you, and you’re trying to hold onto them and sell them more stuff at a healthy profit.

Customer engagement is not solitaire, and, unlike many online games, it always has very real stakes. By its very nature, customer engagement is an interactive decision process involving individuals and organizations, entailing varying degrees of cooperation and conflict in the course (hopefully) of a stable and mutually beneficial outcome.

Game theory is a modeling discipline that focuses on strategic decision-making scenarios. It leverages a substantial body of applied mathematics and has been used successfully in many disciplines, including economics, politics, management and biology. There has even been some recent discussion of its possible application in modeling customer-engagement scenarios to improve loyalty, upsell and the like.

Customer engagement modeling is a largely unexplored frontier for game theory. The literature on this is relatively sparse right now, compared to other domains where game theory’s principles have been applied. […]<

See on www.ibmbigdatahub.com

NSF awards grant to Mechanical Engineer prof for underwater kite marine power research

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A three-year, US$300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation will allow Worcester Polytechnic Institute associate professor of mechanical engineering David Olinger to conduct research on developing a new form of ocean energy.

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

“The research builds on Olinger’s prior research, funded by the NSF and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in which he developed a low-cost kite system that used wind to generate power. Olinger and a team of graduate students developed computational models that predict trajectories and power output for kites of different sizes and tethers of different lengths, which can be used to design kites capable of flying in stable, high-speed figure-eight patterns under changing weather conditions.

The same algorithms can be applied to the design of underwater kites, Olinger said, but “instead of moving air, you have moving water and the kites have rigid wings.”

Olinger will now evaluate possible designs for undersea kites and explore methods for tethering them to floating platforms similar to those used for oil and gas rigs.

WPI said the team will also examine the advantages and disadvantages of mounting turbine generators directly to the kites or placing the generators on the platforms. […]

Olinger’s kite system is similar to one already being developed by Swedish company Minesto, though a WPI representative said the two projects are not related.”<

See on www.hydroworld.com

Sweden’s Minesto Ocean Energy Kite System Proven Operational

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2013-11-12

Minesto’s step-change marine power plant now producing electricity in Northern Ireland proving viability for huge ocean current power market

The Deep Green ‘underwater kite’ marine power plant is now producing electricity in the waters off Northern Ireland. This is the first time ever a marine power plant designed for low velocity currents produces electricity at sea, anywhere in the world, and the ocean trials verify the ability to unlock ocean currents as a renewable energy source. “This is a break-through for the entire renewable energy industry,” said Minesto’s CEO Anders Jansson.

deep-green-underwater-kite

Image source: minesto.com

Company Press Release:  http://bit.ly/18mXIfT

46 Experts Share Their Top Social Media Management Tools

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In the following post you will find some incredible insights that will help you take results from your social media campaigns to a new level. Contributors to th(…)

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

Looking for new tools to improve your social media campaigns? 

See on bloggingwizard.com

UK Proposed ban on Food Waste Landfill Disposal & Re-Purpose to Green Energy Feedstock

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Government, council and retailer-backed report says ban on landfill could save UK £17bn and heat 600,000 homes

Duane Tilden‘s insight:

>The ambition is to save the UK economy over £17bn a year through the reduction of food wasted by households, businesses and the public sector, preventing 27m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year from entering into the atmosphere.

The new study, Vision 2020: UK Roadmap to Zero Food Waste to Landfill is the culmination of more than two years’ work and has the backing and input of local authority and industry experts. It sets the framework for a food waste-free UK by 2020.

Last week official figures revealed the average UK family was wasting nearly £60 a month by throwing away almost an entire meal a day. A report from the government’s waste advisory group Wrap showed Britons were chucking out the equivalent of 24 meals a month, adding up to 4.2m tonnes of food and drink every year that could have been consumed. Almost half of this is going straight from fridges or cupboards into the bin, Wrap found. One-fifth of what households buy ends up as waste, and around 60% of that could have been eaten.

At the same time the UK’s largest retailer, Tesco, recently agreed to reduce its multi-buy items and other promotions after revealing that 35% of its bagged salad was being thrown out. It also found that 40% of apples were wasted, and just under half of bakery items.<

See on www.theguardian.com