Tag Archives: energy efficiency
How To: Check Your Home’s Energy Efficiency Online
We love our homes and spend our hard-earned money kitting them out with all the latest mod-cons. But often homeowners neglect their energy efficiency options, even though they could potentially save you thousands in utility bills each year. So take the time to look at these online tools for energy efficiency and see how you [...]
In Focus: Honda’s Smart Home
American Honda is building a house that demonstrates zero carbon living using some of its technologies, such as solar-charging for its Fit electric car and Honda’s home energy management system. The first ”Honda Smart Home” was built in Japan last year and this one will be on the campus of University of California, Davis. “This showcase for environmental innovation and renewable energy-enabling [...]
Top 5 Materials for your Green Home
If you’re designing your dream home and you like to keep an eye on your carbon footprint, you might be concerned about the impact of all your construction plans. But don’t despair! There are steps that you can take to limit your emissions and minimise the effect that your new home has on the environment. [...]
M2M Communications: Will it Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
Call it what you will — the “industrial internet,” the “internet of things,” or “machine-to-machine communications” (M2M) — the seamless connectivity of devices is becoming one of the core drivers of the clean energy transition. There are now 1.3 billion M2M devices in operation around the world. By 2020, there will be 12.5 billion in [...]
Facebook Announces Real-Time Data Center Efficiency Stats
Facebook has just taken a bit of internal data center energy efficiency wizardry and made it available to the world. On Thursday, it opened access to the minute-by-minute power-use effectiveness (PUE) and water-use effectiveness (WUE) scores via dashboards for its Prineville, Ore. and Forest City, N.C. data centers, and promises to have its next super-efficient [...]
Lets Bust Some Energy Myths
What with pressure from governments and society in general to reduce our carbon footprints as much as we can it is unsurprising that so much weird and wonderful advice is put forward as the latest innovative method of saving energy. Like with most things that require work and commitment, there are few simple ways of [...]
In Focus: Green Homes of the Future
The world of building has placed an onus on green solutions for building like never before and the advent of the green home is upon us at last. Future homes will offer a range of innovations that will mean they are significantly more energy efficient and vastly greener than the homes we currently reside in. [...]
The Solar Elevator Has Arrived
The last place you want to be when the power goes out is stuck in an elevator, and although you’ve probably never thought about it, wouldn’t it be much safer if it was powered by renewable energy? Schindler, one of the biggest manufacturers of elevators, is marketing a solar-powered elevator starting this year. Drawing power from roof-top [...]
2030 EU Sets Energy Efficiency Targets Announced
Yesterday The European Commission took the first step towards developing a 2030 framework for EU climate change and energy policies. It adopted a Green Paper which launches a public consultation on the content of the 2030 framework. The Commission also published a Consultative Communication on the future of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in Europe, [...]
3-D Printing and Energy Efficiency
3-D printing, also known by its technical name of “additive manufacturing,” is a concept that makes tech-heads and entrepreneurs bubble with excitement. President Obama even gave 3-D printing a shout-out in his recent State of the Union address, talking about a government-sponsored lab in Ohio for testing and scaling new technologies: “There’s no reason this [...]
The Challenges of Buying a Green Home
Most home buyers are interested in purchasing a house with energy efficient features. Not only can a “green” property help you save money over time, but it cuts back on your family’s carbon footprint and assists in the fight against global warming. However, MLS listing services, the traditional way that both buyers and Realtors search [...]
University of Michigan’s Next Solar-powered Car
University of Michigan’s next solar-powered car will be called “Generation.” The cars’ development team is planning to make their new vehicle more like a real car to meet the requirements of the 2013 World Solar Challenge (WSC) race. Regretfully, solar cars are, as of today, still very far from being practical means of transportation due [...]