Tag Archives: industry
Solar Savings: Tax Credits and Solar
It used to be that solar power took a back seat in the renewable energy world. Now though, solar power is a hot topic for residential home owners and commercial businesses alike. That shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise though when you factor in just how beneficial the use of solar power is [...]
How China Will Transform The Energy Industry
When I started in the energy business back in the early 1980’s, the utility paradigm was to continually build more power plants to serve growing customer loads. This lead to environmental and economic difficulties, especially as the cost of completing planned nuclear power plants skyrocketed. At the utility where I worked, Pacific Gas and Electric, [...]
Social Media and Solar
Last month, EcoOutfitters asked 1BOG to participate in one of their Solar Chats on Twitter. Now, most Twitter gatherings involve a lot of hubbub, a troll or two, and not a whole lot of substance. Fortunately, though, the EcoOutfitters team has refined these events into well-oiled machines that are not only fun and informative, but [...]
75% of New Energy Investments Are Renewable
In a striking keynote, Michael Liebreich President of BNEF spoke about the continued compound growth in renewables and the disconnect between GDP and electricity consumption. In the last 5 years, Electricity consumption in Australia and California have disconnected from GDP growth and that trend is now spreading through the developed world. Rising efficiency in motor [...]
Europe 2012: $2.35B Invested in Smart Grid
The Joint Research Centre (JRC), a Directorate-General of the European Commission that provides independent scientific and technical advice to the European Commission to support a wide range of EU policies has published an update of the 2011 report “Smart Grid projects in Europe: lessons learned and current developments,” which is the most comprehensive inventory of [...]
PV Manufacturers Ready for Good News
A new NPD Solarbuzz Marketbuzz report anticipates that photovoltaic manufacturers will start to see a rebound in profitability—if they can make it to 2017. By then the research company anticipates that the PV manufacturing market will reach $32 billion. But that’s still a couple years away, and prior to that Solarbuzz anticipates that the market [...]
How The Music Industry is Shifting to Renewables
Can an industry in an extreme state of change really go green? For years, the music industry has been fighting a battle to continue generating revenue. Unlike no other industry, the growth in online activity has presented endless challenges and the need to change. With many people no longer buying records and instead choosing to [...]
Solar Throwdown: Rooftops vs. Utilities
It’s the utilities vs. rooftop solar, and with PV becoming more accessible and installations soaring, the fight is heating up. In San Antonio, the municipally owned CPS Energy last week said it will slash the value of the credit for solar produced from rooftop installations. Its claim is a central one made by the utilities: as more people produce their own [...]
FUTUREWATCH: Energy in 2065
While many people expect the world to move largely to solar power in the next 50 years, most experts are doubtful of this possibility. While solar power will be an important component of the energy sector in the future, the future will be much more complex than most imagine. Today, with the help of the [...]