AWS is based in Inverness, Scotland, and the company’s stated purpose is to develop and deliver the technology of choice for utility scale generation of offshore wave power.

AWS-III is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0185721, entitled “Energy Conversion Device” (’721 Application) and directed to an array of interconnected compressible cells which convert wave energy into pneumatic energy by moving air between the cells. Turbines within the device convert the moving air into electricity.

Figure 1 of the ’721 Application illustrates the wave energy device. The device has twelve interconnected cells (20) arranged in a ring. The cells are connected to a ring-like air duct (not shown) and have a diaphragm (30) on their outer edge.

The diaphragm moves relative to the cell when wave action (40, 50) presses against the movable diaphragm surface. The movement of the diaphragm causes air within the cells to be pumped into and out of the air duct and between the cells. The moving air then spins a turbine, which produces electricity.

Each multi-cell array can produce up to 2.5 megawatts of electricity. Once in place, the devices are moored to the sea floor in depths ranging from 60 – 150 meters. Each device will be connected to the local utility grid from an offshore substation via a high voltage link.

According to a joint press release, a 1:9 scale model of the AWS-III was deployed in Loch Ness, Scotland in 2010. Full scale component testing will commence in 2012 and a full scale prototype is planned for deployment in 2014.

In the press release, Simon Grey, Chief Executive at AWS stated:

The selection of the AWS-III system for this exciting and ground-breaking project is a significant endorsement of our technology and team. We firmly believe that the AWS-III will become the established choice for utility scale offshore wave power generation. We look forward to working with Alstom and SSE to deliver Costa Head.

AWS and Alstom predict there is a potential worldwide market for renewable wave energy in the 200 to 300 gigawatt range. If successful, this 200 megawatt wave farm will be a large step in making that prediction a reality.

Article by David Gibbs, appearing courtesy Green Patent Blog.

Related posts:

• Wing Waves Show Promise for Wave Energy in the United States
• Scotland Approves Energy Projects to ‘Rule the Waves’
• Australia Invests in World’s First Utility-Scale Wave Power Project
• World’s Largest Hydro-Electric Wave Energy Converter Launched (+Video)
• Massachusetts Offshore Renewable Energy Project Holds Promise

1 ) Sustainable Seafood Policy. As one of the largest traditional grocery retailers in the United States, Kroger realizes the important role it plays in the responsible sourcing of all seafood for products. As such, Kroger will not purchase seafood that has been illegally caught or comes from unregulated fisheries. In 2009, Kroger partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to find adequate sustainable fisheries to source seafood from. Kroger also complies with the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices Program in regards to industry accepted guidelines for all farmed raised seafood.

2 ) Carbon Footprint and Energy Reduction. Kroger has been using a lot of new technology in their stores to increase energy efficiency and decrease their carbon footprint. For example, all stores built after the year 2000 consumer 30 percent less energy. All stores are equipped with LED lighting and motion sensors. There are also skylights to increase natural lighting, control systems for all HVAC and lighting systems, and a number of Energy Star appliances.

3 ) Reducing Waste. One of the primary sustainability priorities for Kroger’s is waste. Since 2010, the grocery chain has been making a number of strides in reducing waste, including reducing packaging, diverting waste from landfills, and recycling plastic bags. For example, all food scraps from meat and deli departments are picked up by local companies along with old produce to be composted. As well in 2010, Kroger manufacturing plants have been able to reduce waste sent to landfills by more than 20 million pounds – a 30 percent reduction since 2009.

4 ) Reducing Plastic Bag Use. Kroger is always looking for ways to reduce the number of plastic bags used and help customers make the transition to reusable bags. By 2014, Kroger wants to save one billion plastic bags via education, signage, and aiding in changing customer habits. Kroger has a “Fill the Bag” training to teach employees how to optimally fill plastic grocery bags so not too many are used, reducing the number of plastic bags at retail locations. In 2011, over five million reusable bags were sold.

5 ) Transportation Efficiency. Kroger is always looking for new, more efficient ways to transport products to stores throughout the United States. The company’s fleet consists of 8,200 trailers and 1,200 tractors, plus there are over 2,500 third party tractors and trailers utilized for product deliveries. By 2010, Kroger was able to improve fleet efficiency by almost ten percent. The goal is to improve total fleet efficiency by 40 percent by the year 2014 by employing fuel-saving strategies, routine maintenance to ensure all equipment is at peak performance, and reducing the total number of miles traveled.

6 ) Food Safety. Kroger believes food safety to be a top priority in all stores; ensuring customers receive fresh, wholesome, and safe food. The supermarket chain has put in place a number of best practices to ensure the safety of all food items. For example, bi-monthly food safety review audits are done in every store to ensure food safety.

7 ) Animal Welfare. Kroger has made a strong commitment to their business practices, including the human treatment of all animals from the farm to the table. Kroger does not currently operate farms or animal processing facilities, but ensure that all suppliers meet the Food Marketing Institute’s Animal Welfare standards and guidelines.

8 ) Renewable Energy. In 2010, Kroger completed its very first wind energy project with two new installed wind turbines in Lancaster, Pennsylvania for Kroger’s Turkey Hill Dairy. The turbines will supply 25 percent of all annual electricity needs, enough to produce 15 million gallons of ice tea and six million gallons of ice cream. In terms of solar energy, in 2011 Kroger completed the first phase of installing solar photovoltaic systems on the roofs of four stores and one distribution center. It will produce around 900 kilowatts of solar energy capacity.

9 ) Customer Sustainability. Kroger Manufacturing operates a number of certified organic processing facilities. Kroger has also partnered with HarvestMark to enable customers to learn about where produce sold at all Kroger stores is grown. Kroger also works with a number of local farmers and suppliers to provide locally produced goods to all grocery stores. Customers can look for “locally grown and produced” signs around the stores.

10 ) Portland Kroger LEEDs the Way. A Kroger store in Portland, Oregon was able to reach LEED Silver Certification as it reached the environmental sustainability guidelines set up by the United States Green Building Council. It is the first store to achieve this rating and features items like increased insulation along exterior walls to decrease energy costs, water-saving fixtures in kitchens and bathrooms, skylights, efficient refrigeration and ventilation systems, and concrete floors that do not necessitate chemicals for cleaning. While the renovations cost more than normal renovations, the store will make it back tenfold in energy savings. According to Justin Doak, the manager of the LEED for Retail program, “[Supermarket] energy bills are so high because of refrigeration that they are constantly looking for ways to become more efficient. So, it’s a little more money upfront in construction costs but tremendous savings in the long run. And it’s the right thing for the environment.”

Article by Shawn Lesser, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Atlanta-based Watershed Capital Group – an investment bank assisting sustainable fund and companies raise capital, perform acquisitions, and in other strategic financial decisions. He is also a Co-founder of the GCCA Global Cleantech Cluster Association ”The Global Voice of Cleantech”. He writes for various cleantech publications and is known as the David Letterman of Cleantech for his “Top 10″ series. He can be reached at shawn@watershedcapital.com.

Related posts:

• Insight into Dell’s Sustainability Initiatives
• Where Sustainability Executives Fall in Today’s Organizational Structure
• Are Employees Investing in Business Sustainability?
• Small Business Guide to Kick Your Green Initiatives Up a Notch
• Riding the Green Wave

Sunny California is prime real estate for solar energy, and a number of California rebates make home solar systems highly affordable for Golden State residents. The only downside to these programs is that some have limited funding. Homeowners interested in solar panels will want to act soon to take full advantage of all the savings.

Here are five solar incentive programs that every California homeowner should know.

1. The Federal Incentive Program

The government offers the most generous program. The federal incentive program pays for up to 30 percent of the cost of installing a residential solar system in the form of a tax credit. The program is currently set to expire at the end of 2016.

2. California Solar Initiative

The California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) has transitioned its residential rebate program over to your local utility companies. The CPUC oversees the program. The state still exempts renewable energy home improvements from property tax assessments, so installing a PV system won’t raise your property taxes.

The new program offers per-installed-watt rebates from the state’s three major utilities, Southern California Edison (SCE), Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E). It’s a tiered program, with rebates that step down in price as more utility customers participate in the program.

Currently, PGE and SDG&E are at the ninth step of the ten-step program, offering rebates of $.25 per watt. SCE is at the seventh step of the program, offering $.65 per watt.

Municipal utilities offer rebates as well, some of them substantially more generous than those offered by the larger utilities, although annual funds are generally limited. Of course, if you live in one of California’s top solar cities, your rebates are likely generous. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, for example, just moved to step six of their ten-step program, offering $1.62 per watt.

3. Single-family Affordable Homes (SASH) Program

Low-income Californian homeowners may be eligible to receive free or greatly-discounted home PV systems under the CPUC’s SASH program. Residents must be PG&E, SCE or SDG&E customers to qualify and must meet income requirements.

Generally, households earning less than 50 percent of the area’s median income levels may apply for a free 1-kilowatt home solar system. Households earning between 50 percent and 80 percent of median incomes may qualify for $4.75 per watt to $7.00 per watt rebates. SASH is administered by the non-profit organization GRID Alternatives.

4. New Solar Homes Partnership

The CPUC offers cash rebates to home builders who build houses with solar electrical systems built in. The New Solar Homes Partnership has been a huge success, and it’s likely the program will meet its goal of 400-megawatt capacity by 2016.

5. Thermal Rebate Program

The three major Californian utilities offer tiered rebate programs for solar water heating systems, too. Currently, all three utilities are in the first of a four-step program. Homeowners who replace a natural gas system can expect rebates of about $1,500. Those who replace electric systems can expect about $1,000.

Photo via joncallas

Related posts:

• Massachusetts Fires up Solar Hot Water Rebates
• California Exhausts Rooftop Solar Incentive Fund
• Which is Right for You? Solar Lease or PPA
• Motivating Homeowner Energy Behaviors
• Progress Energy Accepting Applications for Solar Power Rebates

Along with the government subsidies that provide wind energy producers 2.2cents per kWh, many states have passed renewable energy mandates which required that a certain amount of electricity come from renewable sources. The nascent wind industry has grown a lot recently thanks in large part to innovative insight and support by both state and federal governments. To add to the excitement, wind researchers have produced renewable electricity as cost efficiently as others produce it now from non-renewable sources.

All sources of renewable energy (including solar power and hydro, for example) are in jeopardy of further decline due to the nation’s foreboding economic outlook. It is imperative for wind technology to continue to lower production costs in order to be an important part of the U.S. electricity portfolio moving forward. The bottom line in free markets is invariably cost.

Wind generated electricity has several benefits. Wind provides clean and endless electricity. To survive, the wind industry must effectively combine environmental cleanliness with low cost. In a future with reduced government subsidies and less pressure for renewable energy mandates because of cost concerns, it has to be able to compete on cost to remain viable. In the wind industry’s favor is the fact that fossil fueled power has continually risen over time in cost. If renewables continue to go down in price the two will ultimately intersect.

However, one fossil fuel – natural gas – has made strong advancements in cost. This provides a formidable challenge for the alternative energy industry. Since 2008, new natural gas drilling technology advancements have triggered a dramatic decline in electricity rates in Texas. Texas, along with a number of other states, gets a significant percentage of its power from natural gas plants. Because of this, the wind industry faces a huge cost challenge for the near future.

A major complaint about wind energy is that it doesn’t produce electricity consistently and predictably. After all, simply building wind turbines doesn’t guarantee that the wind will blow to turn them. The result of idle equipment is zero electricity production. Because there are no effective technologies to control the wind, there is no good way to calculate just how much electricity will be generated at any given moment from a particular wind turbine. If the wind industry can develop technologies that first stores the overflow of electricity produced when the wind is active and then steadily supplies it to consumers, then renewable wind energy will grow in future importance. There are many interesting technologies on the horizon for solving this issue, but today none of them are at a stage where they could be implemented on a large-scale and to great effect.

Article by Devon Bass who has been active in the energy markets for 16 years, first as a trader then as a consultant.

He is the founder of Vault Energy Solutions and the Texas Chamber of Commerce Energy Association.

Related posts:

• Will the Japanese Wind Tower Be the Future of Wind Power?
• New Jersey to Take Lead in Offshore Wind Energy?
• Home-Grown Wind Power Takes Root
• Japanese Wind Farms Keep Spinning In The Wake Of Fukushima
• Additional Wind Generators to Arise Alongside Lake Erie

Researchers from MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics found that the operating costs of electric vehicles can be 9 to 12 percent less that standard diesel trucks. This is only when the delivery trucks are used daily in a big city.

According to co-author, Jarrod Goentzel, at this moment, an electric truck fleet is not for every company. “There has to be a good business case if there is going to be more adoption of electric vehicles. We think it’s already a viable economic model, and as battery costs continue to drop, the case will only get better.”

To conduct the study, the MIT researchers collected data from office supplier, Staples, and ISO New England, the nonprofit firm that operates New England’s power grid. They generated a model for a fleet of 250 delivery trucks. Three scenarios were examined, each with different truck engines: electric, hybrid gas-electric, and diesel engines.

According to the Staples data, their diesel engines average 10.14 miles per gallon. Hybrid gas-electric got 11.56 miles per gallon, and electric trucks average 0.8 kilowatt-hours per mile. The electric vehicles could be plugged in overnight to a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system. The truck batteries would then be used to produce reliable power for the grid overnight, for which they could be compensated by the local utility company.

With diesel costing $4 per gallon, the MIT team ran the numbers to see where they stood. For the diesel fleet, the costs are about 75 cents per mile. For an electric fleet enabled with V2G, the costs are about 68 cents per mile. This is because each electric truck can make roughly $900 to $1,400 per year by selling their excess power to the grid.

Staples currently has 68 electric delivery trucks in its fleet. These vehicles are relatively new so it is still too early to deliver a post-deployment conclusion according to Michael Payette, director of fleet equipment at Staples. Mr. Payette commented on the performance of the electric trucks, noting there were “no real surprises from a reliability perspective, but I was surprised by the drivers’ acceptance, to the point where they do not ever want to drive a diesel [truck] again.”

The MIT team believe that almost every deliver truck in an urban fleet is a viable candidate to be electric. This is only true for urban fleets because the electric motors simply don’t have enough range to operate on the interstates or in the countryside.

The MIT report was delivered at the January 2012 IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference in Washington, D.C.

Article by David A. Gabel, appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.

Related posts:

• Top Ten Cleantech Trucking Companies
• U.S. Trucking Companies Making Shift to Liquid Natural Gas
• Changing the Economics and Waste of Trucking
• Department of Transportation’s Wireless Research Ties Intelligent Transport to Clean Fleets
• Electric Cars and National Security – Are They Inextricably Linked?

In an analysis of more than 6,000 smart meters, British Gas found that 46 percent of electricity use occurs from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., when most businesses are typically closed. Common examples of unnecessary electricity use include the lighting of parking areas during weekends, keeping the lights on at retail stores even after shopping centers are closed, and running vending machines around the clock.

The UK utility also released a series of thermal images illustrating how much energy is lost from energy-inefficient buildings in London, Manchester, and Liverpool during the evening hours. According to British Gas, the average business could save £1,200 ($1,900) on its annual electricity bill by simply switching off the lights at parking lots during weekends.

A recent report by Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute suggested that reducing energy waste will be a critical component of UK efforts to achieve its climate change targets.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

Related posts:

• Wasted Food Equals Wasted Energy?
• Intel the Biggest Buyer of Green Energy in the U.S., Report Says
• How to Generate Electricity in Your Spin Class
• Green Energy Use in Germany Passes 20 Percent of Total Power Mix
• Energy Efficiency Can Eliminate India’s Electricity Shortage

Internet service will help you to lead a Green Life. You will be able to use the power of Internet to decrease even global warming. Follow these tips for a green living. They will help you to save your money and earth.

1. Switch on to Online Shopping
If you are able to buy some of your things online and don’t use vehicles on the road, you can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It will help you to save your fuel and time.

2. Use of Electronic Invoices
Electronic billing system helps you to save a great amount of paper by avoiding the need for printed invoices. These electronic invoicing will also help you to save your time to reach and pay the bill. The real environmental cost of traditional invoicing is much greater than that of a paper. The printed bills also need ink and energy to be printed and fuel to be transported to the customers. So by using electronic invoices you can save your paper, energy, fuel, time and money.

3. Use of Second Hand Books
The Internet is an absolutely reliable source to search and find and buy what your essential goods. If you are a student, your textbooks take big amount from your budget. A student spends a very huge sum each year on textbooks and notebooks. To lessen the costs of it, you can search for new or used textbooks at online markets. If you want to a search a textbook, all you need is the ISBN number of the book you are searching for. You can also save money and decrease the use of paper by using used books and sell those books which you don’t want to keep any longer at home.

4. Sell or Recycle Your Electronic Equipment
The management of electronic wastes is more important because of the increasing number of electronic equipment, we use. There are some web sites from which you can learn how to sell or recycle your old electronic equipment.

5. Giving Public Awareness
Use all the search engines of social network such as twitter, post blogs, send emails etc. to share the idea of recycling and reuse.

More Green Tips
Internet is an ultimate source for learning Do It Yourself and green tips. Green living Tips and The Daily Green are among the millions of web sites to reach green living tips and they’re all free.

These simple tips will help you to reduce your energy use and budget which means less dependence on the fossil fuels and paper.

Please remember these 3R’s to reduce wastes and live green.

The three R’s namely Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Manage wastes means not to produce it. This can be done by careful shopping. This is Reducing.

Reusing makes economic and environmental sense to reuse products.

Recycling is a series of steps to sell a product as a new one. Begin it from home itself.

These 3R’s help us to reduce the amount of waste we throw away and also conserve natural resources and energy.

Article by Rebecca Jones, a blogger by profession. She loves writing on topics related to parenthood and technology. Beside this she is fond of automobiles. These days she is busy in writing an article on sustainable design style.

Related posts:

• Energy Savings?! Knock, knock…any CleanTechie at home?
• Five Green Ways to Reduce Your Household Bills
• Easy Tips to Save on Your Energy Bills
• Take a Bite Out of Coal!
• 31,000 Homes Weatherized in June

The Dartmouth system covers approximately seven acres in a semi-rural residential area and is expected to generate an average of 186,500 kilowatt-hours per year, which will provide 90 percent of the electricity used at the site. It is the first time that the Gehrtec Base, the racking system for ground-mounted systems from Gehrlicher Solar, is used in the U.S. The Gehrtec Base is suitable for a wide range of module technologies and sizes. It enables both the orientation and tilt of each module to be individually adjusted.

The second project completed is a 322 kW rooftop system in Swedesboro, NJ. The system has been acquired by a group of private investors who will sell energy under a power purchase agreement to a cold storage facility, owned by KMT brrr! LLC.

“Both projects have a strategic relevance to us”, said Dr. Stefan Parhofer, CEO of Gehrlicher Solar America Corp. “We perceive great potential in Massachusetts and are currently receiving many inquiries from there. It has a very interesting Solar Renewable Energy Certificates market, and while that of New Jersey still remains challenging, although New Jersey also remains an attractive market for Solar”, Dr. Parhofer concluded.

Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.

Related posts:

• German Solar Company Enters U.S. Market
• Massachusetts Fires up Solar Hot Water Rebates
• Not Enough Workers with PV Training and Solar Energy Job Preparation
• Online PV Exchange Platform To Enter North American Market
• Ohio Tax Reform Clears Path For Solar

The result is an industry that has historically consisted of an overwhelming array of service providers, each with different capabilities. This has posed a challenge to tying building systems together into single solutions, as I explained in my last blog. In the past, vendors designed products such as building automation systems, controls, and certain types of equipment specifically so that they would not work with other vendors’ products, ensuring the vendor a long-term market for replacements and upgrades.

These vendor-specific fiefdoms are starting to break down as demand for building energy management systems (BEMS) as well as comprehensive, end-to-end solutions for energy efficiency including new capabilities such as demand response and energy procurement continue to grow. The word of the decade in the building sector is convergence: the integration of building control technologies with ICT. No single player on either the HVAC or IT side can do it all, so the drive toward convergence has resulted in “co-opetition” – i.e., partnerships between competitors that would have been pitted squarely against each other in the past, and in some cases still are.

This week Schneider Electric and Cisco announced that they were expanding their partnership efforts to deliver better enterprise energy management solutions. The partnership will pair the strengths of Cisco’s EnergyWise platform, which is ideally suited for data center and IT energy management, with Schneider Electric’s building management system (BMS). The union is mutually-reinforcing, as the BMS can be used to monitor and control parts of the information and communication technology (ICT) network, and vice versa.

This is not the only example of this we’ve seen over the last few years. IBM made one of the earliest moves toward co-opetition in smart building technology when it launched the Green Sigma Coalition in 2009, an industry alliance that has helped tie smart building technology into enterprise energy management and includes Honeywell, Siemens, Johnson Controls, and others. There are also countless sub-rosa partnerships between rivals to enable a wider range of offerings in RFP responses and major contracts.

The co-opetition trend, however, isn’t all about vendors deciding to play nice. It’s about vendors finding that the combined capability of two systems – whether ICT systems linked with BMSs, demand response services tied with energy procurement services, or one of the dozens of other possible permutations – is often greater than the sum of the parts. Combining two powerful solutions from separate vendors can open up new opportunities that are impossible to achieve individually.

Make no mistake; competition is still alive and well in the building sector, and that’s a good thing for the industry as a whole. But these co-opetion arrangements demonstrate that the highly fragmented building industry is finding opportunities to pair technologies in novel ways to deliver smarter buildings in mutually beneficial ways.

Article by Eric Bloom, appearing courtesy the Matter Network.

Related posts:

• Looking Forward to the Day Smart Grid Dies
• DOE Preparing to Launch an Energy Star-like System for Commercial Buildings
• To Tax or Not to Tax Smart Grid Investment Grants?
• Green Building, Water, Energy, Clean Tech: Where Are We Going?
• Smart Grid & Demand Response Hindered by Ill-equipped Buildings

The IPP Sea Breeze Power is completing permitting of the $750 million Juan de Fuca Cable (JFC) that will connect Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington state — and with it the US Pacific Northwest — with Victoria and the British Columbia power grid. The new sea floor HVDC Light line will enable a more efficient import/export handling between the Bonneville Power and BC Hydro transmission networks and provide a third bi-directional connection between western Canada and the US. This will help stabilize power on the grid and make electricity more reliable for commercial and residential users from three US states and BC.

JFC is using the latest DC transmission technology from ABB, which generates a fraction of the materials cost and carbon footprint of AC and does not require cooling for under-sea lines — the dirty, buried secret of the utilities. The cable also makes allowances for earthquake-prone fault lines by providing slack in its underground routing.

The new line will be built and used using an innovative shared revenue model between the project owners and the two utilities.

Article by Stephan Burckhardt, a cleantech, high-tech brand and marketing consultant based in British Columbia.

Related posts:

• Island of Majorca Will Get Renewable Energy from Mainland Spain
• Betting on Siemens with Offshore Wind
• Transmission Upgrades in LA Take Five Years…
• Offshore Wind Power, EWEC, Part II
• New Solar Module Plant to Create Green Jobs