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Brussels, 7 February 2012. The Global Wind Energy Council annual market statistics published today show that the wind industry installed just over 41,000 MW of new clean, reliable wind power in 2011, bringing the total installed capacity globally to more than 238,000 MW at the end of last year. This represents an increase of 21%, with an increase in the size of the annual global market of just over 6%.  Today, about 75 countries worldwide have commercial wind power installations, with 22 of them already passing the 1 GW level.

“Despite the state of the global economy, wind power continues to be the renewable generation technology of choice”, said Steve Sawyer, GWEC Secretary General. “2011 was a tough year, as will be 2012, but the long term fundamentals of the industry remain very sound. For the second year running, the majority of new installations were outside the OECD, and new markets in Latin America, Africa and Asia are driving market growth.”

China has consolidated its position as global market leader, with a cumulative capacity of more than 62,000 MW, despite having faced a challenging year. “2011 was not an easy year for the Chinese wind industry. However, in the end, the industry has come out quite well, not only surviving the year, but also becoming more resilient to the various challenges. In the coming year, the industry will adapt to the government’s new requirements as well as those of the market. We expect the industry will grow stronger and more competitive in the next year”, commented Li Junfeng, Secretary General of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industry Association (CREIA).

For India, 2011 installations pushed India’s total capacity to just over 16,000 MW. “India reached another milestone with adding over 3000 MW of wind power installed in 2011. This is likely to go up to 5000 MW per year by 2015. Ongoing initiatives of the Indian government to create new policies will attract large quantities of private investments to the sector”, said D.V. Giri, Chairman of the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association.

In the EU, 9,616 MW of wind energy capacity was installed in 2011, for a total installed capacity of 93,957 MW – enough to supply 6.3% of the EU’s electricity, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). “Despite the economic crisis gripping Europe, the wind industry is still installing solid levels of new capacity, commented Justin Wilkes, Policy Director of EWEA.” But to achieve the EU’s long-term targets we need strong growth again in future years. A commitment from the European Union to put in place a binding renewable energy target for 2030 would send a very positive signal to potential investors.”

After a difficult 2010, the US wind sector bounced back, with installations of more than 6800 MW. “American wind energy’s long-term fundamentals are strong,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. “We have installed more than a third of all new American electric generation in recent years and are well on our way to providing 20% of America’s electricity by 2030 as projected by the Bush Administration. Our 2011 installations alone provide enough electricity to power almost two million American homes”, says Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association.

“Wind energy in Canada enjoyed a record year in 2011, surpassing the 5000 MW milestone. Canada, and in particular Ontario, is emerging as a very competitive destination for wind energy investment globally. Maintaining that position will require continued commitments to aggressive targets for wind energy development and a stable policy framework. As Canada continues to renew its electricity generation resources, wind energy will play an ever-increasing part in delivering reliable, economic and clean electricity”, said Chris Forrest, Vice-President of Communications & Marketing of the Canadian Wind Energy Association.

Latin America had a good year, growing by a total of more than 1200 MW, led by Brazil. Brazilian installations were up by half, adding 587 MW to reach a total of just over 1500 MW. “Brazil reached the 1 GW milestone during 2011, and has a pipeline of more than 7,000 MW to be completed before the end of 2016,” said Pedro Perrelli, Executive Director of the Brazilian Wind Energy Association (ABEEOLICA). “The Brazilian wind sector has attracted significant investment, facilitated by the policies of the BNDES (Brazilian National Sustainable Development Bank), but a new policy framework with clear rules for the future is increasingly necessary to keep the pace of growth strong.”

Sawyer concluded: “We look forward to more new markets opening up in Africa, Asia and Latin America in 2012 and we expect to see some of the new markets in Latin America beyond Brazil start to approach critical mass. But at the end of the day we will be hard pressed to keep the industry’s growth up to its potential without a global price on carbon and other measures to account for the real costs to society of conventional power generation”.

More information on global 2011 statistics:
Click here for detailed graphs&figures

Press release in Chinese
Graphs&figures in Chinese

Press release in Spanish

Press release in Portuguese

Source: Global Wind Energy Council

Continue reading »]]> Washington, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu today detailed President Barack Obama’s $27.2 billion Fiscal Year 2013 budget request for the Department of Energy, emphasizing the President’s commitment to an all-of-the-above energy strategy that includes critical investments in innovation, in the job-creating clean energy technologies, and in our national security strategy.   The budget request for the Department is part of the President’s blueprint for an American economy that is built to last based on American energy that is cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.  At the same time, the FY 2013 budget request also represents tough choices aimed at focusing taxpayer resources on areas that will yield the greatest benefit over time.

“The United States is competing in a global race for the clean energy jobs of the future,” said Secretary Chu. “The choice we face as a nation is simple: do we want the clean energy technologies of tomorrow to be invented in America by American innovators, made by American workers and sold around the world, or do we want to concede those jobs to our competitors?  We can and must compete for those jobs. This budget request includes responsible investments in an American economy that is built to last.”

Specifically the President’s FY 2013 budget request for the Department of Energy:

·         Invests in cross-cutting research to lead in the research, development, deployment and production of clean energy technologies;

·         Promotes efforts to make solar power affordable for all Americans by reducing the cost of solar energy by 75 percent and making it cost competitive without subsidies by the end of the decade;

·         Continues the Obama Administration’s efforts to reduce our dependence on oil by one-third by 2025;

·         Supports groundbreaking basic science, research and innovation to solve our energy challenges and ensure that the United States remains at the forefront of science and technology;

·         Strengthens national security by reducing nuclear dangers and maintaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent; and

·         Advances responsible environmental management by cleaning up the legacy from the Manhattan Project and the Cold War.

Some highlights in the FY 2013 budget include:

·         $60 million to perform critical research on energy storage systems and devise new approaches for battery storage;

·         $770 million for nuclear energy, including $65 million for cost-shared awards to support  first-of-a-kind small modular reactors and $60 million for nuclear waste R&D that aligns with the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future;

·         $276 million for research and development of advanced fossil fuel power systems and carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies to allow for the continued use of our abundant domestic coal resources while reducing greenhouse gas emissions;

·         $350 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to continue support for promising early-stage research projects that could deliver game-changing clean energy technologies;

·         $120 million to support the Energy Frontier Research Centers and $140 million for the five existing Energy Innovation Hubs and to establish a new hub to focus on grid systems and the tie between transmission and distribution systems;

·         $11.5 billion to protect Americans by maintaining U.S. nuclear deterrence capabilities, reducing nuclear dangers in an increasingly unstable and unpredictable world, and providing for the Navy’s nuclear propulsion needs; and

·         $2.5 billion to support NNSA’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation program, which plays a critical role in completing the President’s goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material around the world in four years.

The budget request for fiscal year 2013 also highlights the steps the Department continues to take to improve its management and operations, and reduce costs. Some examples include:

·         Eliminating 4.6 million gross square feet of excess real property, over 3 million sq. feet more than the FY 2011 target, which will avoid future operations and maintenance costs;

·         Reducing its time-to-hire new employees by 45 percent; and

·         Reducing, consolidating or moving 40 percent of its websites to the Energy.gov platform to increase communication and transparency, and streamline website infrastructure processes, which will save more than $10 million a year.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy

Continue reading »]]> As part of the Obama Administration’s blueprint for an American economy built to last, today U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced over $12 million to speed solar energy innovation from the lab to the marketplace through the Energy Department’s SunShot Incubator program. The funding will accelerate American innovation in solar energy and manufacturing by supporting advancements in hardware, reductions in soft costs, and the development of pilot manufacturing and production projects.

“Investments in American energy and manufacturing are critical building blocks for an American economy built to last,” said Secretary Chu. “The SunShot Incubator program fosters the innovative small businesses that will rapidly bring technological advances to market and pioneer a new era in American energy.”

The SunShot Incubator program helps launch new startups and business units within existing companies to accelerate the innovative solar technology development. Since 2007, DOE has invested $60 million through the Incubator in promising technologies as they are brought from the lab to the marketplace. These investments have catalyzed $1.6 billion in private sector support. The federal investment in these projects has been leveraged at a rate of more than 26-to-1.

The funding opportunity announced today builds on the SunShot Incubator program’s history of successful partnerships. Nearly forty companies have participated in the Incubator, including Colorado-based PrimeStar. In 2007, DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and PrimeStar Solar announced a cooperative R&D agreement to transition NREL’s cadmium telluride solar technology to commercial production. Primestar later received a $3 million Incubator award to commercialize its highly-efficient, low-cost photovoltaic solar panels. Primestar, now owned by GE, has announced a $600 million investment in the company and the construction of a large-scale manufacturing plant in Colorado that will employ more than 350 American workers to produce state-of-the-art solar panels. Through the Department’s SunShot Incubator program, these types of investments help early-stage companies overcome barriers to bring innovative solar technologies to market faster.

Today’s SunShot Incubator funding will support innovations in the development of hardware and non-hardware approaches from the proof-of-concept stage to prototype demonstration, including advances in photovoltaics, concentrating solar power and power electronics, as well as streamlined permitting, inspection and financing approaches, and to shorten the timeline for awardees to transition innovative prototypes produced at lab-scale into pilot and eventually full-scale manufacturing, production, or deployment. Each of the investments will require significant cost-share commitments from the awardees.

Applications are due on April 9, 2012. For more information and application requirements for the Funding Opportunity Announcement, please visit the Funding Opportunity Exchange website.

Launched in February 2011, DOE’s SunShot Initiative funds competitive research to make solar energy systems faster, easier, and cheaper for America’s homeowners, businesses and utilities to generate clean, renewable energy. The collaborative national effort aims to make solar energy cost competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade. Achieving this goal will drive widespread adoption of solar energy technologies, fortify the United States’ leadership in the global clean energy race, spur new industries, and create jobs across the nation. For more information, visit the SunShot Initiative website.

DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy accelerates development and facilitates deployment of energy efficiency and renewable technologies and market-based solutions that strengthen U.S. energy security, environmental quality, and economic vitality.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Continue reading »]]> As February is already getting under way, I’d like to share with you some new and innovative ways to help make 2012 your most energy-aware year ever. Obviously, confronting energy issues doesn’t exactly top the list of yearly resolutions that Americans make for themselves every January. With New Year’s goals usually centering on more tangible ideas such as weight loss, increased exercise, and other areas of self-improvement, lowering personal energy consumption hardly stands a chance in making the top 10.

But things have been rapidly changing in the energy world over the last couple of years, and it’s becoming easier to make energy-aware decisions everyday. Technological advancements in networking and information sharing have made monitoring and adjusting your energy usage easier than ever before. Software developers are always looking for the “next best thing” in programming, and this time they seem to be turning energy efficiency and energy tracking into one of 2012’s biggest application bandwagons. From your smart phone to your favorite social media sites, there are now several ways to educate yourself and make more informed energy choices. So many ways, in fact, that perhaps you could consider adding “Conserve energy” or  “Make smarter, more efficient energy choices” to your 2012 resolution list.

 

Here are just a few of the new, innovative ways to incorporate more energy education into your daily life this year.

Find the best light bulbs for you with the new Light Finder App!

1) Download an energy efficiency smart phone app. Or 3. Or 20.
In November 2011, 43% of American cell phone users had smart phones; post-Christmas sale numbers indicate that this statistic may already be outdated, however, and a research firm, In-stat, predicted last year that smart phone usage will double by 2015. (Note: These stats aren’t including the percent of avid iPad users out there, who can also benefit from these great new applications.) It’s safe to say, then, that there’s a nice portion of the nation that could take advantage of energy efficiency and conservation applications to improve their energy use if they so chose.

I know that venturing into the app store is often a daunting and overwhelming task when you don’t know exactly what you’re hunting for; luckily, most of the legwork has already been done for you. The Alliance to Save Energy, for instance, recently devised a list of their Top 5 Energy Efficiency Smart Phone Apps. If that’s not an official enough source for you, though, try the winners of last year’s EPA Apps for the Environment Challenge.

Track your driving habits with greenMeter.

Among the most noteworthy are:
- The Light Bulb Finder,

- Hootroot, used for determining the most efficient transportation method from point A to point B,

- GreenMeter, which can teach you how to drive more efficiently,

- a Vampire Energy Calculator,

- and my personal favorite, MyEnergyTips, an application that gives you daily tips on how to reduce carbon and save money by making changes to your daily energy habits.

With so many great applications to help with almost any energy need, it has never been easier to lead a more energy efficient lifestyle.

2) Make use of all that social media time to become more energy-minded.
Since the pool of Americans that are social media users is slightly different from those that are smart phone users, it’s exciting to see groups, like Facebook, also adding energy data to their hefty list of shareable information. In addition to Facebook providing new ideas like eMission – a game that teaches you about climate change – this social media giant could be making a big leap for energy users in the near future.

Last October, Facebook announced that their users would soon be able to share more than just pictures and web links with their network: they’ll be able share energy data. Through a partnership with Opower and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), “communities of users will be able to form teams to share tips for improvement and help realize collective goals. Taking a cue from social gaming, the app and its utility partners will also offer rewards and incentives to users who compete in local challenges and reduce their energy footprint”. The success of such an application is hard to determine; however, seeing this kind of effort is very encouraging, and can only lead to greater energy transparency later on.

3) Keep updated with energy topics through social media too.
We all know that when Facebook expanded to applications, they added other features too. Today, with just the click of a “Like” button, you can even add energy news stories and efficiency tips to your Newsfeed. Just by following the Facebook pages of energy groups and companies’, you can find links to up-to-date news on the latest movements in the energy field without ever having to navigate the search of a newspaper site. Try monitoring the page of Energy Efficiency Insights, for starters, or the Department of Energy (DOE) and theDepartment of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).

With all of these options available to you, it would be easy to make efficient energy consumption another resolution for the rest of this year.

The growing popularity of energy awareness is becoming more noticeable every year, and saving energy is almost trendy. More importantly, though: the trend is working. A report issued earlier this month by the Institute for Electric Efficiency (IEE) found that the U.S. saved almost 112 Million Megawatt hours (MWh) of energy in 2010, a 21% savings increase from 2009. With IEE having even higher hopes for 2011 energy savings, it’s clear that, though there is still a lot of work to be done, American citizens have already been taking notice of their energy use without these latest technological developments. Imagine what we could do now, if we put them to use!

Though I know we’re into February and you may have made most of your New Year’s resolutions already, it’s never too late to renew your commitment to energy conservation. With the help of these tools – and the promise of many more to come – you should be more than ready to meet any energy goals you set for 2012.

Source: Cleanenergy.org

Continue reading »]]> KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — The Tennessee Valley Authority said a mild winter so far has reduced electricity sales by 5 percent in the first quarter of the fiscal year and will cause the utility to reconsider expenditures for the rest of the year.

The utility said in a news release today that its first quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that total revenue declined by 9 percent or $260 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31 compared with the same period last year.

“Weather fluctuations are not something new for TVA, but these uncontrollable conditions impact TVA’s financial results,” Chief Financial Officer John Thomas said. “TVA can, however, make adjustments in its operations to mitigate some of the impact of lower sales results.

“We are currently in the process of evaluating planned expenditures for 2012 to determine if certain programs should be revised and are considering other productivity enhancements.”

The milder weather had a more significant impact on electricity sales to TVA’s municipal and cooperative distributors than industrial customers, as electricity usage is typically more temperature-driven for residential customers, the agency said in a statement. Sales to local utilities declined 6 percent, while sales to directly served industrial customers were down 1 percent.

Continue reading »]]> Initiatives include Home Energy Score program, federal loans forenergy efficiency upgrades and workforce guidelines

In the ongoing quest for energy efficiency in the United States, the federal government has noted three key areas holding back progress. Dependable data, money for financing, and a skilled work force are areas that need improvement, and last week federal agencies addressed all three in a triple play approach to improving national energy efficiency.

The Home Energy Score program is rolling out in Portland, Oregon and another dozen cities, with expansion nationwide in 2011. The Home Energy Score allows contractors to analyze the energy usage of a home by entering data into an online program. It takes about an hour to complete the 40-point inspection, which includes an overview of insulation, windows, and cooling and heating systems. The program evaluates each item based on the data entered, generates a one-to-ten score (one being the lowest score), recommends improvements for energy efficiency, and gives an estimate of possible savings. Consumers can view a sample Home Energy Scoreon the DOE website.

The second part of the federal plan addresses financing with a pilot program offered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD will offer loans of up to $25,000 to qualified homeowners for energy efficiency upgrades. The Federal Housing Administration will back the loans and is seeking banks to participate in the two-year pilot which starts in early 2011 (pdf).

The Department of Energy joined the initiatives by releasing guidelines for the workers who will provide auditing and retrofitting services for increased energy efficiency. The Workforce Guidelines for Home Energy Upgrades is intended to improve the quality of energy efficiency work, while supporting future training and a certification program.

By giving American families the tools they need to invest in home energy upgrades, these initiatives will help further Obama’s energy efficiency goals, help middle class families save money and energy and grow the home retrofit industry.

Source: Buildaroo.com

Continue reading »]]> The U.S. has nearly 45,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity.

There is a total installed capacity of 29 megawatts in the southern block of states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.

There is a reason the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is holding its 2012 conference in Atlanta, Georgia this year, according to Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) Renewable Energy Manager Simon Mahan. The combination of newly identified, as-yet-unexploited resources, new technologies that make exploiting them economically feasible and a growing demand for electricity make the region a new frontier for developers.

Southerners are, Mahan said, among the biggest electricity devourers in the nation. The average home in the region, he said, “uses something well north of 14,000 kilowatt-hours a year, primarily because we run our air conditioners a lot.”

In electricity consumption, he explained, “after you get past the top five, you find Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina very high on the list. Florida is the third or fourth highest. And Texas is the biggest. On the East Coast, we represent four out of the top five electricity markets, with New York.”

Southern utilities are hungry for capacity. Older conventional generation units are going offline and utilities must face the regulatory rigors and prohibitively high costs of building new coal or new nuclear — or consider the energy diversification that new wind capacity offers. Only new natural gas plants are competitively priced.

Mahan described projects that have engaged South Carolina’s Santee Cooper, Georgia’s Southern Company and North Carolina’s Duke Energy (which, when it merges with competitor Progress Energy, will be the biggest utility in the nation).

“If they weren’t genuinely interested, they would just put out a white paper saying it’s too expensive, it’s not viable,” Mahan said. Whether their involvement will lead wind development, Mahan said, still isn’t clear. “They’re taking baby steps, which is a necessary economic caution for them,” he noted. But that’s “better than not doing anything.”

Wind’s emerging competitiveness is the result of several factors, Mahan explained.

The South’s resources, measured in the 1980s at a height of 50 meters, were once thought inadequate to economic development, but new turbine technology makes it possible to exploit winds at 100-meter heights.

“Let me give you three pieces of information,” Mahan said. “The first is anecdotal. Airplanes face headwinds of 120 miles per hour because high up, wind speed is much greater.”

“The second,” he said, “is the wind-power law that says the higher you go, the better the wind speed. There is an actual equation. That’s what the National Renewable Energy Lab [NREL] has done with its most recentwind resource assessment map.”

Just published at the DOE website, new NREL data assesses winds across the U.S. at 80-meter heights and allows detailed extrapolations at 100-meter heights. The detailed data shows pockets of potential in many southern states, especially in the mountains and along the coasts. “Potential resources for wind farms are popping up that folks just didn’t realize existed,” Mahan said, “and they’re starting to test them out.”

Developers are moving on the South now because the taller turbines are also technologically more advanced. Advanced blades, drivetrains and power electronics all make feasible the harvesting of the South’s lower speed winds.

“The third piece of information,” Mahan said, “is that private developers are putting up their own anemometers.” In pursuit of the one to two years of actual, on the ground day-to-day data required by the loan institutions that back them, developers are verifying the NREL assessments.

Mahan’s SACE and Wind Working Groups in several states are laying the ground work to wind public approval. “We pride ourselves on our stakeholder engagement and public outreach,” he explained.

Developers like Iberdrola, Invenergy and Wind Capital Group are engaging communities in North Carolina, SouthCarolina, Kentucky and Florida with proposed projects totaling over 1,400 megawatts. “If a developer comes into a community that is not prepared,” Mahan said, “there can be a ‘public backlash.’” SACE and its allies, he said, bring “third-party information so communities are primed and ready for when developers show up.”

TVA’s 1,565 megawatts of power purchase agreements (PPAs) for Midwestern wind and Southern Company subsidiary Alabama Power’s recent PPA for Oklahoma wind both underscore the business sense in fledglingHVDC mega-capacity transmission projects planned by Clean Line (seven gigawatts) and Pattern Energy (three gigawatts) that will by mid-decade deliver Texas and Midwestern winds to southern utilities.

Maybe the biggest part of the equation, Mahan said, “is that we’ve already got businesses here providing goods and services to the wind industry domestically and internationally.” Siemens, ZF Gearboxes, ABB and GE are among the many big names building in the South. “We’ve got turbine and blade manufacturers, nacelle assemblers, ship builders, foundation builders, monopole steel companies and a lot of service companies for avian monitoring, for lighting, for the wires.” It is, Mahan said, “a full suite of economic opportunities for us.”

The obvious next question, Mahan said, is, “’We build the stuff here; why can’t we just go ahead and install it here?’”

Source: Green Tech Media

Continue reading »]]> Energy efficiency in the U.S. is much light and little heat — literally.  Government policy pays a great deal of attention to saving electricity, but focuses little on the thermal energy we waste.

“Policy is electricity-centric in the U.S. Unless you are making kilowatts, the most efficient investments are off the radar,” said Rob Thornton, president of the International District Energy Association (IDEA), who I recently interviewed while writing this year’s edition of Pennwell’s U.S. Guide to Combined Heat and Power Companies.

We throw away a lot of the heat. Power plants, for example, create heat as a byproduct of generation. Rather than reusing this thermal energy, we often let it dissipate into the air. As a result, we waste more energy than Japan uses for everything, according to Amory Lovins, author of “Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era.”

There is good news, however. Thornton and others I interviewed see a growing change in Washington’s attitude about combined heat and power (CHP), district energy, and other efficient methods of using thermal energy. Movers and shakers are becoming more aware of these energy alternatives. In addition, states are increasingly incorporating heat efficiency into clean energy portfolio standards.

“Finally, after all of these years, combined heat and power has become a hot topic in the political community,” said R. Neal Elliott, associate director for research at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

In fact, Congress is looking to improve heat efficiency in its own backyard. The Capitol Building, which already has a district energy system, plans to incorporate an 18-MW CHP system (also called cogeneration). The system is part of long-term energy plan that attempts to reduce costs and improve the efficiency and the environmental footprint of the Capitol.  The CHP system will provide 200,000 lb/hour of steam to heat Congressional buildings. The steam comes from heat produced while generating the electricity, so the plant gets a twofer from the fuel. The CHP system will reduce building energy use 7.1 percent, according to the first quarter 2012 issue of IDEA’s District Energy magazine.

Barry Sanders, president and chief operating officer of American DG Energy, says that the smart energy movement needs to embrace heat, not just electricity, if the U.S. is to achieve its energy independence goals.

“A gaping hole exists in the nation’s discussion about smart energy. Most of the talk focuses on electric power, and neglects thermal applications. Yet, we use a great deal of energy to heat and cool buildings, heat and chill water, and undertake thermal-driven industrial processes,” he wrote in a recent white paper, “Smart Heat: The Next Step in Clean Energy.”

In some parts of the country, we still use a good deal of imported fuel to make heat, at a time when we are trying to shift to domestic supply, Sanders wrote.  He points out that oil continues to be the primary residential heating fuel in some of our most highly populated regions, such as the Northeast, the biggest single heating oil market in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Energy. And in New York, 10,000 of the city’s largest buildings use residual oil, considered a dirty fuel — 86 percent of the city’s soot comes from the burning of residual oil, according to New York City’s office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability.

“By neglecting heat in our smart energy pursuit, we continue to forfeit domestic, efficient and inexpensive fuels in favor of polluting and pricey foreign imports,” Sanders wrote.

Source: Renewable Energy World

Continue reading »]]> Today, Acting Under Secretary of Energy Arun Majumdar joined with North Carolina Congressman Howard Coble (NC-6) to tour the Volvo Group’s truck headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, and highlight the blueprint for an America built to last laid out by President Obama in his State of the Union address earlier this week. The Department of Energy is partnering with companies like the Volvo Group to help harness American ingenuity to commercialize and deploy cutting-edge trucking technologies that will help boost the competitiveness of the U.S. auto and manufacturing industry, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and create jobs for American workers.

“Earlier this week in his State of the Union address, President Obama outlined a blueprint for a stronger American economy based on a resurgence in American manufacturing and innovations in the way we use energy,” said Dr. Majumdar. “Companies like the Volvo Group that are pursuing energy efficiency in their operations, putting Americans to work, and building more fuel-efficient vehicles underscore how investments in clean energy technology are helping to secure America’s future economic prosperity.”

In partnership with the Energy Department, the Volvo Group is helping to lead the industry to advance innovative clean energy vehicle technologies and energy-efficient manufacturing. Through the Department’s SuperTruck program, the Volvo Group was awarded $19 million—which the company is matching dollar for dollar—to improve the efficiency of heavy-duty vehicles like the Mack and Volvo Trucks. Volvo Group has also embraced manufacturing efficiency as part of the DOE’s Better Buildings, Better Plants Program, pledging to reduce the energy intensity of its manufacturing plants with assistance and guidance from the Energy Department. These steps to become more energy-efficient will reduce operating costs at the facility, improving the competitiveness of the company’s products and manufacturing plants.

Dr. Majumdar and Congressman Coble were hosted by Dennis Slagle, Executive Vice President of Volvo Group Trucks Sales & Marketing—Americas, on the tour of the Volvo Group’s Technical Center, which is in the midst of an $8 million expansion.

The Volvo Group’s award was one of four Energy Department-sponsored SuperTruck development projects, which focus on increasing the fuel efficiency of Class 8 trucks—better known as 18-wheelers—by 50%. To achieve this goal, companies like the Volvo Group are developing and improving vehicle technologies in engine efficiency, aerodynamics, waste heat recovery, and hybridization, among other approaches. Through the SuperTruck program, the Energy Department expects fuel economy increases from 6.5 miles per gallon to 9.75 miles per gallon—saving long-haul truckers more than $15,000 per truck per year in fuel costs.

Class 8 trucks represent only 4% of the on-road vehicles in America, but are responsible for almost 20% of the country’s on-road fuel consumption. Implementation of SuperTruck technologies will not only lessen the nation’s dependence on petroleum, but also improve the global competitiveness of U.S. truck manufacturers.

While Volvo is building more efficient vehicles, the company is also improving the energy efficiency of the manufacturing plants that make them. In December 2009, the company joined the Department of Energy’s Save Energy Now LEADER initiative, now known as the Better Buildings, Better Plants Program, to begin an ambitious effort to significantly reduce the energy intensity of its operations as a way to increase competitiveness. Since then, Volvo’s New River Valley plant, located in Dublin, Virginia, has implemented a range of measures with guidance from the Department’s technical experts that reduced its energy intensity by almost 30% in just one year. Embracing energy efficiency measures helped Volvo cut costs and keep operations—and jobs—for its truck manufacturing business here in the United States.

Volvo Truck Corporation is one of the leading heavy truck and engine manufacturers in the world. Volvo Trucks manufactures a line of Class 8 trucks, and is known as a major innovator in the heavy-vehicle industry, selling products in more than 180 markets worldwide.

Source: EERE News, U.S. Department of Energy