Nest Energy Services automatically adjusts your thermostat using big data from utility partners
by adi robertson

In 2011, thermostats became cool for possibly the first time ever. The Nest Learning Thermostat turned something as banal as climate control into an optimization puzzle, complete with its own app. But while Nest wants to shake up its industry by going straight to consumers with personalization tools, the company still relies strongly on larger, more traditional ties with energy companies. It introduced its first partnership with Texas' Reliant Energy last year, convincing Reliant to offer a free Nest thermostat with a two-year service plan. Now, it's leveraging those ties with Nest Energy Services, a set of partnerships that offer extra big data-based features to customers of participating electrical companies, including Reliant, Green Mountain Energy, National Grid, Edison of Southern California, and Austin Energy.

One of the Nest thermostat's biggest selling points is its automation: a programmable thermostat might save electricity — which is why so many energy companies offer them for free — but only if you're willing to set it up. Its newest features build on this, finding workarounds for the little inefficiencies that come from simply not wanting to spend your life tweaking temperature settings. The first is called "Rush Hour," meant to lower electricity demand during major spikes like a hot afternoon. When a power company expects a surge in use, the Nest will tell its user, cooling the house slightly in the preceding hours. As things heat up, it will cycle air conditioning instead of running it consistently, keeping the temperature relatively constant while cutting down on power use. It's possible to take control manually, but if you leave it be, you'll get a credit from the power company, saving an estimated $20 to $60 per season.

This kind of reimbursement program isn't new. With programmable thermostats, energy companies can automatically adjust users' thermostats higher on hot days and credit them for it — this plan from AEP Ohio, for example, offers between $3 and $8 a month in the summer. Essentially, Nest is trying to make that process less uncomfortable, whether by cooling the house beforehand or by making it clearer and easier to opt out of the process. continued…

first published week of:   04/29/2013

New Hydro Energy Laws Could Add 60 GW Of Clean Energy To U.S. Grid
by silvio marcacci

Small hydropower facility image via Shutterstock

The one thing everyone working on energy issues in America can agree upon is non-existent energy policy action at the national level. But late last week President Obama signed two bipartisan bills that could create a major boost for US renewables generation from an unlikely source – small hydropower.

It’s kind of amazing these bills becoming law hasn’t gotten much attention, since they’re the first real energy legislation to pass Congress since 2009, and could ultimately create 1.2 million green jobs while adding 60 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable electricity to the grid.

These two bills, the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act and Small Conduit Hydropower Development and Rural Jobs Act, will streamline the regulatory process required to add new hydropower generation to existing dams or upgrade existing hydro generation resources, and could unlock the untapped potential of thousands of miles of waterways. continued…

first published week of:   08/26/2013

New Mexico Senators Fight For National Renewable Electricity Standard
by tdworld.com

U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) and Mark Udall (D-CO) last week introduced a bill to establish a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) that would create jobs, reduce pollution and save consumers money. The bill would require utilities to generate 25 percent of their power from wind, solar and other renewable energy sources by 2025.

According to a New Mexico NPR site, Tom and Mark Udall, who are first cousins, first introduced a similar initiative in 2002 while members of the U.S. House of Representatives. They eventually built a coalition in the House and won passage of an RES amendment in 2007. Since being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2008, they have continued the fight in hopes of finally passing a national RES into law. continued…

first published week of:   11/04/2013

North Carolina Legislators Move Against Renewable Energy
by linda hardesty

In North Carolina, a house panel began the process of repealing a law that requires state electric utilities to generate a certain amount of power from renewable energy.

The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard law was originally passed in 2007 and has garnered praise for North Carolina as a progressive energy state in the South. The law requires utilities to generate 3 percent of their retail sales from renewable energy sources or efficiency efforts, with that percentage increasing over time to 6 percent in 2015 and 12.5 percent in 2021 and following years.

But in an 11-10 vote last week, the Commerce and Job Development Subcommittee on Energy and Emerging Markets passed a bill that would cap renewable energy and efficiency requirements by power companies, electric cooperatives and city-owned electric utilities at 6 percent, and all the requirements would end in 2018, according to the Associated Press. continued…

first published week of:   04/15/2013

NRC staff signals 'no hazard' in San Onofre start

According to a report by the Associated Press, Federal regulators believe that running the San Onofre nuclear power plant at no more than 70 percent power is not a significant safety risk.

While this is a preliminary rulling by the NRC, it represents an important step for Southern California Edison, which is pushing to restart the Unit 2 reactor by summer.

The plant has been idle since January 2012, after a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusual damage to tubes that carry radioactive water.

first published week of:   04/22/2013

NRDC: Burning Trees to Make Electricity is an ‘Environmental Disaster’
by scott gibson

The Natural Resources Defense Council says that forests in the southeastern U.S. are threatened by a growing demand here and in Europe for wood to fuel the production of electricity, a practice that produces more carbon pollution than coal, gas and oil.

The "massive" fuel needs of electric utilities could double logging rates and "significantly" increase carbon emissions, the organization claims in a statement on its website.

"Until recently, electricity produced by burning plant material — called biomass energy — was widely considered an important 'renewable' resource — along with technologies like solar, wind, and geothermal," the NRDC says. "But biomass was never meant to include whole trees, much less entire forests." continued…

first published week of:   06/10/2013

Nuclear Power Has Prevented 1.84 Million Premature Deaths, Study Says

The use of nuclear power from 1971 to 2009 prevented more than 1.8 million premature deaths related to air pollution and 64 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, a new study says. Using historical production data and estimates of mortality per unit of electricity generated, scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University calculated that replacing nuclear energy sources with fossil fuel-burning sources during that period would have caused about 1.84 million premature deaths.  continued…

first published week of:   06/03/2013

Nuclear revival: Japan to re-launch six reactors in 2013

Japan’s major supplier of nuclear power generating equipment, France’s Areva group, has announced Tokyo’s plans to restart six reactors by the end of 2013. The other reactors will be restarted later – except the Fukushima-type made in the US.

In addition to two reactors already put back into operation in Japan “there could be half a dozen reactors that will restart by the end of the year,” the Chief Executive Officer of the French state-owned nuclear group announced at a press conference.

I think two-thirds of reactors will restart” within several years, specified future plans Areva’s CEO Luc Oursel.

Oursel noted though that it will take years to get the green light for all Japan’s nuclear reactors and some of them, like the notorious reactors at devastated Fukushima power plant, produced in the US by General Electric Company, would remain closed forever.

While Japan’s foreign partners remain optimistic about resurrection of nuclear power industry in the country, Japanese Kyodo press agency believes country’s nuclear power generation facilities will remain frozen through 2013.

Details Here

first published week of:   03/11/2013

Nuclear’s swan SONGS
by chris nelder

Stick a fork in U.S. nuclear power. The dream of electricity “too cheap to meter” is dead.

It died last Friday with Edison International’s announcement that it would permanently close the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) located north of San Diego. The plant (pictured above) has been shut down since January 2012 due to a leak in a tube in its steam generating system.

The reason? It would cost too much to fix.

The leak stemmed from work done by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which replaced the plant’s steam generators in 2009-2010. Errors in its computer models, which made the replacement parts to finer tolerances than the initial design, reduced the contact force of anti-vibration bars restraining thousands of tubes in the steam generators. This allowed the tubes to rub together, eventually resulting in one of the tubes springing a leak. Replacing the tubes thus became a monstrously expensive job. Public opposition to reopening the plant was made worse by UPI’s revelation in May that plastic bags, masking tape and broomsticks were being used to temporarily control the leak, and that internal documents reported degraded equipment with “hundreds of corrosion notifications.” Fending off continued legal challenges, which might have required seeking a time-consuming and expensive amendment to the SONGS license, finally doomed the plant, which cost about $1 million a day to keep ready for a restart. continued…

first published week of:   06/17/2013

NY State Developing Energy Highway Big on Renewables
by barry cassell

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Dec. 24 that $250m is available for a broad range of renewable energy generation projects as part of his Energy Highway Blueprint that has the goal of upgrading and modernizing New York’s aging energy infrastructure.

Funding for these renewable projects is administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) through the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), and is targeted to projects that use wind, hydroelectric, solar, biomass or other clean-energy resources. The projects will not only help expand the state’s renewable energy portfolio but will assist the state in reducing its carbon footprint.

“As New York State looks to upgrade and improve its energy infrastructure, renewable energy will play an even greater role in providing power that is more reliable, efficient and environmentally sustainable,“ said Cuomo.

Details Here

first published week of:   01/07/2013