Sacramento will be among the first five cities in the country to benefit from President Barack Obama’s plan to invest $4 billion in energy upgrades for the nation’s commercial buildings. The deal will bring much-needed jobs to the capital region’s hard-hit construction sector, where the unemployment rate is around 30 percent. via Sacramento among first Continue reading →
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If there’s one thing the Department of Energy and the Obama administration can do to push clean energy, it’s make sure the necessary transmission lines get built. Miles of transmission lines needed to connect solar and wind farms in the desert can often take years to decades to get built and are one of the Continue reading →
US President Barack Obama proposed on Valentine’s Day to boost funds for clean energy research and deployment in his 2012 budget by slashing subsidies for fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. The announcement comes at a time of great sensitivity on issues related to government support for clean energy, following the US launching Continue reading →
Among the many difficult issues Presidents Obama and Hu Jintao will confront when they meet this week stands one possible bright spot: collaboration on clean energy technology. It represents a critical, urgent need, an enormous market opportunity for both nations and an area of potential common interest – if we can just avoid being our Continue reading →
The administration of President Obama has released a list of “100 Recovery Act Projects That Are Changing America.” Many of the projects involve solar energy, vehicle electrification and electric grid modernization, as well as wind turbine research and manufacturing. Others benefit the military, police, rural communities and the oil and natural gas industry. Although expenditures Continue reading →
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus — has been marketed as a jobs bill, and that’s how it’s been judged. The White House says it has saved or created about 3 million jobs, helping avoid a depression and end a recession. Republicans mock it as a Big Continue reading →
The White House is fanning out in force. Last week, President Barack Obama visited Michigan, for the groundbreaking of a battery manufacturing plant; Labor Secretary Hilda Solis spoke at Celgard, a North Carolina lithium battery-parts producer, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan traveled to an electric vehicle recharging station project in New York; and Continue reading →
“Trilliant and competitors such as Itron Inc., the largest U.S. maker of utility meters, are beginning to benefit from the $4.5 billion in stimulus funds the Obama administration directed toward smart grids to improve efficiency and accommodate electric vehicles and rooftop solar panels,” reports the Washington Post in a July 15th article. Trilliant Chief Executive Continue reading →
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is planning to launch an international entity to be tasked with developing a smart grid, a next-generation power transmission network, U.S. government sources said Friday. With the launch of the envisioned international body, the U.S. government aims to expand the energy market through smart grid standardization and take Continue reading →
According to government sources, the United States plans to announce the formation of the International Smart Grid Action Network, or ISGAN, to expand the U.S. energy market through smart grid standardization and take the lead in the new energy business. The Obama administration is expected to make the announcement at the first ministerial meeting on Continue reading →
Today, Itron Inc. (NASDAQ:ITRI) president and CEO Malcolm Unsworth, and two workers representing Itron’s U.S.-based manufacturing, joined President Obama at the White House for a press event highlighting successful American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) investments. Itron manufactures its industry-leading smart grid and smart metering technology in two of its four U.S.-based facilities – in Continue reading →
Following the commitment made by President Obama last year in Cairo to support broader economic development in Muslim-majority communities, USTDA’s project opportunities include gas-fired combined cycle, cogeneration, solar, wind, hydro and biomass power generation, rural electrification, transmission and distribution upgrades, smart grid technologies, and regional interconnections. Delegations from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Continue reading →
Smart energy grids—the term used to describe the upgrade of 20th century power grids to become intelligent and networked, reducing costs and increasing efficiency and reliability—have long been discussed, and early versions of smart meters in the form of Advanced Meter Reading (AMR) devices have been in use for several years with limited success. These Continue reading →
Deloitte today released results of a survey of 70 clean tech, high tech and energy industry executives which finds that a majority of industry leaders believe President Obama's $787 billion stimulus bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) will foster technology and innovation, stimulate economic growth and create jobs. However, the survey also shows that the Continue reading →
Michigan will receive just more than $5 million for two programs to train workers for jobs in electric utilities, the Obama administration said today. The administration will provide $4.4 million to the state’s Electric Power Workforce Training Strategy, which aims to train 588 workers for electric sector jobs. Northern Michigan University will get $670,000 for Continue reading →
In a letter to President Barack Obama, top-echelon companies involved in energy management technology urge the administration to help give Americans access to information about their energy consumption through the use of connected technology. The letter—written by such influential companies as Google Inc., www.google.com, Mountain View, Calif., General Electric, www.ge.com, Fairfield, Conn., and Best Buy, Continue reading →
President Barack Obama should set a goal of giving every U.S. home and business the ability to “monitor and manage” energy consumption over the Internet, a group of companies and advocates including Hewlett-Packard Co. and Google Inc. said today. Providing consumers with “direct feedback” on their electricity use “via their computers, phones or other devices” Continue reading →
In 1977 during a televised speech, Jimmy Carter, the then President of the United States said: “Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.” That was 33 years Continue reading →
Senate Commerce Communications, Technology, and the Internet Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., expressed “frustration” Tuesday that the Obama administration has not moved fast enough to build out the country’s electricity infrastructure. “I don’t often express frustrations publicly about things on the administration, but this is one … I don’t get it. I don’t understand … Continue reading →
You may already know this, but our power grid system has been largely left alone for half a century. We’re using inefficient grid technology to try to thread power across our country and in the process are losing precious energy and a lot of cash. As part of the infamous American Reinvestment and Recovery Act–or Continue reading →
