Green buildings

LED lighting control developer Redwood Systems announced Thursday that Japanese conglomerate Mitsui Group has invested $3.5 million.

Redwood Systems already had venture capital firms U.S. Venture Partners and Battery Ventures as investors.

However, an endorsement from a global company like Mitsui puts an especially big spotlight on the company, and on computerized lighting-control systems in general.

Redwood Systems makes computerized DC (direct current) lighting control systems aimed at improving energy efficiency.

Using sensors or motion detection cameras, the system is capable of gathering data on things like temperature and room occupancy. That data can then be used to … Read more

An innovative concept for the carport of the future was unveiled in Plainville, Conn., this morning.

Conn. Governor Dannel Malloy and GE Energy Industrial Solutions CEO Luis Ramírez unveiled the GE EV Solar Carport, a carport that incorporates solar panels on its roof with electric vehicle charging stations under its cover.

GE partnered with Inovateus Solar, which installed the solar carport.

The solar panels on the carport will produce enough electricity per year to power the equivalent of 20 homes. Not every space in the lot will have an EV station. The solar panels on the carport will … Read more

The U.S.-India Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center is ready to offer $100 million in public and private-sector funding for green-tech research, the organization announced last week.

Specifically, the center's intent is to fund joint projects between U.S. and Indian research groups involving biofuels, solar energy, or building efficiency.

India and the U.S. are together contributing $50 million to the center, with the other $50 million expected to be privately matched.

The center was launched during President Obama's November 2010 trip to India and is a joint venture signed by both the president … Read more

Americans who receive meter data on their home energy use reduce consumption on average by 1.8 percent after the first year.

That's according to a study of 750,000 households of varied demographics in six states conducted by energy-management software company Opower and sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The study followed homes enrolled in various utility programs that provided home usage data via Web portal, text, or paper reports mailed to consumers' homes.

The figure may not sound like much. But if every home in the U.S. reduced energy consumption by 1.8 percent, nationwide … Read more

General Motors has taken steps to make the Orion Assembly Plant even more energy efficient including using landfill gas to cut energy costs.

The plant will begin assembling the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano this fall. With an upgraded paint shop that is heated by natural and landfill gas, the painting process will use half of the energy per vehicle of the one it replaced. The system runs exclusively on landfill gas primarily to generate steam for heating and compressed air for most of the year.

According to GM, both the Sonic and Verano use a new eco paint … Read more

BOSTON--Green building professionals can point to dozens of houses that are so efficient they consume less than half the energy of an average American home. A low-income housing development here is bringing those same efficiency techniques to a block-long apartment building.

The Castle Square Apartments in Boston's South End neighborhood is in the midst of a project organizers say will be one of the largest deep-energy retrofits done in the U.S., with a projected 72 percent cut in energy use. Last Thursday, the state- and federally-funded development held a groundbreaking attended by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, U.S. … Read more

The Seattle Seahawks stadium, Qwest Field Event Center, is adding solar panels to its roof.

The solar arrays from Fremont, Calif.-based Solyndra are racks of thin-film CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, and selenide) solar cells shaped like tubes. The racks will cover approximately 2.5 acres, about 80 percent, of Qwest Field, Solyndra announced yesterday.

Solyndra is known for its tube-shape solar cells that capture direct, diffuse, and reflected sunlight throughout the day without the need for a rotating mechanism, the method often used to maximize the efficiency of flat solar panels.

The arrays for Qwest Field will come from Solyndra's state-of-the-art solar manufacturing plant in California, which was built in part with a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. The plant is a showcase for U.S. green-tech manufacturing: It employs over 1,000 people operating robotics manufacturing tools as a way to curb production costs and compete against inexpensive solar panels from China while keeping jobs in the U.S.… Read more

NXP Semiconductors has developed chipsets for CFL and LED light bulbs that allow the devices to be operated remotely via wireless networks and portable devices, the Dutch chipmaker announced this week.

The GreenChip iCFL chipset for CFLs and GreenChip iSSL chipset for LEDs have been adopted by lighting manufacturer TCP.

The bulbs can be turned on, turned off, or dimmed.

Both chips operate at the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, the low-rate wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN) standard for many wireless networks, including ZigBee, used to support home smart meters, smart appliances, and security systems.

But the bulb chipset has … Read more

- Audi plans to use wind power as a source of clean energy for its upcoming electric and natural gas vehicles. The combination of clean power and zero- and low-emissions vehicles is a first step by the manufacturer toward making its entire lineup carbon-neutral.

To make its carbon-neutral goal a reality, the carmaker is financing the construction of four wind turbines off the North Sea that will generate annually up to 53 GWh of electricity. Wind-generated electricity will be fed to the public power grid, and Audi plans to use a portion of the wind power to charge its electric … Read more