Green Business

The Green Economy Will Need a Smart Grid…and Building it will be Big Business

Many believe that the green economy will be powered by the wind and by the sun. But fewer people are aware that to make this possible we need to profoundly transform the current electric grid to control and manage renewable energy supplies. Balancing load and demand is a quite a challenge with renewable supplies that are intermittent and depend on the weather. Without a robust ability to continuously balance energy supply and demand, wind or solar energy sources can have a profoundly negative impact on grid operations, reliability and power quality and force grid operators to make costly and inefficient adaptations to current spot conditions.

A Bright Spot for Renewable Energy Amidst the Current Financial Crisis

The continued global financial crisis has been hurting the green economy. The sudden and very sharp drop in the availability of capital has dried up needed new investments and funding for new many green economy projects and businesses. Because many green or clean tech businesses are in an early expanding phase of their growth, they have been especially hard hit by the current dearth of capital. Quite a number of green firms are at serious risk of failure because of this capital starvation.

Green Buildings the Brick and Mortar of the Green Economy

There may never be a better time to begin new building retrofits and investments in energy efficiency than the climate that prevails today. Commercial and residential buildings accounted for 39 percent of the total US energy consumption. Lowering these on-going expenditures can have such an impact on the bottom line for building operators and owners that this may represent one of the safest and most lucrative places to invest in. The green building sector offers many opportunities for retrofitting existing buildings to increase their energy efficiency lower their water usage or storm water runoff and so forth that present a whole slew of skilled labor and small business ideas for enterprising individuals and contractors willing to make the leap as well as largely untapped growth opportunities for larger corporations.

From The White House Inbox – “how will green jobs help engineers and architects keep and expand their businesses?”

The White House accepts suggestions and questions from the public and regularly responds to feedback. Joyce from Lake Forest Park, WA wrote “I am concerned about how President Obama’s stimulus package will help people in construction industries. New green jobs will be created, but how will this help engineers and architects keep and expand their businesses?”

Cost to Produce Solar Cells Brought Below $1 per Watt

Earlier this month, First Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq: FSLR) announced that it has reduced its manufacturing cost for solar modules in the fourth quarter 2009 to 98 cents per watt, becoming the first solar cell manufacturing company to break the $1 per watt price barrier. This is a major price milestone for the solar photovoltaic manufacturing sector and represents a significant step towards achieving what is known in the industry as as grid parity, the price level where the per watt cost for solar electricity reaches the current averaged cost of electricity on the grid a goal First Solar plans to reach by 2012.

Going Green Announces Top 50 Private Cleantech Companies in The East

Always On Going Green has announced their list of who they think are the most promising green sector companies in the East. They evaluated several hundred private cleantech companies in the region, paying special attention to companies that appear likely to thrive in spite of tight credit and cheap energy. Other variables evaluated in include: the disruptive potential of the company’s technology combined with its likely feasibility; the strength of the management team; credibility of the investors; how big a market is there for the innovation; the clarity of the company’s mission; how close is the company to bringing this innovation to market; and the strength of its claim to belong to the cleantech revolution.

US Becomes World’s Largest Wind Energy Producer – Record Year for Wind Energy in 2008

In 2008 the US experienced an explosive rate of growth in installed wind power capacity. Last year the US added an additional 8,358 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity (enough to serve over 2 million homes) surpassing Germany as the world’s largest producer of wind energy.

New Report Shows That California Leads in Green Jobs, Investments and Innovation

The 2009 Green Innovation Index, which was released last week, showed that in spite of the global financial crisis, that total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) produced per unit of energy (energy productivity) is 68 percent higher in California than the rest of the nation. This generates billions for the economy. Since 2005 green jobs in California have grown at a rate ten times faster than total job growth. Green tech venture capital investment nearly doubled in one year, hitting an all-time high of $3.3 billion in 2008, capturing 57 percent of the national total.

Salazar Calls for Solar and Wind Energy Zones

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar wants to create renewable energy zones to spur solar and wind energy projects, and build power lines to get the electricity to markets. In an interview with The Associated Press, Salazar said that while some regions of the country as well as offshore areas have great potential for wind energy and solar, there isn’t a clear plan to develop the resources.