Quite a bit is happening in the smart grid sector. In this post I quickly look at the breaking announcement by Vice President Joe Biden of more than $3.3 billion in stimulus funding for grants to drive the rollout of a nationwide electrical smart grid.
I continue to follow the hacking of the grid story and try to give some various perspectives on this issue and what is being done about it.
Finally I post on how the growing adoption of renewable energy like solar and wind will require the grid to evolve into a much smarter, robust system and to incorporate systems for storing transient excess energy.
The Report can be purchased as part of a subscription to Progressive Investor or separately for $89. Progressive Investor is a monthly newsletter that guides investors and analysts toward green investments. Published by SustainableBusiness.com, it covers all green business sectors, including renewable energy, green building and healthy lifestyle. You can read an excerpt of the Report on SustainableBusiness.com. It is an in-depth interview with Patrick McVeigh, president of Reynders, McVeigh Capital Management, a green/social portfolio management firm. Progressive Investor talked with him about his impression of market conditions, the impact of the stimulus plan on cleantech, and how they are managing porfolios under these circumstances. You can also read the sample article, The Green Investment Landscape.
The Cleantech Group™, founders of the clean technology investment category and providers of global market research and other services for the clean technology ecosystem, recently announced that it is making its 2008 Annual Review & 4Q08 Investment Monitor available for free download to celebrate Earth Day 2009. For one week only, this report will be available to non-members to dramatically illustrate how technology is being used to save our planet and its natural resources.
The wind energy industry will brings badly needed jobs to Detroit. Local green jobs are rising as San Francisco solar and energy efficiency incentive programs expand. Terra Community College in Ohio will be offering a new wind power certificate. A new study shows that investment in solar generating facilities could bring thousand of jobs to Nevada. Green initiatives bring new jobs to Brooklyn Navy Yard. Planned ‘Solar City’ in Florida will bring 20,000 jobs to the region.
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.
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.
American Solar Energy Society recently released a report on the renewable energy and energy efficiency or RE&EE industries in the US and Colorado. For 2007, the U.S renewable energy and energy efficiency (RE&EE) industries generated $1,045 billion in sales and created over 9 million jobs. The U.S. RE&EE revenues represent substantially more than the combined 2007 sales of the three largest U.S. corporations — Wal-Mart, ExxonMobil, and GM ($905 billion).
