energy

BrightSource Energy today announced molten salt energy storage for its heat-driven solar power plants, touting the advantages over flat solar photovoltaic panels.

With the storage, BrightSource solar power plants can deliver electricity to the grid consistently and into the evening hours. That makes the solar power more valuable because utilities pay more for power during peak hours, which continues past nightfall.

BrightSource's solar tower technology generates steam from a field of mirrors called heliostats shining onto a tower. The steam is fed into a conventional turbine to generate electricity. After turning the turbine, the steam is condensed into water … Read more

Lithium ion battery company Leyden Energy said today it has raised $20 million to ramp up production of its long-lasting batteries for consumer electronics.

The 4-year-old company said the funding, led by venture capital company New Enterprise Associations, will be used to add manufacturing capacity and build out its sales channels.

Leyden Energy's batteries last week become available from online retailer Dr. Battery, which is offering "Advanced Pro" battery replacements for Acer, Gateway, Lenovo/IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Toshiba notebooks.

A conventional battery has between 350 and 400 charge cycles before performance starts degrading. The Leyden Energy … Read more

EnergyHub is making smart thermostats smarter by hitching them to a large database.

The residential energy company today announced a software system that works with connected thermostats in people's homes to optimize settings for energy savings. Called Mercury, the software is aimed at broadband providers, utilities, and thermostat manufacturers, which will offer the service to consumers.

Programmable thermostats are one of the most effective ways to lower energy consumption, but many consumers don't own them or don't take the trouble to program them. With EnergyHub's software, people will be able to program HVAC systems through a … Read more

NTT America soon will be able to claim a data center that runs on biogas.

The Japanese telecommunications company today said it will install five Bloom Energy fuel cells in its California data center that will use biogas as a fuel. It's a sign of the growing interest in cleaner fuel cell technology, which proponents say will increasingly be adapted for residential customers.

The fuel cells will be able to generate 500 kilowatts of power, which is enough for about 500 U.S. homes. At the data center, they will generate 4.2 million kilowatt-hours per year and reduce … Read more

A simple display connected to a smart meter has effectively helped consumers trim energy use, a smart-grid pilot showed.

Electric utility CenterPoint Energy and the Department of Energy yesterday announced the results of a pilot program with 500 residential electricity customers in the Houston area. Overall, it found that the regular feedback on energy use prompted people to lower consumption.

The in-home display is a battery-powered device which can be placed on a table top or attached to the refrigerator. Getting information from a smart meter, it displays real-time power use, a forecast of the monthly bill, and changes to … Read more

To make a cheap battery that stores wind and solar power, Aquion Energy is using the ingredients in salt and water.

A spinoff out of Carnegie Mellon, the start-up has raised $20 million of a planned $30 million funding round, according to a regulatory filing spotted by Earth2Tech. The company was originally funded with $5 million from the federal stimulus program by the Department of Energy and has added Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as an investor.

Aquion Energy is developing a room-temperature sodium ion battery as an alternative to lithium ion and other batteries for grid storage. It expects … Read more

EnergyHub is going to see if it can pique consumer interest in the smart grid without utilities.

The Brooklyn-based company plans to start selling a relatively high-end home energy management system next month from its Web site, its first effort to bypass utility or cable company channels. For the residential energy business as a whole, the program could help signal the level of interest for energy efficiency and control technology.

EnergyHub's initial consumer product package is focused on a smartphone-size touch-screen console, or Home Base, which shows power usage of the whole house when connected to a meter. People … Read more

In addition to products with the basic Energy Star rating, consumers can now choose to buy even more efficient products with the help of a new rating.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy introduced last week an additional rating it calls Energy Star Most Efficient.

Consumer electronics and appliances with the Energy Star Most Efficient seal will signify those products that have exceptional efficiency within their product category. The seal will only be awarded to the top 5 percent of models. It will initially be introduced in five categories: clothes washers, heating and cooling … Read more

Cheap, small, sounds great: pick two. That's how home audio almost always works. We say almost, because the Energy Take Classic 5.1 is one of those rare products that's seemingly without compromise.

The speakers are compact (although not tiny like the Boston Acoustics SoundWare SX 5.1 system), but their sound quality is outstanding, so you won't regret opting for small speakers.

The speakers also look fantastic, finished in an elegant piano black that belies the system's budget price. The official list price for the Take Classic 5.1 may be $600, but it's … Read more