Alternative Energy General Newsletter - Aug 2015

Five Characteristics of Great Utility Customer Engagement

The evolution of the energy industry that is enabling customers to engage with their energy use is opening up new opportunities-and new challenges-for utilities.

Fact Sheet: President Obama to Announce Historic Carbon Pollution Standards for Power Plants

The Clean Power Plan is a Landmark Action to Protect Public Health, Reduce Energy Bills for Households and Businesses, Create American Jobs, and Bring Clean Power to Communities across the Country.

Technology Supports Global Sustainability

Cloud-based software is one technological advancement that can pay dividends in the development and management of a wide variety of renewable energy projects, from wind farms, solar farms and geothermal plants to hydropower and biomass facilities.

The Bright Idea Behind Power Classes

In order to avoid costs for AC panel upgrades, it makes sense for inverter manufacturers to provide power classes that get the most solar power on an existing customer's AC panel without upgrading it.

IBM Uses Machine Learning to Boost Solar for Dept of Energy

While other solar forecasting systems take more narrow location and timeframe views, what's different about the IBM approach is that we incorporate a great number of weather and solar energy prediction models. We then blend those using historical data as a function of weather situation, forecast horizon and location to create what we call a supermodel.

Japan Builds World's Largest Floating Wind Turbine off Fukushima

by ARATA YAMAMOTO for NBC News:  Engineers in Japan have installed the world's largest floating wind turbine, a towering 344-foot structure that is billed as being able to withstand 65-foot waves and even tsunamis.  The 7 megawatt turbine was fastened to the seabed last week by four 20-ton anchors about 12 miles off the Fukushima coast.

European offshore wind industry smashes installation record

By Madeleine Cuff for Business Green:  The offshore wind industry is set for a bumper 12 months, as the latest figures from the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) reveal installations in the first half of this year hit record levels.  As several projects reached completion and larger, more powerful turbines were deployed, new installations hit 2,342.9MW, triple the grid-connected capacity added in the same period last year. The surge in new projects makes the first six months of 2015 more successful than any other full year on record, in terms of installed capacity.

Hillary Clinton is calling for a 700% increase in solar power. Is that realistic?

Brad Plumer for VOX:  In the coming months, Hillary Clinton's campaign is planning to release a series of proposals for dealing with global warming. Her first installment is out Sunday evening, and it calls for a large increase in renewable power.  Specifically, she's proposing to boost the amount of wind, solar, and other renewables so that they provide 33 percent of America's electricity by 2027 — enough to power every home in the country.

Bonfiglioli USA - A leading supplier of solar power conversion systems

Bonfiglioli designs and manufactures a variety of products for renewable energy applications including inverters for utility-scale solar PV installation, yaw and pitch drives for wind turbines, and mechatronic solutions for hybrid and electric vehicles (consumer and commercial). Worldwide, over 2GW are installed with Bonfiglioli PV inverters and one of every three wind turbines has a Bonfiglioli gearbox. We are commtted to solutions that reduce emissions for a cleaner, brighter future for all.

Learn More About Bonfiglioli USA

EcoFasten Solar®

EcoFasten Solar® designs, engineers and manufactures patented, watertight solar roof mounts and components. We work closely with leading solar developers, racking system providers, roofing manufacturers and commercial installation companies. Utilizing our patented compression technology, our products are known as some of the fastest attachment points in the industry. Commercial, residential, new or retrofit, we have a solution for every roof type. All of our products are made in the USA.

AltEnergyMag is a community website where those of you who work in the Alternative Energy Industry are invited to contribute articles, news and product information for your peers to read and discover. Our philosophy is to create an outlet where the industry can report on itself.

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Many thanks for your continuing support.

Bob Hetherington bobh@altenergymag.com

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