Year Long Study of Net-Zero Energy Home Completed Successfully
Jetsongreen.com, August 16, 2014
It has now been a year since the Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility (NZERTF) in Washington DC has been built and its energy harvesting capabilities began to be monitored. The home was built on the campus at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where scientists and researchers conducted a computer simulation that replicated the energy consumption of a family of four. The results showed the home to be a success, since after a year the home generated 13,577 kWh of energy. This is about 491 kWh more than was needed. Read more…
How to Make Air Conditioning More Energy Efficient
Motherearthnews.com, August 28, 2014
According to research, the U.S has used more energy for air conditioning than all other nations combined — vehicle air conditioners in the U.S alone use 7 to 10 billion gallons of gasoline annually. However, demand for air conditioning is dramatically increasing in other warmer regions and it is possible that world consumption of energy for cooling could explode tenfold by 2050, having a major impact on climate change. For instance, China is expected to surpass the U.S as the world’s biggest user of electricity for air conditioning by 2020. Read more…
Solar Energy Revolution: A Massive Opportunity
Forbes.com, September 2, 2014.
Let’s take a closer look at the converging technologies driving this future… The cost of solar panels is dropping exponentially. The first and most important technological change is the falling cost per watt of silicon photovoltaic cells over the past few decades. Check out the plummeting cost from $76 in 1977, to less than $0.36 today. Read more…