Renewable Energy Archives - Green Businesses

Renewable Energy Developers Wanted to Spread the Green

by Ken Silverstein for Forbes

Smaller enterprises want energy developers to spread the green, allowing them to get in on the renewable wave rolling through America. The dynamic has made it easier for larger corporations with more demand to buy wind and solar electricity but it has nudged out the less brawnier brands.

The guys at Google and Facebook, for example, are stimulating the need for wind and solar energy that they are using to feed their electricity-starved data centers. The developers of those energy projects, in return, are getting solid customers that are buying their output at a fixed price over a certain period of years.

But individual commercial and industrial customers aren’t generating the type of demand that can propel big energy projects into the market. Now, though, that may change. The same so-called power purchase agreements that are used to attract the likes of Microsoft, Intel and SA…

BioGas Provides Germany with Steady, Stinky Energy

So when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, solar and wind energy may be nonexistent, but renewable energy can still be economically produced from the smelliest of sources. The more the stink, the greater the energy–Biogas energy. Local farmers use the waste their animals produce and send it into a biogas facility on their farm that produces electricity. They can also add corn and the fermentation substrate is then sprayed on the fields as fertilizer. This closed-loop system provides steady and sustainable energy to supplement the energy needs of larger but less predictable outputs from solar and wind sources.

Next Power Plants co-Founder, Hendrik Samisch networks over 1,000 renewable energy plants comprised of individual farms in Germany through a data grid and a bank of computers that make up a powerful virtual power plant that trades annually over $100 million euros of electricity in biogas energy.

Watch the …

Poop to Power Plant Launches in Joaquin Valley

On February 10th, Calgren Ethanol Bioregister launched its new manure-to-energy plant in the small town of Pixley, Tulare County, 60 miles South of Fresno. Harnessing the power of poop is how this future thinking company is helping California meet its clean energy goals. It is the first digester (a sealed container where the biological digestion of animal manure can occur and biogas is formed) to be designed as a “closed loop and zero waste system” - meaning it provides its own energy to run itself. The location of this plant is logical since Tulare County is the largest dairy producing county in the USA. Tapping into the ready supply of manure waste from the dairy farms, the plant operates much like a cow’s stomach, bacteria that is naturally produced in a cow’s stomach is added to the manure and then it is churned in the digester for 22 days to eliminate any harmful pathogens (like e.coli). The end result is liquid extracted from the process supplies farmers water for…

Find Anything on Google, Except Maybe Their Large Carbon Footprint

Google has been a carbon neutral company for seven years, and every year around this time they calculate and publish their carbon footprint so they can make sure to offset it completely. Today Google updated the Google Green website with their 2013 carbon footprint so we can see it for ourselves. They also made another announcement relevant to green businesses, communities and our environment. In ironic contradiction to the old song, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," the search giant announced that it will put a 82MW solar power plant on top of an old oil and gas field in Kern County, Calif.

"There's something a little poetic about creating a renewable resource on land that once creaked with oil wells," said Google. "Over the years, this particular site in California has gone from 30 oil wells to five as it was exhausted of profitable fossil fuel reserves. The land sat for some time and today we’re ready to spiff things up."

The new deal wi…

Google Investing More than $1 Billion in Alternative Energy

Google aims to rely completely on renewable energy sources, investing over $1 billion in alternative energy sources, reported the International Business Times in this article, "Google Clean Energy: $1 Billion Investments Protect Environment And Company's Bottom Line." An article on RT provides additional analysis on Google's clean energy investment. Here is an excerpt with a link to the full article: Google investing more than $1 billion in alternative energy Around one-third of Google’s operations are made possible by renewable power, but the Silicon Valley giant is gunning to become completely reliant on resources like wind and the sun. Rick Needham, the director of Google’s Energy and Sustainability office, told CNBC recently that 34 percent of the search engine company’s day-to-day operations are currently powered by reusable resources. If all goes as planned, though, before long that statistic could soar as high up as 100 percent. Speaking to CNBC for an…

SolarCity Launches Nonprofit, Donating Solar Systems to Schools Without Access to Electricity Across the Globe

Written by Jasper Dikmans From PVSolarReport.com SolarCity launches the Give Power Foundation, a nonprofit aimed at providing clean energy to communities across the globe. For every megawatt of residential solar power that SolarCity installs in 2014, the company will donate a solar power system and battery combination to a school without access to electricity. Initial recipients are expected to be in Haiti, Mali, Malawi, and Nepal. SolarCity (Nasdaq: SCTY) today launched the Give Power Foundation, a California nonprofit aimed at providing clean energy to communities across the globe. For every megawatt of residential solar power that SolarCity installs in 2014, the company will donate a solar power system and battery combination to a school without access to electricity. Initial recipients are expected to be in Haiti, Mali, Malawi, and Nepal. According to the company, approximately 291 million children attend primary schools that lack electricity globally, an…