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Electricity generation and electricity sales reached record levels in 2007, according to "Electric Power Annual 2007″, released today by the Energy Information Administration. Following a year of relatively weak growth in 2006, net generation of electric power increased by 2.3 percent, rising to 4,157 million megawatthours and retail sales rose by 2.6 percent to 3,765 million megawatthours in 2007. Continued economic growth in 2007, combined with changes in winter and summer temperatures relative to 2006 that added to electricity use for space heating and cooling requirements, contributed to the increase in electricity sales.

Greentech Media has a post on one of the major issues facing electric car manufacturers - getting people used to the idea - Learning to Live With Electric Cars. While consumers overwhelmingly say they want plug-in cars, consumers will have to be educated on the differences between them and gas-burning cars, says Debra Reed, CEO of San Diego Gas & Electric, which will take delivery of 10 to 15 all-electrics Nissan when they come out next year. Nissan and SDG&E showed off a "mule" of Nissan's electric commuter today. The functioning vehicle sports the same basic motor and other electronics that will come with the production all-electric cars, said a Nissan spokeswoman. However, it is housed in the shell of an existing car.

Engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have achieved a breakthrough in the use of a one-atom thick structure called "graphene" as a new carbon-based material for storing electrical charge in ultracapacitor devices, perhaps paving the way for the massive installation of renewable energies such as wind and solar power. The researchers believe their breakthrough shows promise that graphene (a form of carbon) could eventually double the capacity of existing ultracapacitors, which are manufactured using an entirely different form of carbon. "Through such a device, electrical charge can be rapidly stored on the graphene sheets, and released from them as well for the delivery of electrical current and, thus, electrical power," says Rod Ruoff, a mechanical engineering professor and a physical chemist. "There are reasons to think that the ability to store electrical charge can be about double that of current commercially used materials. We are working to see if that prediction will be borne out in the laboratory."

WorldChanging has a post on a Rocky Mountain Institute backed initiative to pave the way fro smart grids and electric vehicles - Project Get Ready Aims to Create Electric Vehicle Revolution. Creating a well functioning smart grid - cyclically connected to smart vehicles and buildings and houses, as well as personal and public renewable energy systems - will be no small infrastructure feat. Utility providers, technology innovators, neighborhood councils and local governments will need to come together to provide needed support -- both monetarily and ideologically. Although U.S. President Obama and the recently passed stimulus plan are pushing the renewable, electric energy revolution forward, residents across the nation might need more motivation to make the leap from fossil fuel users to plug-in pioneers. A new project, headed by "think-and-do" tank the Rocky Mountain Institute, is offering to help city leaders provide community members with that extra inspiration. The initiative, Project Get Ready, supplies a menu of strategies that are meant to help cities prepare for the "plug-in" transition. According to RMI, problems related to individual hesitancy toward purchasing electric vehicles and investing in the infrastructure itself, can "be overcome if cities/regions become ecosystems that welcome electric vehicles."

Solar Power Authority has a post on the solar powered Google headquarters - Googleplex Solar. The Googleplex headquarters located in Mountain View California has installed one of the largest corporate solar power structures of any other company to date. The array consists of 9,212 solar panels produced by Sharp Electronics and has a capacity of 1.6 Megawatts (MW) which cover's ~30% of the Google campus electricity needs, the equivalent of roughly 1,000 California homes. This installation is said to save Google $393,000 in electricity per year and can be monitored real time at this interactive page that contains data on the electricity being produced. One of the most unique features of the Googleplex array of solar panels is that it contains several clusters of solar trees. These parking lot covers are designed to keep cars cool while also producing electricity and serving it to both the Googleplex or plugin hybrid electric cars (PHEV's).

The LA Times has an article on a new report noting that wind power could meet the entire electricity demand in the US - Wind turbines could more than meet U.S. electricity needs, report says. Wind turbines off U.S. coastlines could potentially supply more than enough electricity to meet the nation's current demand, the Interior Department reported Thursday. Simply harnessing the wind in relatively shallow waters -- the most accessible and technically feasible sites for offshore turbines -- could produce at least 20% of the power demand for most coastal states, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, unveiling a report by the Minerals Management Service that details the potential for oil, gas and renewable development on the outer continental shelf. The biggest wind potential lies off the nation's Atlantic coast, which the Interior report estimates could produce 1,000 gigawatts of electricity -- enough to meet a quarter of the national demand.

Yet another announcement from Project Better Place, this time spreading their wings to Hawaii - Hawaii goes electric. California's announcement last month of its aim to turn San Francisco Bay into the world's electric car capital has been followed by Hawaii jumping on the clean energy bandwagon. The state spends up to $7bn (£4.75bn) a year on importing oil, and cars account for almost 20% of the state's greenhouse gas emissions. In a mirror of the Californian plans, the electric transportation company Better Place will aim to build a network of kerbside charging points across Hawaii and create the equivalent of filling stations, where electric car owners will be able to replace their flat batteries for fully charged ones. With a full charge, a typical car will be able to travel 100 miles, ideal for commuting around urban areas.

All Incentives for this State DSIRE Home Pennsylvania Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency See Federal Incentives See All Summaries See Homeowner Incentive Summaries Only Financial Incentives Local Grant Program * Metropolitan Edison Company SEF Grants (FirstEnergy Territory) * Penelec SEF of the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies Grant Program (FirstEnergy Territory) * Sustainable Development Fund Grant Program (PECO Territory) * West Penn Power SEF Grant Program Local Loan Program * Metropolitan Edison Company SEF Loans (FirstEnergy Territory) * Penelec SEF of the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies Loan Program (FirstEnergy Territory) * SEF of Central Eastern Pennsylvania Loan Program (PP&L Territory) * Sustainable Development Fund Commercial Financing Program (PECO Territory) * West Penn Power SEF Commercial Loan Program Property Tax Assessment * Wind-Energy System Exemption State Grant Program * High Performance Green Schools Planning Grants * Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (PEDA) - Grants * Pennsylvania Energy Harvest Grant Program State Loan Program * Keystone Home Energy Loan Program * Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (PEDA) - Loans and Loan Guarantees * Small Business Pollution Prevention Assistance Account Loan Program Utility Loan Program * Adams Electric Cooperative - Energy Resource Conservation (ERC) and Supplemental Loan Program Alternative Fuel and Vehicle Incentives * U.S. Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center Rules, Regulations & Policies Building Energy Code * Pennsylvania Building Energy Codes Generation Disclosure * Fuel Mix Disclosure Green Power Purchasing/Aggregation * Montgomery County - Wind Power Purchasing * Pennsylvania - Green Power Purchasi

Demonstration Projects Aim at 15 Percent Reduction of U.S. Peak Load Electricity Demand Washington, DC- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability Kevin Kolevar today announced the Department's plans to invest up to $50 million over five years (Fiscal Years 2008 - 2012), subject to appropriations from Congress, in nine demonstration projects competitively selected to increase efficiency in the nation's electricity grid.

WASHINGTON (AP) - An Energy Department report concludes that wind turbines can produce a fifth of the nation's annual electricity needs within about two decades. That is about the same share of electricity produced today by nuclear power. Wind energy today accounts for only about 1 percent of the nation's electricity. The government report to be released Monday said by 2030 wind energy could account for 300,000 megawatts of power, or about 20 percent of the total electricity generated.

Large-scale solar power is beginning to take on the job of meeting the demands made by California's air conditioners for electricity. Pacific Gas & Electric and Brightsource Energy today announced they have expanded a series of solar power contracts for a total of 1,310 megawatts of electricity - enough to power 530,000 California homes during peak hours with energy from the Sun. Completion of the first project will nearly double the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the United States.

I've got another guest post from Neil Howes up at TOD, this one proposing a rough plan for North AMerica to obtain 50% of its power from wind by 2030 - A North American Wind Energy Scenario. Would a "50% of electricity generated by wind scenario" work in North America by 2030? In this post, I make a rough cut estimate of what might be required to make such a transition in about 20 years time. Most proposals that are being made rely on a very big increase in carbon free energy, both to charge electric vehicles (EV's) and to replace oil and natural gas (NG) presently used for hot water and space heating. In this post, I lay out a path by which 50% of North American energy might come from wind by 2030, including replacement of a large share of oil and natural gas use by electricity. ... High quality wind resources (wind speeds greater than 6.9m/sec) in the US are estimated to be >5,500GWa, about x10 all of N America's present electricity production of 550GWa. Canada's potential appears to be similar or greater than the US, while Mexico's wind resources are more limited (these figures do not include deep offshore resources that could be harnessed by floating wind turbines or higher altitude wind resources that could potentially be harnessed by airborne wind turbines).

The Guardian has an article on a report from Greenpeace, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association and the International Energy Agency's SolarPACES group on the potential for solar thermal power to supply a large proportion of our energy needs (why they limit it to 25% is a mystery to me) - Concentrated solar power could generate 'quarter of world's energy'. Solar power stations that concentrate sunlight could generate up to one-quarter of the world's electricity needs by 2050, according to a study by environmental and solar industry groups. The technology, best suited to the desert regions of the world, could also create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and save millions of tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. Concentrating solar power (CSP) uses mirrors to focus sunlight onto water. This produces steam that can then turn turbines and generate electricity. It differs from photovoltaics, which use solar panels to turn sunlight directly into electricity and can operate even on overcast days. CSP only works in places where there are many days with clear skies and is a proven, reliable technology. At the end of 2008 CSP capacity was around 430MW, and worldwide investment in the technology will reach

It was a day when the shift from the past to the future was almost palpable. It started Thursday morning in Berkeley where Green Wombat was moderating a panel of tech luminaries gathered at the University of California's Global Technology Leaders Conference. As Shai Agassi, founder of electric car infrastructure company Better Place, makes the case for harnessing Silicon Valley's technological innovation to Detroit's manufacturing might to create a sustainable car industry, dispatches from the automotive apocalypse roll down my BlackBerry: Ford (F) shares sink to $1.01…GM's (GM) stock falls to its lowest level since World War II…U.S. automakers beg for a bailout…California Congressman Henry Waxman ousts Michigan's John Dingell - the Duke of Detroit - from his 28-year chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. Agassi slips out of the conference and an hour later I catch up with him across the Bay at San Francisco City Hall where he and representatives of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland announce a $1 billion project to build a regional network of electric car charging stations. Better Place has signed similar deals with governments in Israel, Denmark and Australia, but California is the company's first foray into the U.S. market. Planning for the Bay Area network begins in 2009 with construction scheduled to start in 2010 and commercial rollout set for 2012.

Electricity from geothermal sources is set to soar in Germany -- and all thanks to a law that has made drilling wells deep enough to hit the hot temperature water, which is needed to produce electricity, financially viable. Less than 0.4 percent of Germany's total primary energy supply came from geothermal sources in 2004. But after a renewable energy law that introduced a tariff scheme of EU €0.15 [US $0.23] per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for electricity produced from geothermal sources came into effect that year, a construction boom was sparked and the new power plants are now starting to come online.

This year at the 2009 International Auto Show featured many electric cars. To all the auto companies it is really a kind of electric car race.

Research by TU Delft proves that Dutch power stations are able to cope at any time in the future with variations in demand for electricity and supply of wind power, as long as use is made of up-to-date wind forecasts. PhD candidate Bart Ummels also demonstrates that there is no need for energy storage facilities. Ummels will receive his PhD on this topic on Thursday 26 February. Wind is variable and can only partially be predicted. The large-scale use of wind power in the electricity system is therefore tricky. PhD candidate Bart Ummels MSc. investigated the consequences of using a substantial amount of wind power within the Dutch electricity system. He used simulation models, such as those developed by Dutch transmission system operator TenneT, to pinpoint potential problems (and solutions).

Electric Generating Sets - Western European Markets Package"package offers a perspective on the actual market situation, trends and future outlook for electric generating sets in different Western European countries.

Hydro-Electric Corporation (Hydro-Electric) is a government business entity owned by the State of Tasmania. It generates power using renewable energy. The company owns and operates dams, hydro power stations, and wind farms.

Since 1995, West Palm Beach-based Florida Crystals Corp. has been operating the largest biomass-to-electricity facility in North America, the Okeelanta Co-Generation Plant next to its sugar mill and refinery plant south of South Bay. The plant uses 850,000 tons of sugar cane residue known as bagasse and 900,000 tons of clean wood material from construction and yard wastes to produce 140 net megawatts of electricity each year. The power is sold to Florida Power & Light Co. to provide electricity to 58,000 homes, said Florida Crystals spokesman Gaston Cantens.