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Details of Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) awarded to new schools reveal the majority of school buildings are not performing sustainably. More than half of new schools obliged to report their energy performance via an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) are falling into the lower bands for asset efficiency, writes Roderic Bunn.

Wind energy: health, cost, performance I've got a two-story series in the Toronto Star that ran this week on wind energy. The first looks at claims that wind farms are causing some people living near them to become sick. The second looks at claims that wind energy costs too much, doesn't achieve the claimed emission reductions, and simply fails to perform as promised.

Photovoltaics firm Signet Solar has inked what might be a first in the renewables industry (PDF): a 25-year insurance plan that covers the performance warranty of Signet's solar modules. Implemented by insurance provider Munich Re, the plan is designed to protect against the risk of performance deterioration in Signet's photovoltaics. Signet guarantees that its modules will perform to at least 90 per cent capacity in the first 10 years and to at least 80 per cent in the remaining 15 years.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) recently approved the nation's most stringent energy efficiency standards for residential and commercial buildings, and the new requirements for the thermal performance of windows are expected to contribute ...

Scientists are developing high-performance energy storage units, a prerequisite for effective hybrid motors.

A team of researchers at Rice University have discovered a way to improve the efficiency of lithium-ion batteries: use carbon-nanotube/metal-oxide arrays as electrode material.

Rubloff and his colleagues have developed an energy storage device that improves on the performance of electrostatic capacitors - a device that stores energy as electric charge. The tiny capacitors consist of a layered structure of metal-insulator-metal thin films. The devices are fabricated in massive arrays using minute holes at a density of 60 billion per square inch.

A major new research, development and demonstration initiative called the Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA) aims to cut the cost of offshore wind energy by 10% or more through a combination of wind farm cost reductions and performance improvements. It will focus on the short to medium-term, covering key topics related to wind farm design, construction and operation

Allied Wire & Cable's line of Wind Turbine Cable consists of our WTTC rated GreenLINX™ Wind Power Cable. Wind turbine cable requires high quality, durability and high performance to withstand the rigors of wind power environments. Wind turbine cables can be exposed to several different forces, including Mother Nature. Oil, solvent, chemical and fuel resistant, GreenLINX ™ wind turbine cable can withstand these forces and more. Allied carries five different types of wind turbine cable, all part of the GreenLINX™ line of wind power cable. All five types are WTTC, 1000 volt rated, constructed of bare copper conductors.

"The International Code Council (ICC) earlier this week launched the first public version of the International Green Construction Code (IGCC), which aims to bring together standards for the environmental performance of commercial buildings."

For at least a decade, carmakers have been professing their deep and abiding interest in electric-drive vehicles whenever possible. But until recently, it wasn't always clear which of them were really sincere. Today every last one of them seems sincere. As this year's "Top 10 Tech Cars" package shows, ever more varied hybrids are going into mass production, along with-you betcha-a few all-electric cars. Some of the electric-drive machines aspire beyond mere greenness to heart-pounding performance, an aspiration that may seem strange to those taught to view electric cars as spacious, all-weather golf carts. But performance is indeed a logical goal, given the instant-on torque that electric motors provide. While electrons may now be a recurrent theme of our annual Top 10 automotive reports, we do not slight the internal-combustion engine, which has lots of life-and technological enhancements-to come. And for those who don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about whether they're treading lightly enough on the planet's roads, we include two ultraperformance German sports cars that run purely on gasoline and adrenaline. One can easily be yours. If you're willing to trade in your house for it.

"Wave Hub on course for summer deployment 17 May 2010 Wave Hub, the pioneering marine energy project, is on course to be deployed this summer with fabrication of sub-sea cables and the hub itself nearing completion. Wave Hub will create the world's largest test site for wave energy technology by building a grid-connected socket on the seabed, 10 miles off the coast of Cornwall, to which wave power devices can be connected and their performance evaluated."

By Jorge Moreno, Environmental and Building Technologies, Frost & Sullivan With more end users focusing on reducing energy costs, energy-saving water-to-water heat pump (WTWHP) chillers are being deployed to reduce a facility's utility bills. A WTWHP chiller is a water-cooled chiller that is designed to produce hot water at a specified temperature. The use of a WTWHP chiller is very similar to a conventional centrifugal chiller except for the fact that it uses two compressors, slightly different piping configurations, and more advanced controls in order to balance cooling and heating loads. In a conventional chiller, cold water is produced for comfort cooling, and the hot water that is extracted from the refrigeration process goes into a cooling tower and is released into the atmosphere. In a WTWHP chiller, this hot water is captured and relocated to a second heating stage, where the temperature is raised and the water is used as a heating source for a building's heating requirements. The key strength of WTWHP chillers is the high coefficient of performance (COP) that translates into significant energy savings and a shorter payback period. On the other hand, the key weakness is that it can only provide such benefits in a narrow range of applications primarily due to its coincident need for cooling and heating requirements throughout the year to ensure efficiency. A coincident need means that the application demands sizable water heating load along with the typical high cooling requirements in summer, and a sizable chilled water load along with the typical heating requirements during winter. Cooling output is directly dependent on the demand for heating, and vice versa. Consequently, in the absence of sufficient heating requirements, there is only a limited amount of cooling that can be produced. Any excess heating or cooling cannot be stored and hence, it is critical to align the cooling with the expected heating requirements. Coincidentally, in the absence of suf