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Peugeot has recently announced that its electric car, the i0n, is due to go on sale in the UK by the end of the year. Nissan has created the concept car the Leaf, while Renault has been working on the futuristic Twizy concept car, which will soon be entering the virtual world of The Sims.But behind the scenes researchers in Israel have been working on making hydrogen a viable competitor as an alternative to petrol.

South Korea electronics giant LG has announced plans to invest 20 trillion won (£10 billion) ‘green’ research and development and reduce its own emissions 40% on current levels by 2020.Investment will be divided between expanding its energy efficient products and renewable energy businesses in fuel cells and rechargeable batteries and improving the performance of the company’s facilities.

Buildings consume more energy and materials than any other human activity -- a reality that, for decades, has fueled interest in any improvements able to save energy and reduce costs. As energy prices continue to rise and resources dwindle, interest in "green buildings" has sparked a growing industry. According to a new report from Lux Research, the market for energy saving green buildings technologies will expand from $144 billion today to $277 billion in 2020, representing a 6.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

Now researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia have demonstrated that it's possible to use techniques borrowed from the chip-making industry to make thin-film carbon ultracapacitors that store three times as much energy by volume as conventional ultracapacitor materials. While that is not as much as batteries, the thin-film ultracapacitors could operate without ever being replaced.

However, Mr Engel insisted the world would continue looking to wind as an alternative to fossil fuels in the long term and highlighted China among the strongest sources of growth. Vestas achieved record Chinese orders last year as the government poured tens of billions of dollars into green technology. “We have lost market share in China to local competition yet our sales are still growing because the market is expanding so strongly,” said Mr Engel.Chinese wind power capacity has grown from 6,050 megawatts in 2007 to an estimated 43,853MW last year, surpassing the US for the first time, according to Citigroup. It is forecast to more than double by 2013. Mr Engel said technological innovation was the key to staying ahead of competition, noting the company’s research and development workforce had increased from 300 when he took charge in 2005 to more than 2,000 today. “We are at the end of the beginning in this industry. From here, it’s going to be driven by technology.”

Using detailed land analysis, Illinois researchers have found that biofuel crops cultivated on available land could produce up to half of the world’s current fuel consumption — without affecting food crops or pastureland.

It recognises that the potential for pump energy savings is substantial. Europump (a pan European association of pump manufacturers) estimate that systems could be 30 to 50% more energy efficient by careful consideration of components, design and installation. Indeed our research has shown that a potential energy saving of 82% is achievable between the worst operating constant flow systems and the best designed variable flow systems.

Graphene is an extremely low density material, almost an atomic-scale chicken wire made of carbon atoms and their bonds. It has been the focus of much research because of its exceptional electrical, mechanical and optical properties. It holds great promise in renewable energies. Among the so far underutilized advantages Graphene offers are that it is fifty times stronger than steel, and it has five times the conductivity of copper, with only one quarter of the density.

Household appliances like washer-driers, ovens and light bulbs are not all living up to their energy efficiency labels, according to tests carried out by UK Government department Defra.

His assessment will damp expectations that advanced “second generation” biofuels will soon be able to make a significant contribution to the world’s fuel supplies, even though they have received heavy research and development support from Shell and other companies, as well as from many governments.

This paper examines both the potential of and barriers to grid-scale energy storage playing a substantive role in transitioning to an efficient, reliable and cost-effective power system with a high penetration of renewable energy sources. Grid-scale storage is a term that describes a number of different technologies with a wide range of characteristics. This versatility leads to the use of storage to perform a number of grid-services. We first enumerate these services, with an emphasize on those that are best suited to mitigate the effects of uncertainty and variability associated with intermittent, non-dispatchable renewable energy sources. We then provide an overview of the current methods to evaluate grid-integrated storage, summarize key findings, and highlight ongoing challenges to large-scale adoption of grid-scale energy storage. We focus on one particular area that is critical to both the efficient use of energy storage in the power grid and its long-term economic viability: the conflict between the technical benefits of this resource, which can provide both power and energy related grid-services (in some cases simultaneously), and the economic challenges of compensating these services within the current market structures. We then examine recent progress in addressing these issues through regulatory changes and other initiatives designed to mitigate previous market failures. This discussion is followed by some remarks about ongoing regulatory and market design challenges. The paper closes with a summary of the ideas presented and a discussion of critical research needs.

In “Money Well Spent: Industrial Energy Efficiency Program Spending in 2010“, the ACEEE details, for apparently the first time ever, the total U.S. industrial energy efficiency deployment and technical assistance at the federal, state and utility levels.