Bosch Thermotechnology Corporation of Londonderry, NH and MyPointNow have launched a series of online systems on August 20 for the Buderus Boiler Line. This program, coined as the Compass system, is a comprehensive online array of interactive resources including:

• Online product registration and feedback systems for both product owners and installing contractors
• Comprehensive contractor search functions including a ranking system that allows consumers to identify the top Buderus installers in their community
• A lead management system whereby potential customers can contact contractors online combined with a responsive contact management system that will allow participating companies to improve their Buderus sales.
• The Compass contractor intranet site. Every Buderus contractor can log into their own intranet site to manage leads, register installations, review consumer feedback, access technical information, and participate in training.
• A Compass Flex-Content system that can customize intranet site content to meet the needs of other trade partners such as builders, engineers, institutional users, and utility or regulatory personnel.
• Full sales management integration with Buderus wholesalers, independent sales representatives, and Buderus personnel.
• Full integration with MyPointNow contractor website systems and the MyPointNow network.

Compass is the most comprehensive online system in the HVAC industry today. It empowers trade participants and allows them to efficiently improve their sales and market share by better serving the hydronic heating and domestic hot water markets.

By: Florence Hudson

I speak to groups all around the world on green issues and sustainability. In my travels I get to meet all types of people, from hotshot politicians to corporate bigwigs to average citizens.

Regardless of what part of the social ladder they occupy, I’ve noticed that many people are gamblers at heart; they have an abiding faith that somehow a big-bet, cure-all is just around the corner to deliver us into a greener and more sustainable world. It must be true – the logic usually goes – because there is too much money to be made; or there are huge benefits to reap. When such advancements do not arrive on schedule, it’s a conspiracy, of course.

Now, I am a huge believer in technology and its ability to help mankind leapfrog to a better future, but it seems to me we’re fooling ourselves if we put too much faith in deus ex machina solutions for our complex environmental problems.

We’re not going to become all-solar, all-the-time; and the replacement for the internal combustion engine – which has been “just around the corner” since I was a kid – will take more time, apparently. In the meantime we can make incredible progress towards a more sustainable future using the tools we have and the inventions that already exist – because some of them are quite powerful.

Take a gaze out of your window and you’ll likely see one of the most glaring environmental problems that can be rectified now, with the tools we have – the commercial buildings and structures that populate our planet. There are about 5 million of them in the U.S. alone.

The HVAC system, the lights, the water, the elevators, the power and cooling for technology, the heating and cooling for people: all contribute to making buildings a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions–and a leading energy user. Lights blaze and air conditioners hum in empty offices at night, and lawn sprinklers turn on even during a rainstorm. Commercial buildings can lose as much as 50 percent of the water that flows into them.

Consider:

The building sector is responsible for more electricity consumption than any other sector, 42 percent, and 15 percent of all greenhouse gas (GHG) Emissions.

In the U.S., buildings represent 72 percent of all energy usage and 39 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (pdf). Yet, up to 50% of that electricity is wasted.

In New York City, buildings account for 80 percent of carbon emissions.

By 2025, buildings will be the single largest energy consumers and emitters of greenhouse gas on our planet.

Technology already exists that will allow us to utterly transform our buildings’ impact on the environment. It’s called the Internet. Along with cheap sensors (less than a penny each in some cases), the Internet becomes a network that can allow these buildings to be controlled for maximum energy efficiency; monitored for compliance; and customized to work better for inhabitants – floor by floor, room by room.

This is already happening today. Check out this example with the Calgary city school system in Canada.

We don’t need any new inventions or legislation to solve one of our biggest environmental problems. What are we waiting for?

By: Annie Spiegelman

This summer, with a plethora of states across the country experiencing drought conditions, learning about low-volume watering is crucial to having your yard survive the dry months. This simply means applying water to a uniform depth directly to the plant’s root zone. This reduces water waste and your water bill at the same time. It’s win-win. But first, let’s make sure you’re soil is helping you by holding all the moisture it can.

What’s Up with your Soil?

Before changing anything having to do with your irrigation system, add 2-3 inches of compost (either homegrown or purchased at the plant nursery or Waste Management site) on top of your soil. Do this once or twice a year preferably in the fall and spring. You don’t even have to dig it in. Digging is so old school! The microorganisms in the compost will nourish your soil doing the underground work for you. Incorporating compost (organic matter) increases the water-holding capacity of your soil. With sandy soil, you’ll lose less water to the subsoil and with compacted clay soil, water will easily and slowly trickle its way to the plant’s roots, instead of sitting on the top floor, uselessly, like a lump on a log.

Read the rest of this article by clicking here.

By: Todd Woody

The anemic economic recovery may have hit the dog days of summer with consumer spending and factory orders slowing, but the new energy economy continues to surge, according to a report released Tuesday by Ernst & Young.

Venture capital (VC) investment in renewable energy, electric cars, energy efficiency, and other green technology jumped to $1.5 billion in the United States in the second quarter of 2010, a nearly 64 percent spike over the second quarter of last year. Green tech investment now has returned to the record levels of the third quarter of 2008, before the global economic collapse shut down the VC’s ATM.

So where’s the money going? Between March and June, at least, investors hitched a ride with startups developing electric cars and the infrastructure to support them. Better Place, the Palo Alto company building electric vehicle charging networks around the world, snagged $350 million. Fisker Automotive, a Southern California startup building a sexy and pricy plug-in hybrid sports sedan called the Karma, scored $35 million, according to the report.

Solar remains a hot opportunity for venture capitalists, with nearly $439 million invested in the second quarter, a 183 percent increase from the year-ago quarter.

It’s no coincidence that the beneficiaries of investors’ largesse are also those startups that received federal loan guarantees to build big solar power plants. (Raising additional capital usually is a requirement for obtaining such federal loan guarantees.)

BrightSource Energy, for instance, secured a $1.37 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy to build its first solar power plant, now undergoing licensing in California. It then quickly raised $180 million from investors.

VCs also continue to pour cash — nearly $200 million in the second quarter — into energy efficiency startups, which tend to be far less capital-intensive than renewable energy companies.

So it’s a good time to go pitch that great green tech idea you’ve been kicking around, right?

Not necessarily. Ernst & Young notes that nearly 59 percent of investment in the second quarter went to so-called later-stage startups that are well on their way to rolling out products.

In other words, venture capitalists seem to be more interested in priming the pipeline for an initial public offering or acquisition that will produce a big pay day than in financing what green tech investor Vinod Khosla calls “science experiments.”

Danfoss Inc. represented by Senior Director, Steve Manson and a private investment group represented by Robert Bean R.E.T., are pleased to announce that they have reached an agreement whereas the investment group will acquire the assets and intellectual property rights to continue production of Zone Control Panels, known as ZCP’s manufactured in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Zone Control Panels are prefabricated boiler/furnace room piping and control packages used in residential and commercial hydronic radiant floor heating, snow ice melting and all other forms of hot or chilled water systems. These compact appliances reduce the assembly and installation times of pipe, valves and controls by 60%, control wiring by 40%, and start up by 20%. There are approximately 8000 ZCP’s installed in Canada and United States.

According to Steve Manson, “Danfoss is pleased to have this organization continue producing these panels. We have had a number of calls from customers saying that they simply cannot find either the Equivalent Product or Quality of Product as they have come to expect with the ZCP”.

Robert Bean on behalf of the Investment Group is quoted as saying “We are thrilled to take this torch into the future and greatly appreciate the positive collaboration with Danfoss in supporting this transition.”

The new company, known as ZCP Manufacturing Inc. will be led by Director of Operations, Mr. Dale Heath, and will take on service and support for existing ZCP products and continue to incorporate Danfoss components inside. The core of the former Danfoss team will be the key operations personnel of ZCP Mfg. Inc. ensuring that the same high standards of quality and technical assistance will be maintained.

The Danfoss Group has net sales of approx. 2 Billion US Dollars and employs more than 17,500 people worldwide.

Builders, contractors and distributors interested in learning more about incorporating this efficient and effective comfort appliance into their product offering are invited to call Mr. Dale Heath, Director of Operations at 403.236.9560

A recovery in home improvement spending will soon be underway according to the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) released today by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. Remodeling spending is expected to increase on an annual basis by the end of the year, and the LIRA points to growth accelerating to the double-digit range in the first quarter of 2011.

“Absent a reversal of recent economic progress, there should be a healthy upturn in home improvement activity by year-end and into next year,” says Eric S. Belsky, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Homeowner optimism is bolstering a trend toward investing in the home again. “The recovery in home improvement activity appears to be moving beyond simple replacement projects and energy retrofits to broader remodels and upgrades,” says Kermit Baker, director of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies. “A wider activity base would help generate the expected growth in the quarters ahead.”

The Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) is designed to estimate national homeowner spending on improvements for the current quarter and subsequent three quarters. The indicator, measured as an annual rate-of-change of its components, provides a short-term outlook of homeowner remodeling activity and is intended to help identify future turning points in the business cycle of the home improvement industry. The development of the LIRA is detailed in “Developing a Leading Indicator for the Remodeling Industry” (JCHS Research Note N07-1). In July 2008, the LIRA was re-benchmarked due to changes in the underlying reference series. These changes are explained in “Addendum to Research Note N07-1: Re-Benchmarking the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity” (JCHS Research Note N08-1). The LIRA is released by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University in the third week after each quarter’s closing. The next LIRA release date is October 21, 2010.

The Remodeling Futures Program, initiated by the Joint Center for Housing Studies in 1995, is a comprehensive study of the factors influencing the growth and changing characteristics of housing renovation and repair activity in the United States. The Program seeks to produce a better understanding of the home improvement industry and its relationship to the broader residential construction industry.

The Joint Center for Housing Studies is Harvard University’s center for information and research on housing in the United States. Established in 1959, it is a collaborative unit affiliated with the Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Kennedy School. The Joint Center analyzes the dynamic relationships between housing markets and economic, demographic, and social trends, providing leaders in government, business, and the non-profit sector with the knowledge needed to develop effective policies and strategies.

Remember Home Star, the killer bill that would incentivize thousands of home energy retrofits across the country, reduce energy bills for struggling homeowners, put some of America’s hardest hit trades back to work, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions? The one backed by a coalition of more than 1,700 organizations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers? (The one that’s not called “cash for caulkers” and please for the luvagod stop using that stupid, misleading name.)

The House passed the bill back in May and it’s been sitting in the Senate ever since. Homeowners are putting off retrofits, waiting to see if it will pass. Construction trades are holding off on hiring, waiting to see if it will pass. Members of the Home Star coalition now populate all 50 states and they are holding their breath, waiting.

Now the bill’s on the knife’s edge. There’s been talk of including Home Star in the Small Business Jobs Bill that’s pending in the Senate Finance Committee. A final decision about whether to do so will be made on Wednesday.

If it isn’t included, it may get caught up in the energy bill mishegas, or may not get taken up again until Fall. That would be incredibly counter-productive and short-sighted on the part of the Senate. This bill is as close to a no-brainer as will ever grace Capitol Hill, supported by left and right and of benefit to every single Congressional district. Surely if the Senate can do anything any more, it can do this.

Power Partners, Inc. has revealed that it is teaming up with the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Arkema Inc. on a $2.54 million research programme to improve the efficiency and test new refrigerants in a type of air conditioning unit that runs on waste heat or heat from solar thermal collectors.

The funding was announced mid-July by DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, otherwise known as ARPA-E, and is part of the agency’s Building Energy Efficiency through Innovative Thermodevices, or BEET-IT programme.

Power Partners is a US manufacturer and marketer of energy-efficient, environmentally friendly ECO-MAX adsorption chillers. The adsorption chiller is a type of air conditioner that is powered by waste heat or by heat from solar collectors. It has few moving parts and uses almost no electricity to operate.

During the three-year programme, the team will design, assemble and test an adsorption chiller that takes advantage of PNNL’s metal-organic heat carrier technology and new types of refrigerants. The goal is to utilize PNNL’s advanced materials and develop adsorption chillers that are smaller, more efficient and affordable enough to be used more frequently in commercial buildings.

Opportunity for energy saving

“More efficient methods of cooling represent a great opportunity to reduce energy consumption in buildings, and in doing so, greenhouse gas emissions as well,” said PNNL Laboratory Fellow Pete McGrail, who is leading the research project. “The ARPA-E program represents a unique opportunity to move a recent laboratory discovery to the mainstream HVAC and commercial buildings marketplace in just a few years,” he said.

“Buildings account for 40% of energy use in the United States,” said Mike Stonecipher, Business Segment Leader at Power Partners. “Cooling is one of the primary uses of energy in buildings, yet the basic approaches for cooling have not changed in decades. We are excited about this joint effort to develop a commercially viable product that can meet the demand for energy conservation.”

Power Partners will lead engineering and testing efforts as the project advances from a bench-scale prototype to a 5-ton cooling capacity demonstration unit, utilizing its state-of-the-art test facility. Adsorption chiller technology is attractive to retail stores, hospitals, universities, office complexes, data centers, trigeneration facilities, processing plants, manufacturing plants and government facilities because it saves energy.

This is the amount of investment Pike Research estimates could be generated by smart grid infrastructure worldwide between 2008 and 2015. Technologies for grid automation upgrades and smart metering will all represent a huge market opportunity over the next decade.

While electricity grids still remain a marvel of the 20th century, they are highly complex with millions of miles of distribution lines. However, unlike IT and communications networks, they still lack intelligence.

The need for improved reliability, security, and operating efficiencies, lower costs, a better balance between power supply and demand, and a reduction in the electrical system’s impact on the climate, are all factors that are contributing to the build-out of intelligent electricity networks or smart grids.

While significant technical, economic and regulatory barriers to this roll-out remain, government and industry bodies are coming together with urgency to drive the industry forward, and Pike Research forecasts that smart grid infrastructure will attract $200 billion in worldwide investment between 2008 and 2015.

Pike Research’s latest report entitled “Smart Grid Technologies: Networking and Communications, Energy Management, Grid Automation, and Advanced Metering Infrastructure” analyses the global market for smart grid technologies and applications, including advanced metering infrastructure, transmission upgrades, substation automation, distribution automation, energy management systems, and electric vehicle management, among others. The report examines utility business models, regulatory factors, technology issues related to smart grid networking and other areas, and the dynamics of end-user demand. It includes profiles and analysis of 70 key players in the rapidly evolving smart grid industry ecosystem, as well as detailed global market forecasts by 2015, segmented by region and application.

“Smart meters are currently the highest-profile component of the Smart Grid, but they are really just the tip of the iceberg,” says Pike Research’s Managing Director, Clint Wheelock. “Our analysis shows that utilities will find the best return on investment, and therefore will devote the majority of their capital budgets, to grid infrastructure projects including transmission upgrades, substation automation, and distribution automation.”

Pike Research forecasts that these grid automation initiatives will capture 84% of global smart grid investment by 2015, compared to just 14% for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and 2% for electric vehicle management systems. The clean tech market intelligence firm also anticipates that smart grid revenues will peak in 2013 after several years of investments by key governments, and will thereafter tail off. Nonetheless, Pike forecasts, the smart grid market will still remain very substantial.

Never thought you’d see the day when a Texas oilman turns sunny-side up? Oh wait, T. Boone Pickens has been there, funded that.

OK, how about a fictional oil tycoon?

Larry Hagman, who slicked himself up as exactly that in the hit TV soap opera Dallas — Wikipedia tells me it was a hit; it was before my time — has now reprised his role as the famous oilman in a commercial for the German photovoltaic manufacturer, SolarWorld.

It was apparently the BP oil disaster that spurred this actor and solar advocate to produce the TV spot. However, in return for doing the ad, SolarWorld agreed to donate panels to support work in Haiti done by the Solar Electric Light Fund. Hagman serves on the board of this nonprofit.

Still, the way he cackles at the solar panels in the commercial makes me wish he were actually starring in a television show about a solar energy baron striking it rich after finding sun spilling all over his property. Or maybe he could go the reality-TV route and call it “Real Solar Pimps of Texas.” What do you think?