MicroNews: National Grid, Tecogen, Phillips, FirstFuel, Schneider Electric

Oct. 21, 2013
This week in energy efficiency news…   National Grid, Worcester, Mass., opened its Sustainability Hub, a hands-on educational facility that showcases energy efficiency and emerging technology to its customers and the surrounding community. With exhibits and demonstrations created by Blue Hive, the Sustainability Hub aims to educate customers about smart grid solutions for the home […]

This week in energy efficiency news…

National Grid, Worcester, Mass., opened its Sustainability Hub, a hands-on educational facility that showcases energy efficiency and emerging technology to its customers and the surrounding community. With exhibits and demonstrations created by Blue Hive, the Sustainability Hub aims to educate customers about smart grid solutions for the home that help maximize energy savings. The solutions include in-home energy-use displays, smart thermostats, smart plugs, smart appliances, and dynamic energy pricing options. Donated by Clark University, the 2,200 square foot educational space is part of National Grid’s Smart Energy Solutions Program, which calls for the installation of advanced metering systems that provide the latest in technology and security.

More about National Grid’s new Sustainability Hub

Tecogen announced a national educational and marketing tour featuring its Ultra-low emissions cogeneration, chiller and heat pump system. The tour features a 53-foot mobile marketing exhibit that displays the company’s cogeneration system and a natural gas engine driven chiller. The two-month tour will include visits with distributors, energy centers, engineering firms, end-users, and investors. Check the website for tour locations and dates.

More about Tecogen’s national educational tour

Phillips announced that the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has commissioned the company to renew its street lighting system with LED technology. In the three-year project, Phillips will replace the majority of the city’s existing streetlights with Philips LED-based lighting technology, which will cut city lighting costs in half.  Philips’ CityTouch street lighting system enables dynamic, intelligent and flexible lighting control across the entire city from a single online user interface. A global switch to LED, like the one planned for Buenos Aires, would save $178 billion in reduced energy costs each year and prevent the release of 670 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere per year.

More about Phillips and the LED lighting retrofit in Buenos Aires

FirtFuel’s Remote Building Analytics platform will be used by the Department of General Services (DGS) in Washington D.C. to deliver energy efficiency savings to commercial buildings. DGS is responsible for building, renovating, maintaining and securing nearly 30 million square feet of district-owned property. With FirstFuel’s fully integrated, end-to-end energy analytics platform, DGS will be able to target, analyze and monitor the post-implementation impact of energy efficiency opportunities throughout the city. Through remote audits of the program’s first 25 buildings, FirstFuel has found more than 19 million KWh of energy reduction opportunity, with a 24 percent average energy reduction per building. What’s more, over 60 percent of the total available savings already identified can be achieved with low to no-cost operational changes.

More about FirstFuel’s Remote Buildings Analytics platform in Washington D.C.

Schneider Electric has chosen Microsoft Windows Azure, a cloud computing and infrastructure platform, as its preferred cloud provider for the company’s StruxureWare software applications and suites. Windows Azure increases Schneider Electric’s ability to offer flexible, agile and cost-effective solutions that improve the performance of customer processes and operations by deploying public, private and hybrid cloud solutions. The StruxureWare software allows customers to achieve gains in processing speed and have access to virtualization and automation tools that can be scaled globally.

More about Schneider Electric and the Microsoft Windows Azure platform

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Reid Smith

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