Clean Energy Roundup: 6/15/11

The project is expected to avoid nearly 580,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, an amount equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of over 110,000 vehicles. It will produce over a million megawatt hours of power annually, enough to power nearly 88,000 homes. The project's total output is expected to be sold to Nevada Power Company under a long-term power purchase agreement. See the DOE press release and DOE Loan Programs Office website.

Partnership to Focus on Energy Performance and Building Appraisals

DOE announced on June 13 a partnership with The Appraisal Foundation that will help expand access to energy efficiency and building performance information for commercial buildings.

DOE and The Appraisal Foundation will work to ensure that appraisers nationwide have the information, practical guidelines, and professional resources they need to evaluate energy performance when conducting commercial building appraisals. This will help investors, building owners, and operators accurately assess the value of energy efficiency as part of a building's overall appraisal.

In 2010, commercial buildings accounted for about 20% of all US energy consumption. By improving insulation, lighting, windows, and heating and cooling systems, and by using daylighting, America's commercial buildings can be more energy efficient, saving them money and making them more competitive.

Under the partnership, DOE will develop educational materials and create a database to provide appraisers with energy-savings data, federal green building programs and policies, and additional information on energy performance. See the DOE press release, the partnership agreement , and the Better Buildings Web page.

High Energy Density Capacitor Design Offers Potential for Clean Energy Applications

Can you imagine a photovoltaic module that's able to generate and store electricity on its own? Or an electric vehicle (EV) powered by a technology more durable than the advanced batteries in today's EVs?

Malvern, Pennsylvania's TroyCap, LLC is using nanolaminate technology patented by Dr. Troy Barbee at the DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) to design innovative solid-state nanocapacitors that offer the potential to develop cross-cutting clean energy applications like these and others that lower the cost of energy and increase its efficient use.

TroyCap is using an innovative "sputtering" technique it developed with the support of LLNL to deposit alternating layers of conductive and insulating materials that are only several atoms thick on a thin metal substrate. Using this process, they plan to manufacture "High Energy Density Nanolaminate Capacitors" (HEDCAPs) which would have 500-800 times the energy density of current capacitors and 5-10 times the energy density of current supercapacitors on the market, allowing them to store much more energy. See the Energy Blog post.