Articles

In 2011 the US Department of Energy (DOE) set a target as part of their SunShot Initiative that the cost of solar power should reach a very competitive $1 per watt, or 6 cents per kilowatt hour, by 2020. Last week they announced they had reached this target a full three years ahead of schedule […]

In this historic hurricane season, the fragility of existing energy infrastructure is on full display. One bright spot in all the coverage of Hurricane Harvey in Houston was that the microgrid equipped H.E.B. Grocery chain of stores kept its shops open and served the public, while power outages kept competitors closed. Each such microgrid success […]

In the 12 years since the last category 5 hurricane in Florida there have been major advancements in smart power grid technology, these developments will be put to the test in the coming days as Hurricane Irma looms large over the southeastern state. The ‘sunshine state’ experienced two significant, yet smaller, hurricanes last year that […]

A Harvard study released last Wednesday, August 23rd, has accused oil giant Exxon Mobil of misleading the public during the past 40 years, over the causes and implications of climate change. This new comprehensive study, alongside US president Donald Trump’s long history of disregarding human influence on climate change, casts doubt over US government and […]

“If the eclipse of the sun is complete it will be dark forever. The demons of darkness will come down. They will eat men!,” reads the The Florentine Codex, an ethnographic study of 16th-century Aztecs in Mexico, which included their interpretation of solar eclipses. In the modern age we, for the most part, have a […]

There seems little doubt about it anymore; the Internet of Things (IoT) age is upon us. Predictions for IoT growth and adoption, from the world’s biggest economic analysis agencies, range from huge to incredibly huge. Yet we are still to agree on a suitable formula to make the IoT secure from cyber attack, and if […]

It didn’t seem that long ago that we were all talking about microgrids, a lot. We may have anticipated a large series of small, renewably driven, battery powered, local energy grids that can be disconnected from the larger utility grid and operate independently. The momentum seemed to have cooled on this revolution however, but recent […]

Home furnishings mega-brand IKEA has taken a bold step into the energy sector with the release of its new Solar Battery Storage offering. They promise to help UK homeowners make savings on their electricity bills, as well as increase the rate at which they can reap the benefits from their solar investment. Considering their brand […]