by jboullion | Mar 9, 2009 | Uncategorized
From a post on Tom Content’s blog on JSonline:
The stimulus bill and what it could mean for Wisconsin’s energy future will be discussed at several forums during the Renewable Energy Summit on March 27 in Milwaukee.
Gov. Jim Doyle, U.S. Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wausau), a lead author of the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment and U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) are all scheduled to address the conference, organizers said. Gary Wolter, who heads MGE Energy Inc. and runs the state Office of Recovery and Reinvestment, has also been invited to speak.
The summit is planned for March 25-27 at the Midwest Airlines Center.
“I thought we were missing the boat if we didn’t focus on the stimulus bill and what’s going to happen,” said Art Harrington of Godfrey & Kahn, a conference coordinator. “We should focus one day on the opportunities created by the stimulus bill on renewable energy, and that morphed into the plenary session on Friday, March 27.”
by jboullion | Mar 6, 2009 | Uncategorized
From an article by Tom Content in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Incentives to add solar panels on homes and small businesses are higher than they’ve ever been.
That stems both from a tax credit that Congress authorized last year as well as incentives from Focus on Energy and We Energies.
That doesn’t make solar power cheap, but it’s shortening the payback times for folks who are thinking about adding solar panels, said Michael Vickerman, executive director of Renew Wisconsin, a nonprofit group seeking to boost use of solar and wind power across the state.
We Energies of Milwaukee on Wednesday unveiled a new solar electric incentive after the old program basically sold out.
For more than two years, the utility’s incentive permitted customers to sell all of the renewable power generated by their home or business back to the utility at a high electricity price of 22.5 cents a kilowatt-hour. That’s nearly twice the amount We Energies charges to homeowners for electricity.
The new program amounts to an upfront payment to customers who install solar electric systems, said Carl Siegrist, senior renewable energy strategist at We Energies.
“It’s great news,” said Niels Wolter, who runs solar electric programs with the state Focus on Energy Initiative. “Probably the biggest thing is it helps people overcome that first cost, which is a big barrier, rather than paying people more over 10 years for the power.”
Instead of paying money each month to customers who install solar panels, the new incentive is upfront and based on the amount of power a home’s panels would generate during the first year.
The exact amount of the incentive is 75 cents per kilowatt-hour for all the kilowatt-hours generated by a solar system in a year.
by jboullion | Feb 28, 2009 | Uncategorized
From an article by Tom Content in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Organizers of the annual Renewable Energy Summit next month in Milwaukee have landed a high-profile keynote speaker – outspoken climate scientist James Hansen.
Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, an arm of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was among the first climate scientists to speak out about global warming, warning about the problem in testimony to Congress in 1988.
In recent years, he has become more outspoken about the need to address global warming. In 2006, he criticized his superiors in the Bush administration for efforts to limit his comments to the media about climate change.
Hansen agreed to address the Wisconsin energy event on March 25 after receiving an invitation from George Stone, an instructor of physical science at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Stone introduced Hansen at a Geological Society of America conference last fall.
The involvement of Hansen in the event comes as the Obama and Doyle administrations are considering legislation to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Organizers of the energy summit say Hansen’s involvement will help raise the profile of an event that has doubled in attendance every year for five years. At least 2,500 people are expected to attend this this year.
Said Stone: “It just elevates the stature of the conference because we have a leading world figure in the field of climate change and he has changed his attention now in the last couple of years from trying to simply convince people of the science of global warming and the inevitability of the climate change that is coming to focusing on mitigation: What we must do and how soon.”
by jboullion | Feb 27, 2009 | Uncategorized
From a news release posted on Yahoo! Finance:
STURTEVANT, Wis.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–BetaLED is testing two leading forms of lighting control systems with its LEDway streetlights. Eleven LEDway streetlights installed along 92nd Street in Sturtevant, Wis., were recently outfitted with either a power line communication system or wireless radio frequency (RF) system as part of a side-by-side demonstration of lighting control technologies available for LED streetlights. Both lighting control systems are designed to manage each fixture to ultimately reduce operating and energy expenses.
Milwaukee based We Energies is taking part in the evaluation, testing the remote access and monitoring capabilities of each system as well as calculating reduced energy and maintenance costs presented by LED technology compared to existing streetlighting options.
“We look forward to evaluating these promising streetlight technologies will further improve the level of service we provide to our customers,” said Chris Balliet, We Energies program manager/outdoor lighting. “The ultimate goal of the test is to determine if these technologies could be valuable tools in controlling costs and reducing unnecessary light.”
Although the two independent lighting control systems are designed primarily to lower operating costs, they use different technology to realize results.
The power line system communicates over the same wires that deliver power to each fixture to monitor and control streetlights equipped with specially designed hardware and software.
by jboullion | Feb 26, 2009 | Uncategorized
From an article by Jessica Steinhoff in The Shepard Express:
The time to green your resume is now.
The federal Green Jobs Act got a $500 million boost from the economic stimulus package and is expected to train 70,000 workers in renewable-energy and energy-efficiency jobs. Plus, a floundering economy is nudging companies to hire employees to design and implement energy-savings plans and other cost-saving measures.
Wisconsin Environment Director Dan Kohler is pleased with the strategy for building a greener workforce—particularly on the state and local levels. “The federal recovery plan includes significant funding to help states design educational programs to get workers moving ahead in the green economy,” he says.
In Wisconsin, universities, technical colleges and government and community workforce-development agencies will all play a role in the training effort. Gov. Jim Doyle’s global-warming task force has been helping these institutions team up with the private sector to develop a comprehensive training strategy that will address job seekers with a variety of different skill sets. Meanwhile, local colleges are rushing to design courses and curricula in a wide variety of green disciplines, from sustainable operations management to water technology.
Though a full graduate-level program is still in the works, UW-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences is offering courses in freshwater ecosystem health and a variety of other topics.
At Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC), there’s a comprehensive selection of green career paths, including new programs in environmental and water technology, sustainable operations, and energy engineering. There are also numerous opportunities for people to add green credentials to their existing skill set at Lakeshore Technical College, Gateway Technical College and MATC.
The Wisconsin Renewable Energy Summit at the Midwest Airline Center includes a career/jobs day on March 27. Schools and other training organizations, as well as employers, will be set up in the exhibition hall.
