Funding Roundup: Off-Grid Power Controls, and Smarter Energy for Home and Business

Sonder Agency

Making microgrids operate more efficiently can rightly be considered a clean technology innovation, even if the technology is largely being put to use in the oil industry. That's what Houston-based FlexGen Power Systems is known for, and what the company recently raised a funding round to do. Flexgen, a startup that makes power conversion devices… Read more

Trump’s 2018 Budget: What’s on the Chopping Block for Clean Energy

Sonder Agency

The Trump administration presented a $4.1 trillion budget for fiscal year 2018 today, which includes $3.6 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years in an attempt to balance the budget by 2027. In addition to deep cuts for health care, student loans and food stamps, the White House has proposed to slash budgets… Read more

The World’s Top Energy Companies Look to Blockchain to ‘Fuse the Physical With the Virtual’

Sonder Agency

Earlier this month Shell, Statoil, Tepco, Centrica plc and a half-dozen other energy companies joined the Energy Web Foundation (EWF), an alliance devoted to bringing blockchain to the grid. The companies donated $2.5 million to the organization. The Foundation was set up in February this year as a collaboration between The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and… Read more

ChargePoint Raises Another $24 Million for European Expansion—and Possibly Flying Cars

Sonder Agency

ChargePoint just picked up another $24 million in venture capital, bringing it closer to its $125 million goal this year. It's another step toward global expansion. And possibly an expansion into flying cars.  In March, the company closed an $82 million round led by Daimler to grow its electric-car charging networks into Europe. According to an… Read more

Platform-Based Electric Grids Are Coming, but the Transition Is Proving a Challenge

Sonder Agency

Platform business models have redefined the modern economy. From titans of personal computing and e-commerce like Apple and Amazon, to ubiquitous financial services that we use with hardly a second thought (think ATMs and credit cards), industries everywhere have reoriented from one-directional pipeline delivery systems to multisided platforms on which information and services flow in… Read more

Electric Vehicles May Never Reach Their Full Potential Without a Clear Focus on Infrastructure

Sonder Agency

While low gas prices have created a challenging environment for electric vehicles, year-over-year increases across nearly two dozen different EV models in all major metropolitan areas of the U.S. illustrate an obvious growth in electric consumption. But it raises a pressing question for utilities and cities that want to stay ahead of the growth curve:… Read more

Hawaii’s Clean Energy and Oil Consumption Report Card

Sonder Agency

Hawaii is on a mission to be powered 100 percent by renewable energy by 2045. For this remote group of islands, achieving a fully renewable electricity system also means dramatically reducing the state's dependence on oil.  Reaching the 100 percent renewable energy target "requires us to rethink everything we do," according to the Hawaiian Electric… Read more

Smart Circuit Breakers: The Next Frontier of the Grid Edge?

Sonder Agency

Go down to the basement of your office building or apartment complex, or the garage of your home, and you’ll find a ubiquitous piece of electrical equipment that could be the next frontier for smart, connected energy management -- the circuit breaker.  Circuit breakers are a multi-billion dollar market. Projections show a global market of… Read more

Grid Edge World Forum Is Approaching Fast. You Only Have One Week to Save $100 on Tickets

Sonder Agency

If you're obsessed with the grid edge like we are, you don't want to miss the Grid Edge World Forum -- our three-day extravaganza devoted to understanding the historic changes on the electric grid. And if you're obsessed with saving money, then you don't want to miss this week's pricing deadline. The forum is fast… Read more

Mid-Atlantic Grid Can Lose Coal and Nuclear, and Stay Reliable with Natural Gas and Renewables

Sonder Agency

Mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM has modeled a future with more wind and solar power, cheap natural gas, and retiring nuclear and coal power plants -- integrated under projected peak conditions and in hypothetical heat waves and cold snaps -- and found that this increasingly diverse generation mix doesn’t threaten grid reliability. At least for the… Read more